AW: Windows DomU: Network Issues

[Paul Leiber <paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Von: James Dingwall <james-xen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Gesendet: Montag, 10. Mai 2021 10:41
> 
> On Thu, May 06, 2021 at 07:47:29PM +0000, Paul Leiber wrote:
> > Hi everybody,
> >
> > I am a novice Xen user. I recently started to set up my home server (file
> server, print server, media server, TV backend etc.) using Xen based VMs
> installed on a Debian 10 dom0. I mostly followed the steps laid out in
> https://wiki.xenproject.org/wiki/Xen_Project_Beginners_Guide. The linux
> domUs worked like a charm right from the beginning.
> >
> > I then wanted to install Windows Server 2012 on a domU for the TV
> backend (MediaPortal). Following the steps in the above mentioned guide, I
> could install the Windows system alright. I could solve most of the obvious
> issues (like mouse pointer off, keyboard layout not correct etc.). However, I
> utterly failed to get a decent network connection. Transfer speed while
> copying a large file from a Samba file server on one of the Debian domUs to
> the Windows Server 2012 domU remained around 1-3 Mbit/s. I of course
> installed the Windows PV drivers from https://xenproject.org/windows-pv-
> drivers/, tried different options in the config file, added the GplPv option 
> to
> the boot options (as described in
> https://wiki.xenproject.org/wiki/Xen_Windows_GplPv/Installing), but
> nothing helped. The slow connection made it pointless to use the Windows
> Server DomU as a media/TV server. Also, there was a persistent error on
> Windows Update so I couldn't install any updates. I tried a fresh install, but
> with the same result. I gave up and installed VDR on another Debian DomU
> which works o.k.
> 
> It is a while since I spun up a Windows VM but I vaguely remember having to
> disable checksum offloading in the guest to solve some performance issues...
> From what I can find "IPv4 Checksum Offload", "UDP Checksum Offload
> (IPv4)" and "TCP Checksum Offload (IPv4)" specifically.  There are similar 
> IPv6
> settings if you have that enabled.

As I have written in my reply to my own message, after manually installing the 
correct drivers, network speed is more than sufficient. I therefore didn't 
change any checksum offload options, so I can't really say anything about the 
effect of the respective settings.

Thank you anyhow!

Paul