[gentoo-user] qemu-kvm and libvirt: running an ancient guest

[Stefan G. Weichinger]

Sorry folks, I get OT again.

I already spent around 3 days now fiddling around with a new and shiny
virtualization server running am64.

Issue:

I have to run a guest which is old:

Suse Linux 6.1, with a 2.2.5 kernel.
ext2-filesystems in there ...

I run that one OK on an older gentoo-host with vmware-server 2.

That box has failing hardware and I want to get rid of vmware as well
(non-working webGUI etc) ...

So far the VM boots and runs, but the performance is laggy. Seems to be
the IO somehow.

Tried raw-files on xfs, tried LVs, tried various virtual CPUs, caching
on/off, you name it ... still bad.

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At first I posted to the list "libvirt-users@××××××.com", you can read
that thread at

http://www.spinics.net/linux/fedora/libvirt-users/msg03556.html

Then I subscribed to another list:

https://www.redhat.com/archives/virt-tools-list/2012-October/msg00068.html

Still no helpful reply so far, and my customer gets angry (me too, in a
way ... 3 days, maybe one paid ... another story ...).

Does anyone of you run such old stuff within KVM?

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Right now I have on the host:

gentoo-sources 3.6.1 (with all bells and whistles enabled libvirt wanted
me to enable)

qemu-kvm-1.1.1-r1
libvirt-0.9.13-r1

(-> stable ebuilds)

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When I cp a file within that VM it takes ages ... unfortunately the OS
doesn't bring much modules with it so I can't just swap the virtual
controller for SCSI or so :-(

Another old guest with a slightly newer 2.2 kernel runs just fine ... I
just don't get it.

Corrupt raw-files?? Wouldn't fsck within the guest detect that?

What to chose for 32bit-guests ... arch, cpu, etc.

-

I am a bit helpless ...

Thanks for any help on this.

Stefan