re: [Xen-devel] Xen balloon driver discuss

[tinnycloud <tinnycloud@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

To build a new balloon driver is much easier than I thought, so I quickly
get more results

Create domain like:

xm cr xxx.hvm maxmem=2048 memory=512

In new the cur_page is 525312(larger than Pod Entry, so after balloon
pod_entry == pod_cached well be satisfied),
that is 2052M, later I found that this number comes from domain->max_pages.

In /local/domain/did/memory/target is 524288, that is 512M
Inside guest, from /proc/meminfo, the total memory is 482236KB, that is
470.93M

Strange is
balloon driver holds memory = 2052 - 512 = 1540M
And the guest actually has 470.93M
1540 + 470.93 = 2010.93 < 2048

So I wonder where is the memory goes (2048-2010.93)?

Thanks. 
----- -----
date: 2010,12,1 13:07
To: 'tinnycloud'; 'George Dunlap'
CC: 'Chu Rui'; xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; 'Dan Magenheimer'
Subject: re: [Xen-devel] Xen balloon driver discuss

Hi George:

        I think I know the problem, it is due to the balloon driver I used
it out of date. 
        My Guest kernel is
from(ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/enterprise/5Server/en/os/SRPMS/,
kernel-2.6.18-164.el5.src.rpm, so as the balloon driver ) 
        
        The problem is at the very beginning, Pod Entry total is different
from the current_pages pages in balloon.
        (at the beginning, both Pod Entry and current_pages shall point to
the same value, that is total memory allocated for guest,
         But in fact, Pod Entry is 523776  <  current_pages is  514879
         So from Pod aspect, the balloon need to inflate to 523776 - target,
but the balloon driver only inflate 514879 -target
         This is the problem. 
        )

        So later I will try to get the balloon.c from xenlinux to build a
new driver, to see if solve the problem.

        Thanks.

----- -----
From: tinnycloud [mailto:tinnycloud@xxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: 2010.11.30 21:59
To: 'George Dunlap'
cc: 'Chu Rui'; 'xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx'; 'Dan Magenheimer'
Subject: re: [Xen-devel] Xen balloon driver discuss

Thank you for your kindly help. 

Well, on last mail, you mentioned that balloon will make pod_entries equal
to cache_size as soon as it start to work when guest starts up.
>From my understanding, if we start guest such as:

xm cr xxx.hvm maxmem=2048 memory=512 

then, we should set the /local/domain/did/memory/target to 522240 ( (
512M-2M) * 1204, 2M for VGA in your another patch? )
to tell the balloon driver in guest to inflate, right? And when balloon
driver balloon to let guest memory has this target,
I think pod_entires will equal to cached_size, right?

I did some experiment on this, the result shows different.

Step 1.
xm cr xxx.hvm maxmem=2048 memory=512

at the very beginning, I printed out domain tot_pages, 1320288,
pod.entry_count 523776, that is 2046M, pod.count 130560, that is 512M

(XEN) tot_pages 132088 pod_entries 523776 pod_count 130560


currently, /local/domain/did/memory/target in default will be written to
524288

after guest start up, balloon driver will balloon, when finish, I can see
pod.entry_count reduce to 23552, pod,count 14063

(XEN)     DomPage list too long to display
(XEN) Tot pages 132088  PoD entries=23552 cachesize=14063

Step 2.

In my understanding, /local/domain/did/memory/target should be at least 510
* 1024 , and then pod_entries will equal to cache_size

I use  500, So I did: xm mem-set domain_id  500

then I can see pod.entry_count reduce to 22338, pod,count 15921, still not
equal

(XEN) Memory pages belonging to domain 4:
(XEN)     DomPage list too long to display
(XEN) Tot pages 132088  PoD entries=22338 cachesize=15921

Step 3. 

Only after I did : xm mem-set domain_id  470
Pod_entries is equal to pod.count
(XEN)     DomPage list too long to display
(XEN) Tot pages 130825  PoD entries=14677 cachesize=14677

Later from the code, I learnt that those two values are forced to be equal,
in 

700 out_entry_check:
701     /* If we've reduced our "liabilities" beyond our "assets", free some
*/
702     if ( p2md->pod.entry_count < p2md->pod.count )
703     {
704         p2m_pod_set_cache_target(d, p2md->pod.entry_count);
705     }   
706


So in conclude, it looks like something goes wrong, the PoD entries should
equal to cachesize(pod.count) 
as soon as the balloon driver inflate to max - target, right? 

Many thanks.




_______________________________________________
Xen-devel mailing list
Xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.xensource.com/xen-devel