[CentOS-virt] VirtIO with CentOS 5.4

Thu Jan 21 21:08:40 UTC 2010
Fabian Arrotin <fabian.arrotin at arrfab.net>

Bill McGonigle wrote:
> Hi, all,
> 
> I'm attempting to run a Windows 2003 (32-bit) VM under CentOS 5.4, 
> generally following:
> 
>    http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/KVM

ARGHH ... forget that page as it was written during the first kvm tests 
and ïsn't current anymore
see 
http://www.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/5.4/html/Virtualization_Guide/index.html 
for accurate documentation (as http://www.centos.org/docs is outdated 
and doesn't even cover kvm)

> 
> I've seen nice performance benefits with the VirtIO driver under Fedora, 
> so I'd like to get that running with CentOS as well.  I have the 
> September drivers build .iso.
> 
> According to:
> 
>    http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/Virtio
> 
> I need a KVM version 60 or later - fair enough.  Back at the wiki 
> there's a note about later KVM in -testing, and sure enough there's a 
> -66 there, but it's only built for an old kernel.
> 
> I got that SRPM and tried to build it against the current kernel, but 
> get kmod build errors, ala:
> 
>  
> /root/rpmbuild/BUILD/kvm-kmod-66/_kmod_build_/kernel/external-module-compat.h:421: 
> error: redefinition of typedef 'bool'
>    ...
>  
> /root/rpmbuild/BUILD/kvm-kmod-66/_kmod_build_/kernel/external-module-compat.h:734:1: 
> warning: "__aligned" redefined
> 
> The wiki also has a note about -84 being in Levente Farkas's repo, but 
> those don't appear to be there any longer.
> 
> So, questions:
> 1) what are folks generally using for VirtIO-capable KVM on CentOS 5.4?

The standard kvm from 5.4 and not the *old* one from extras

> 2) given that the upstream has Windows drivers available, I'm curios how 
> they're handling the issue, and if we're in sync.
> 3) does anybody have the SRPM that was at Farkas's repo or know if it 
> went elsewhere?  I assume the build issues have been solved there already.
> 
> I'd be happy to update the Wiki with info from responses here.
> 
> Thanks,
> -Bill
> 


-- 
--
Fabian Arrotin
test -e /dev/human/brain || ( echo 1 > /proc/sys/kernel/sysrq ; echo c > 
/proc/sysrq-trigger )