Poor performance in KVM VMs

A

aballa

New Member
Jan 19, 2013
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0
1
I have a Proliant server with 9 Windows XP VMs accessed remotely (only 3 or 4 active at one time) and 1 XP VM with a simple db server.
Server has two Broadcom Gb adapter in bonding rr.
The performances are unsatisfactory.

Using iperf to check the network performances I found that:

- iperf server on host <--> client running on a VM (#301) with virtio drivers:
>iperf -c 192.168.23.201
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to 192.168.23.201, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 64.0 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 3] local 192.168.23.11 port 1068 connected with 192.168.23.201 port 5001
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 3] 0.0-10.0 sec 145 MBytes 121 Mbits/sec

- iperf server on the db server (#1001) <--> client running on a VM (#301) both with virtio Gb drivers:
>iperf -c 192.168.23.252
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to 192.168.23.252, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 64.0 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 3] local 192.168.23.11 port 1069 connected with 192.168.23.252 port 5001
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 3] 0.0-10.2 sec 28.2 MBytes 23.2 Mbits/sec

I added an openvz container (#101) with ubuntu 12.04 and tested this VM too
1) with iperf server on host:
root@test:~# iperf -c 192.168.23.201
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to 192.168.23.201, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 23.8 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 3] local 192.168.23.253 port 52040 connected with 192.168.23.201 port 5001
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 3] 0.0-10.0 sec 1.44 GBytes 1.24 Gbits/sec

2) with iperf server on the db server (#1001):
root@test:~# iperf -c 192.168.23.252
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to 192.168.23.252, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 23.8 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 3] local 192.168.23.253 port 42116 connected with 192.168.23.252 port 5001
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 3] 0.0-10.0 sec 116 MBytes 97.3 Mbits/sec

I have googled around and I have read a lot of messages in this forum but I cannot find anything useful.

Here follows some infos on my configuration:

root@server1:~# pveperf
CPU BOGOMIPS: 39897.72
REGEX/SECOND: 866286
HD SIZE: 94.49 GB (/dev/mapper/pve-root)
BUFFERED READS: 128.48 MB/sec
AVERAGE SEEK TIME: 10.59 ms
FSYNCS/SECOND: 594.60
DNS EXT: 115.47 ms
DNS INT: 86.43 ms (mydomain.local)

root@server1:~# pveversion -v
pve-manager: 2.3-13 (pve-manager/2.3/7946f1f1)
running kernel: 2.6.32-17-pve
proxmox-ve-2.6.32: 2.3-96
pve-kernel-2.6.32-19-pve: 2.6.32-96
pve-kernel-2.6.32-17-pve: 2.6.32-83
lvm2: 2.02.95-1pve2
clvm: 2.02.95-1pve2
corosync-pve: 1.4.4-4
openais-pve: 1.1.4-2
libqb: 0.10.1-2
redhat-cluster-pve: 3.1.93-2
resource-agents-pve: 3.9.2-3
fence-agents-pve: 3.1.9-1
pve-cluster: 1.0-36
qemu-server: 2.3-20
pve-firmware: 1.0-21
libpve-common-perl: 1.0-49
libpve-access-control: 1.0-26
libpve-storage-perl: 2.3-7
vncterm: 1.0-4
vzctl: 4.0-1pve2
vzprocps: 2.0.11-2
vzquota: 3.1-1
pve-qemu-kvm: 1.4-10
ksm-control-daemon: 1.1-1

root@server1:~# lspci|grep Eth
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5722 Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express
04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5722 Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express

root@server1:~# cat /etc/network/interfaces
# network interface settings
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

iface eth0 inet manual

iface eth1 inet manual

auto bond0
iface bond0 inet manual
slaves eth0 eth1
bond_miimon 100
bond_mode balance-rr

auto vmbr0
iface vmbr0 inet static
address 192.168.23.201
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.23.1
bridge_ports bond0
bridge_stp off
bridge_fd 0
bridge_maxage 0
bridge_ageing 0
bridge_maxwait 0

root@server1:~# cat /etc/pve/qemu-server/1001.conf
balloon: 1024
boot: c
bootdisk: virtio0
cores: 1
cpuunits: 100000
ide2: local:iso/virtio-win-0.1-81.iso,media=cdrom,size=72406K
memory: 4096
name: VMXPSVR
net0: virtio=6A:E5:37:83:10:E2,bridge=vmbr0
onboot: 1
ostype: wxp
sockets: 1
vga: cirrus
virtio0: local:1001/vm-1001-disk-1.raw,cache=writeback,size=32G
virtio2: local:1001/vm-1001-disk-2.raw,size=6G

root@server1:~# cat /etc/pve/qemu-server/301.conf
balloon: 1024
boot: c
bootdisk: ide0
cores: 1
cpuunits: 25000
ide2: local:iso/virtio-win-0.1-81.iso,media=cdrom,size=72406K
memory: 4096
name: VM-U01
net0: virtio=CA:04:FC:7A:81:1C,bridge=vmbr0
onboot: 1
ostype: wxp
sockets: 1
vga: cirrus
virtio0: local:301/vm-301-disk-1.raw,cache=writeback,size=32G

Thank you in advance.
 
Update: debian 7 amd64 in a KVM VM scored 2Gbps, with a Windows 8 guest I got 270 Mbps with E1000 driver and 950 Mbps with virtio driver.
 
brad_mssw said:
Did you use Virtio and the Windows registry hack as documented here:
https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Paravirtualized_Network_Drivers_for_Windows

?
Click to expand...

Hello Brad, thank you for the feedback :)
Yes I've installed Virtio driver 1.81 from Fedora web site and the registry hack.
I've installed a Win 7 pro VM amd64 just to check if I can get near wire speed in it: I got 1,11 Gbps so for what I can see it seems that virtio network driver for WinXP 32bit systems doesn't perform as aspected.
Do you have any XP VM running network at Gb speed?
 
Last edited:
Sorry, no, I run a very homogenous environment, Linux only. I just remembered running across that wiki in the past and wasn't sure if the registry hack helped or not, sounds like it doesn't.

The only other thing I might suggest is trying the q35 machine type, no clue if that would actually help or not though.
 
brad_mssw said:
Sorry, no, I run a very homogenous environment, Linux only. I just remembered running across that wiki in the past and wasn't sure if the registry hack helped or not, sounds like it doesn't.

The only other thing I might suggest is trying the q35 machine type, no clue if that would actually help or not though.
Click to expand...

Humm I think it would be more practical to upgrade all machine to Win7 :)
 
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