Poor performance with virtio network driver on windows 2008 R2 on KVM

DISCUSSION JR 3 participants 9 messages May 14, 2014 – Jun 30, 2014 KVM

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JR

author

2014-05-14 15:37 UTC #0 lore raw

Greetings all,

Though I don't believe that this is KVM problem per se, I'm seeing very poor network performance when using windows 2008R2 KVM instances with the virtio driver when on a 10G network. iperf results show linux VMs getting close to wire speeds, while windows only does about 1.3Gb/sec.

I've tried a number of tcp settings (chimney, etc...) as recommended by some google searches but nothing has helped.

Does anyone have any advice?

Thanks much,
JR

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Venkateswara Rao Nandigam

2014-05-15 04:49 UTC #1 lore raw

Try TSO offload on Guest Virtio interface

And try passthrough interface mode at Host Level for this Guest Virtio Interface

Thanks,
Venkatesh

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of JR
Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2014 9:07 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Poor performance with virtio network driver on windows 2008 R2 on KVM

Greetings all,

I've tried a number of tcp settings (chimney, etc...) as recommended by some google searches but nothing has helped.

Does anyone have any advice?

Thanks much,
JR

Venkateswara Rao Nandigam

2014-05-15 17:41 UTC #2 lore raw

One more important thing is to make sure you launch vhost thread for your virtio nic, as part of Guest instantiation. There will be a parameter "vhost=on" in Guest instantiation command line.

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Venkateswara Rao Nandigam
Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2014 10:20 AM
To: JR; [email protected]
Subject: RE: Poor performance with virtio network driver on windows 2008 R2 on KVM

Try TSO offload on Guest Virtio interface

And try passthrough interface mode at Host Level for this Guest Virtio Interface

Thanks,
Venkatesh

Greetings all,

I've tried a number of tcp settings (chimney, etc...) as recommended by some google searches but nothing has helped.

Does anyone have any advice?

Thanks much,
JR

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JR

author

2014-05-15 18:03 UTC #3 lore raw

Yes, thank you, Venkateswara, it is vhost=on is present.

This is something specific to driver in windows since, in linux it performs very well.

Quoted 40 lines · Venkateswara Rao Nandigam

One more important thing is to make sure you launch vhost thread for your virtio nic, as part of Guest instantiation. There will be a parameter "vhost=on" in Guest instantiation command line.
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Venkateswara Rao Nandigam
Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2014 10:20 AM
To: JR; [email protected]
Subject: RE: Poor performance with virtio network driver on windows 2008 R2 on KVM
Try TSO offload on Guest Virtio interface
And try passthrough interface mode at Host Level for this Guest Virtio Interface
Thanks,
Venkatesh
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of JR
Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2014 9:07 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Poor performance with virtio network driver on windows 2008 R2 on KVM
Greetings all,
Though I don't believe that this is KVM problem per se, I'm seeing very poor network performance when using windows 2008R2 KVM instances with the virtio driver when on a 10G network. iperf results show linux VMs getting close to wire speeds, while windows only does about 1.3Gb/sec.
I've tried a number of tcp settings (chimney, etc...) as recommended by some google searches but nothing has helped.
Does anyone have any advice?
Thanks much,
JR
--
Your electronic communications are being monitored; strong encryption is an answer. My public key <http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x4F08C504BD634953>
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To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe kvm" in the body of a message to [email protected] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
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Signature · 3 lines

Your electronic communications are being monitored; strong encryption is
an answer. My public key
<http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x4F08C504BD634953>

Venkateswara Rao Nandigam

2014-05-15 18:07 UTC #4 lore raw

I agree, but since you are saying this is in open stack environ, the Guest's parameters gets supplied through different input files for different type of Guests, better to check once.

-----Original Message-----
From: JR [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2014 11:33 PM
To: Venkateswara Rao Nandigam; [email protected]
Subject: Re: Poor performance with virtio network driver on windows 2008 R2 on KVM

Yes, thank you, Venkateswara, it is vhost=on is present.

This is something specific to driver in windows since, in linux it performs very well.

Quoted 38 lines · Venkateswara Rao Nandigam

One more important thing is to make sure you launch vhost thread for your virtio nic, as part of Guest instantiation. There will be a parameter "vhost=on" in Guest instantiation command line.
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Venkateswara Rao Nandigam
Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2014 10:20 AM
To: JR; [email protected]
Subject: RE: Poor performance with virtio network driver on windows 2008 R2 on KVM
Try TSO offload on Guest Virtio interface
And try passthrough interface mode at Host Level for this Guest Virtio Interface
Thanks,
Venkatesh
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of JR
Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2014 9:07 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Poor performance with virtio network driver on windows 2008 R2 on KVM
Greetings all,
Though I don't believe that this is KVM problem per se, I'm seeing very poor network performance when using windows 2008R2 KVM instances with the virtio driver when on a 10G network. iperf results show linux VMs getting close to wire speeds, while windows only does about 1.3Gb/sec.
I've tried a number of tcp settings (chimney, etc...) as recommended by some google searches but nothing has helped.
Does anyone have any advice?
Thanks much,
JR

Quoted 13 lines

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JR

author

2014-05-15 17:59 UTC #5 lore raw

In reply to Venkateswara Rao Nandigam

We have tried TSO offload; no effect.

I'm thinking about passthough; I don't think that grizzly (openstack, the environment in which I'm running) supports it. Not to say that there's not a way to make it work but ...

Thanks
JR

Quoted 30 lines · Venkateswara Rao Nandigam

Try TSO offload on Guest Virtio interface
And try passthrough interface mode at Host Level for this Guest Virtio Interface
Thanks,
Venkatesh
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of JR
Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2014 9:07 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Poor performance with virtio network driver on windows 2008 R2 on KVM
Greetings all,
Though I don't believe that this is KVM problem per se, I'm seeing very poor network performance when using windows 2008R2 KVM instances with the virtio driver when on a 10G network. iperf results show linux VMs getting close to wire speeds, while windows only does about 1.3Gb/sec.
I've tried a number of tcp settings (chimney, etc...) as recommended by some google searches but nothing has helped.
Does anyone have any advice?
Thanks much,
JR
--
Your electronic communications are being monitored; strong encryption is an answer. My public key <http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x4F08C504BD634953>
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe kvm" in the body of a message to [email protected] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html

Signature · 3 lines

Your electronic communications are being monitored; strong encryption is
an answer. My public key
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Peter Kieser

2014-05-15 17:35 UTC #6 lore raw

In reply to JR

Quoted 7 lines · JR

Greetings all,
Though I don't believe that this is KVM problem per se, I'm seeing very poor network performance when using windows 2008R2 KVM instances with the virtio driver when on a 10G network. iperf results show linux VMs getting close to wire speeds, while windows only does about 1.3Gb/sec.

Quoted 9 lines

I've tried a number of tcp settings (chimney, etc...) as recommended by some google searches but nothing has helped.
Does anyone have any advice?
Thanks much,
JR

I ran into similar issues with the Redhat virtio drivers, and the guest would freeze with high transfer. I switched to the emulated e1000 NIC and haven't had any problems since.

-Peter

JR

author

2014-05-15 18:01 UTC #7 lore raw

Hi Peter,

Thanks for the advise. How does the intel driver perform? Wirespeed range? (Or, did you make the change more to fix the freezing rather than to up the performance?)

Thanks
JR

Quoted 25 lines · Peter Kieser

Quoted 7 lines · JR
Greetings all,
Though I don't believe that this is KVM problem per se, I'm seeing very poor network performance when using windows 2008R2 KVM instances with the virtio driver when on a 10G network. iperf results show linux VMs getting close to wire speeds, while windows only does about 1.3Gb/sec.
Quoted 9 lines
I've tried a number of tcp settings (chimney, etc...) as recommended by some google searches but nothing has helped.
Does anyone have any advice?
Thanks much,
JR
I ran into similar issues with the Redhat virtio drivers, and the guest would freeze with high transfer. I switched to the emulated e1000 NIC and haven't had any problems since.
-Peter

Signature · 3 lines

Your electronic communications are being monitored; strong encryption is
an answer. My public key
<http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x4F08C504BD634953>

Peter Kieser

2014-06-30 03:00 UTC #8 lore raw

Hi JR,

I mostly did this to stop the freezing. I'm back to troubleshoot this issue, since the e1000 driver performs worse with Linux 3.10 and qemu 2.0 now. One thing that did help a bit, was disabling vhost-net zero copy, but the latency and packet loss is still there (but not as much.)

Did you come up with anything?

-Peter

Quoted 33 lines · JR

Hi Peter,
Thanks for the advise. How does the intel driver perform? Wirespeed range? (Or, did you make the change more to fix the freezing rather than to up the performance?)
Thanks
JR
Quoted 23 lines · Peter Kieser
Quoted 7 lines · JR
Greetings all,
Though I don't believe that this is KVM problem per se, I'm seeing very poor network performance when using windows 2008R2 KVM instances with the virtio driver when on a 10G network. iperf results show linux VMs getting close to wire speeds, while windows only does about 1.3Gb/sec.
Quoted 9 lines
I've tried a number of tcp settings (chimney, etc...) as recommended by some google searches but nothing has helped.
Does anyone have any advice?
Thanks much,
JR
I ran into similar issues with the Redhat virtio drivers, and the guest would freeze with high transfer. I switched to the emulated e1000 NIC and haven't had any problems since.
-Peter