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Date:      Mon, 24 Feb 2014 22:30:20 +0000
From:      Karl Pielorz <kpielorz_lst@tdx.co.uk>
To:        =?UTF-8?Q?Roger_Pau_Monn=C3=A9?= <roger.pau@citrix.com>, freebsd-xen@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: FreeBSD 10-R 8 vCPU panics at boot under XenServer (on 8 'core' CPU)
Message-ID:  <AAC660DF6ABDD5055357E419@study64.tdx.co.uk>
In-Reply-To: <530B7F2F.2010908@citrix.com>
References:  <6A3B878077F7D071847052C0@Mail-PC.tdx.co.uk> <5302311E.2040700@citrix.com> <1740E0FEE5963358491F4B37@study64.tdx.co.uk> <530B7F2F.2010908@citrix.com>

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--On 24 February 2014 18:19:43 +0100 Roger Pau Monn=C3=A9=20
<roger.pau@citrix.com> wrote:

> I've passed through a dual port BCE card (Broadcom NetXtreme II BCM5709)
> without problems. As a test, could you try to only pass the nic or the
> SAS controller to see if we can figure out if this is specific to one of
> the devices?

Ok, I tried several boots just passing through the LSI - all boots=20
succeeded. There's quite a variance between how long it takes to 'launch'=20
the CPU's. On a good run you'll get 'Netvsc initializing' small pause, then =

Launches 5 CPU's, another small pause - and the remaining 2 launch.

On a bad boot you'll get quite a long pause before the first launch, then a =

few more pop in - then a very long pause before the final one(s) launch.

I then changed to just passing through the NIC's - you get similar results=20
- it's markedly slower than if nothing is passed through, but not so slow=20
it fails.

It's only if you pass through the NIC's and the LSI - it's *really* slow -=20
to the point that without upping the NUM_RETRIES in the patch you did it=20
often panics (unable to schedule timer). Some of these boots can take=20
minutes (but, shut down the VM and try it again and it'll complete=20
"relatively quickly" - i.e. 20-30 seconds).

I can probably video some of the boots and give you a link off list to the=20
footage (that'd probably give you a better idea of the timing involved).

I don't have the other machine running at the moment - so I can't do any=20
testing of what performance you actually get from the passed through=20
devices - they 'seem' to work ok from the limited testing I've done.

-Karl





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