Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 09:40:09 -0700 From: Peter Kieser <peter@wingless.org> To: Alan Cox <alc@cs.rice.edu> Cc: alc@freebsd.org, freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Superpages and VMware ESXi 3.5u4 crashes Message-ID: <4AC23869.2050601@wingless.org> In-Reply-To: <4ABC5CA7.10702@cs.rice.edu> References: <4ABB200E.3020706@wingless.org> <ca3526250909242223n325b2e4cl5af249f87cc5383f@mail.gmail.com> <4ABC585D.6090609@wingless.org> <4ABC5CA7.10702@cs.rice.edu>
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On 9/24/2009 11:01 PM, Alan Cox wrote: > 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 I do not have the option in my BIOS to enable nested pages. However upgrading to ESXi 4.0 made the problem go away. Seems like a pretty large bug in VMware. Unfortunately I'm using "unsupported" hardware so VMware is unwilling to even look into the bug. -Peter
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