Re: [Xen-users] xen

[Mark Williamson <mark.williamson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I want to run 4 Windows XP guests on my Xen-Fedora server. I have 6 NICs in
> my machine and I want to assign 1 nic to each of my Windows clients.
> Performance is paramount, what would be the best way to do this networking
> wise? Would it be 4 seperate bridges? Is there a way to allow xen clients
> direct control of the server's ethernet port?

4 separate bridges is the obvious way to proceed; it's not currently possible 
to assign PCI devices directly to HVM guests (you can only do it for PV 
guests).

Neocleus have been doing some work around assigning PCI devices to HVM guests.  
Ideally though, upcoming hardware support from Intel and AMD is required to 
safely assign PCI devices in this way.

Domain0 is going to be doing lots of work in this scenario so you might want 
to see if dedicating a hyperthread - or a whole core - to domain0 improves 
performance.

To be honest, I'd be surprised if you could actually saturate 4 NICS 
simultaneously; the HVM network isn't especially fast and you'll be wanting 
dom0 to do a lot of work.  You may want to experiment to see whether you can 
make things more efficient by using /less/ of the available NICs, shared 
between the guests in some way.

Cheers,
Mark

-- 
Dave: Just a question. What use is a unicyle with no seat?  And no pedals!
Mark: To answer a question with a question: What use is a skateboard?
Dave: Skateboards have wheels.
Mark: My wheel has a wheel!

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