[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: [Xen-users] HD timeouts with busy xen domains



Itai Tavor wrote:
> 
> On 11/05/2006, at 5:22 PM, Rick van der LInde wrote:
> 
>> Itai Tavor wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> Now that I've got that 3-day-long, let's-waste-some-time-with-a- 
>>> broken-dom0 episode, I can get back to the real problems that are  
>>> preventing me from getting any use out of my Xen-based server.
>>>
>>> What is happening, basically, is that as soon as some guest  domains 
>>> get busy, the hard disks go south for the winter.
>>>
>>> I know this is not really a Xen issue (at least not directly) but 
>>> as  the problem only happens in a Xen setup, I thought I'd try to 
>>> ask  about it here.
>>>
>>> The server has four SATA hard disks. It has worked with the same  
>>> hardware setup for many months, with processor- and disk- intensive 
>>> applications, with no problems. Now, I can start dom0  and guest 
>>> domains with no problem, and they run fine as long as  they don't
>>> try  to do a lot. But as soon as they get busy - say,  compiling
>>> something  - the console shows an endless stream of:
>>>
>>> ata1: command 0x35 timeout, stat 0x50 host_stat 0x64
>>> ata2: command 0x25 timeout, stat 0x50 host_stat 0x64
>>> ata4: command 0x35 timeout, stat 0x50 host_stat 0x4
>>>
>>> And the system stops responding, until I reset the server or throw 
>>> it  out the window (well, not yet, but it's coming).
>>>
>>> I've seen posts saying that these errors are related to APIC, so  I 
>>> tried adding "noapic acpi=off" to the dom0 kernel command line.  No 
>>> change.
>>>
>>> If anyone's wondering why ata3 isn't in the list... it's a 
>>> different  drive - a 250GB WD while 1, 2 and 4 are 400GB Seagates. 
>>> Interesting?
>>>
>>> Any ideas/suggestions?
>>
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Are you working with an ICH6 or ICH7 chipset for SATA connections.  If
>> zo. check your BIOS settings (IDE Operation Mode). I've  experienced
>> this before. Somehow the Enhanced Mode setting can  cause troubles.
>> You can have it set to "Enhanced Mode", but need to  make sure only
>> SATA is enabled (not SATA + PATA). After setting  this to SATA, the
>> PATA devices are still accessible and the timeou  problems disappeared
>> for me.
>>
>> Hope this may help you.
> 
> 
> Thanks, Rick, but no luck... my drives are on silicon Image chips, 
> separate from the IDE controller.

FWIW - I'm seeing the same issue (DMA timeouts under moderate IO loads -
like building a kernel) here on both ICH7 and IT8212 controller IDE
disks on xen 3.0.2 and unstable.
This issue makes Xen rather unusable for me and is not reproducable
without xen either ...

Stefan

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


 


Rackspace

Lists.xenproject.org is hosted with RackSpace, monitoring our
servers 24x7x365 and backed by RackSpace's Fanatical Support®.