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You can use the network device emulators for the Intel 8255x 10/100 Mbps Ethernet controller (the e100 controller) and the Intel 82540EM Gigabit Ethernet controller (the e1000 controller) for hardware virtualized guests. The e1000 controller is a Gigabit Ethernet controller and increases the network throughput when compared to the default Ethernet controller.

To use these network device emulators, install the network device driver on the guest, then modify the guest configuration file to specify the controller model type: either e100; or e1000. For example, to use the e1000 controller, set model=e1000 in the vif entry in the guest configuration file:

Create the guest again using the xm create command. The guest now uses the faster e1000 controller.

Previously I thought QEMU only supports emulated Realtek Fast Ethernet 100 Mb/s controllers.

On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 11:40 PM, Mr. Teo En Ming (Zhang Enming) <space.time.universe@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hi Pasi,

Yay!!!! My Rocks HPC Cluster 5.1 x86-64 first compute node is finally installing!!! The emulated Realtek Fast Ethernet 100 Mb/s network card is really wasting a lot of my time. Thanks for pointing me to e1000!!! Now I get upgraded Gigabit network card speed!

Thanks so much Pasi!!!

--
Mr. Teo En Ming (Zhang Enming) Dip(Mechatronics) BEng(Hons)(Mechanical Engineering)
Alma Maters:
(1) Singapore Polytechnic
(2) National University of Singapore
My Primary Blog: http://teo-en-ming-aka-zhang-enming.blogspot.com
My Secondary Blog: http://enmingteo.wordpress.com
My Youtube videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/enmingteo
Email: space.time.universe@xxxxxxxxx
Mobile Phone (Starhub Prepaid): +65-8369-2618
Street: Bedok Reservoir Road
Country: Singapore

On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 11:30 PM, Mr. Teo En Ming (Zhang Enming) <space.time.universe@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hi Pasi,

I have added 'type=ioemu' and 'model=e1000' to vif in my HVM configuration files. Now the Rocks HPC Cluster 5.1 x86-64 Frontend node detected two Intel 82540 Gigabit Ethernet controllers. Hopefully this will speed up my compute node installation with the upgraded gigabit speed.

--
Mr. Teo En Ming (Zhang Enming) Dip(Mechatronics) BEng(Hons)(Mechanical Engineering)
Alma Maters:
(1) Singapore Polytechnic
(2) National University of Singapore
My Primary Blog: http://teo-en-ming-aka-zhang-enming.blogspot.com
My Secondary Blog: http://enmingteo.wordpress.com
My Youtube videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/enmingteo
Email: space.time.universe@xxxxxxxxx
Mobile Phone (Starhub Prepaid): +65-8369-2618
Street: Bedok Reservoir Road
Country: Singapore

On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 9:15 PM, Pasi Kärkkäinen <pasik@xxxxxx> wrote:

On Sat, Nov 07, 2009 at 07:23:48PM +0800, Mr. Teo En Ming (Zhang Enming) wrote:
> Hi Pasi,
>
> I am not sure whether I can install PV drivers in Rocks HPC Cluster
> software 5.1 x86-64 (based on CentOS) HVM virtual machines. When I tried
> to install Rocks 5.1 x86-64 as a PV guest, it complains "invalid kernel"
> and something about the ELF kernel image. So I guess PV is out for Rocks.
>

What complains about invalid kernel?

I think redhat does ship pv-on-hvm drivers with rhel/centos, so you
could enable those and get paravirtualized disk and network for the HVM
guest.

> To set e1000 (virtualized Intel Gigabit NIC), I have to use the model
> parameter in vif in HVM config? Will I get gigabit speeds instead of the
> Fast Ethernet 100Mb/s speed with virtual Realtek NICs?
>

In a virtual guest those reported speeds don't mean much.. so even when the
realtek nic reports 100 Mbit/sec speed, it can go faster.

But yeah, model=e1000 and it will be reported as 1Gbit/sec.

Qemu e1000 emulation is faster than realtek emulation.. so that should be better.

-- Pasi

Re: [Xen-devel] Low Network Throughput between HVM Guests

C.1 e100 And e1000 Network Device Emulators