From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Sep 25 06:01:20 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 435E9106566B; Fri, 25 Sep 2009 06:01:20 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from alc@cs.rice.edu) Received: from mail.cs.rice.edu (mail.cs.rice.edu [128.42.1.31]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1CB2E8FC17; Fri, 25 Sep 2009 06:01:20 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail.cs.rice.edu (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by mail.cs.rice.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id A5BAE2C2BF0; Fri, 25 Sep 2009 01:01:19 -0500 (CDT) X-Virus-Scanned: by amavis-2.4.0 at mail.cs.rice.edu Received: from mail.cs.rice.edu ([127.0.0.1]) by mail.cs.rice.edu (mail.cs.rice.edu [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with LMTP id w05Dmk7BuFfL; Fri, 25 Sep 2009 01:01:12 -0500 (CDT) Received: from adsl-216-63-78-18.dsl.hstntx.swbell.net (adsl-216-63-78-18.dsl.hstntx.swbell.net [216.63.78.18]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mail.cs.rice.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id B90722C2D54; Fri, 25 Sep 2009 01:01:11 -0500 (CDT) Message-ID: <4ABC5CA7.10702@cs.rice.edu> Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 01:01:11 -0500 From: Alan Cox User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 (X11/20090822) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Peter Kieser References: <4ABB200E.3020706@wingless.org> <4ABC585D.6090609@wingless.org> In-Reply-To: <4ABC585D.6090609@wingless.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: alc@freebsd.org, freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Superpages and VMware ESXi 3.5u4 crashes X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 06:01:20 -0000 Peter Kieser wrote: > On 9/24/2009 10:23 PM, Alan Cox wrote: >> I would agree that this seems like a bug in ESX. Nonetheless, I'm >> curious to know something about our your system. What type of processor >> are you using, and in particular is ESX using hardware supported nested >> paging? >> >> Regards, >> Alan >> > > I'm using an AMD Phenom 9950. How would I tell if ESXi is using > hardware supported nested paging? Is this something I can tell in > FreeBSD? Ok. Your processor does support nested paging, although you may have to explicitly enable it in your BIOS. FreeBSD can't tell whether you're using nested paging. Support for nested paging is implemented in the hypervisor and is invisible to the guess, so only ESX can tell you if it's being used. Unfortunately, I'm not familiar enough with ESX to tell you how to determine this. If you're not currently using nested paging, it's plausible that turning it on could make this problem go away. Likewise, if you are currently using nested paging, turning it off may help. If nothing else, this could help narrow down where the problem lies. Alan