Running KVM on a Laptop

Running KVM on a Laptop

[dnjap]

Hello,

I'm looking for a laptop on which I can run KVM.

1. Does anyone have a list of AMD-V or VT-x capable laptop CPU's?

2. It seems Turion 64 X2 and some of Core 2 Duo processors can run KVM. 
Does anyone know which of these CPU's implement Nested Page Tables or 
Extended Page Tables? (Xen's compatibility list doesn't provide such 
details: http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/HVM_Compatible_Processors)

3. If you're running KVM on your laptop, could you share the 
information? Does your laptop's BIOS support AMD-V or VT-x?

My search through amd.com, intel.com, and a couple of mailling list 
archives turned in vain, which kind of puzzles me.

Anyway, thank you for your attention.

Pokemon

Re: Running KVM on a Laptop

[Ross McKay]

dnjap wrote:

>I'm looking for a laptop on which I can run KVM.
>
>1. Does anyone have a list of AMD-V or VT-x capable laptop CPU's?

Is it not as simple as checking for the svm or vt flags?

	egrep '(vt|svm)' /proc/cpuinfo

Take a bootable LiveCD into your local computer shop and check.

>2. It seems Turion 64 X2 and some of Core 2 Duo processors can run KVM. 
>Does anyone know which of these CPU's implement Nested Page Tables or 
>Extended Page Tables? (Xen's compatibility list doesn't provide such 
>details: http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/HVM_Compatible_Processors)
>
>3. If you're running KVM on your laptop, could you share the 
>information? Does your laptop's BIOS support AMD-V or VT-x?

FWIW, I have KVM running on my ASUS laptop, with the following CPU:

	AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor TK-55

I don't know about nested/extended page tables no BIOS support, perhaps
someone who knows something can help you there. I can tell you that all
I did was check for the svm flag, and once confirmed, I compiled and
installed KVM and it ran.

NB: don't use recent sources (post v80) if you want to run compressed
qcow2 images, as you'll only get corruption. I was told on this list
that QEMU has resolved the problem but that the patch hasn't been ported
across to the KVM branch yet. As such, get a laptop with a *big* hard
drive if you plan to run the latest versions.
-- 
Ross McKay, Toronto, NSW Australia
"Let the laddie play wi the knife - he'll learn"
- The Wee Book of Calvin

Re: Running KVM on a Laptop

[Jorge Lucángeli Obes]

On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 11:56 PM, Ross McKay <rosko@zeta.org.au> wrote:
> dnjap wrote:
>
>>I'm looking for a laptop on which I can run KVM.
>>
>>1. Does anyone have a list of AMD-V or VT-x capable laptop CPU's?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_2_microprocessors

The header before each chart lists which processors have VT-x.
Something similar must be available for the laptop version of Intel's
Nehalem and for AMD.

> Is it not as simple as checking for the svm or vt flags?
>
>        egrep '(vt|svm)' /proc/cpuinfo
>
> Take a bootable LiveCD into your local computer shop and check.
>
>>2. It seems Turion 64 X2 and some of Core 2 Duo processors can run KVM.
>>Does anyone know which of these CPU's implement Nested Page Tables or
>>Extended Page Tables? (Xen's compatibility list doesn't provide such
>>details: http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/HVM_Compatible_Processors)

You will probably have to verify that in the manufacturer's web site.
I recall a discussion not long ago regarding the addition of NPT and
EPT to /proc/cpuinfo.

>>3. If you're running KVM on your laptop, could you share the
>>information? Does your laptop's BIOS support AMD-V or VT-x?
>
> FWIW, I have KVM running on my ASUS laptop, with the following CPU:
>
>        AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor TK-55

I have a Dell XPS 1210 with:

Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU T5600 @ 1.83GHz

Regards,
Jorge

Re: Running KVM on a Laptop

[David Ahern]

Jorge Lucángeli Obes wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 11:56 PM, Ross McKay <rosko@zeta.org.au> wrote:
>> dnjap wrote:
>>
>>> I'm looking for a laptop on which I can run KVM.
>>>
>>> 1. Does anyone have a list of AMD-V or VT-x capable laptop CPU's?
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_2_microprocessors

A handy reference link is
http://www.intel.com/products/processor_number/index.htm
I use this link a lot cross-referencing  features of various processors.

As for a laptop example, I just acquired a Dell Latitude E6500 with a
Core 2 Duo T9550 @ 2.66GHz. The link for Core 2 Duo is:

http://www.intel.com/products/processor_number/chart/core2duo.htm?iid=pn_ov+list_c2d

which shows it has VT capability (which of course I confirmed before
ordering this laptop).

> 
> The header before each chart lists which processors have VT-x.
> Something similar must be available for the laptop version of Intel's
> Nehalem and for AMD.
> 
>> Is it not as simple as checking for the svm or vt flags?
>>
>>        egrep '(vt|svm)' /proc/cpuinfo
>>
>> Take a bootable LiveCD into your local computer shop and check.
>>
>>> 2. It seems Turion 64 X2 and some of Core 2 Duo processors can run KVM.
>>> Does anyone know which of these CPU's implement Nested Page Tables or
>>> Extended Page Tables? (Xen's compatibility list doesn't provide such
>>> details: http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/HVM_Compatible_Processors)
> 
> You will probably have to verify that in the manufacturer's web site.
> I recall a discussion not long ago regarding the addition of NPT and
> EPT to /proc/cpuinfo.

As I understand it you want a laptop with a Core i7 processor to get
EPT. I am not as familiar with AMD's offerings. I did not see the Core
i7 offered on Dell laptops as of late January.

> 
>>> 3. If you're running KVM on your laptop, could you share the
>>> information? Does your laptop's BIOS support AMD-V or VT-x?
>> FWIW, I have KVM running on my ASUS laptop, with the following CPU:
>>
>>        AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor TK-55
> 
> I have a Dell XPS 1210 with:
> 
> Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU T5600 @ 1.83GHz

As I mentioned above I have Dell Latitude E6500 with a Core 2 Duo T9550
@ 2.66GHz. So far (one whole week) I have not had any kvm related
problems (the intel_drv xorg module is a different matter), and the
performance has been nice.

david


> 
> Regards,
> Jorge
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> 

Re: Running KVM on a Laptop

[Andre Przywara]

Ross McKay wrote:
> dnjap wrote:
> 
>> I'm looking for a laptop on which I can run KVM.
>>
>> 1. Does anyone have a list of AMD-V or VT-x capable laptop CPU's?
> 
> Is it not as simple as checking for the svm or vt flags?
> 
> 	egrep '(vt|svm)' /proc/cpuinfo
> 
> Take a bootable LiveCD into your local computer shop and check.
Yes, this would be the ultimate test.
AMD Turion X2 and Turion X2 Ultra are based on K8 and thus support SVM. 
Some vendors decided to disable SVM in the BIOS. On some of those 
machines it _cannot_ be enabled (both in the BIOS setup and later from 
the OS side). So although this machines are Turion X2 based you cannot 
use KVM here, but /proc/cpuinfo shouldn't show this flag in this case.
Please note that AMD-CPUs labeled "Sempron" do not support SVM at all.

>> 2. It seems Turion 64 X2 and some of Core 2 Duo processors can run KVM. 
>> Does anyone know which of these CPU's implement Nested Page Tables or 
>> Extended Page Tables? (Xen's compatibility list doesn't provide such 
>> details: http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/HVM_Compatible_Processors)
Currently there are no Nested Page Tables capable notebook processors 
from AMD, but the Turion X2 Ultra successor will be PhenomII based and 
thus support NPT. Look at the AMD roadmaps for a processor called Caspian.
NPT is a CPUID bit in the SVM feature CPUID leaf (8000_000A, EDX:0).
Recent versions of x86info can also decode this bit (x86info -v, line 
starting with SVM: and containing "np").
There are no known BIOS restrictions regarding to NPT nor the BIOS needs 
to handle NPT in a special way.

>>
>> 3. If you're running KVM on your laptop, could you share the 
>> information? Does your laptop's BIOS support AMD-V or VT-x?
We use hardware virtualization on a MSI MegaBook S271 (TurionX2).

Regards,
Andre.

-- 
Andre Przywara
AMD-Operating System Research Center (OSRC), Dresden, Germany
Tel: +49 351 277-4917
----to satisfy European Law for business letters:
Advanced Micro Devices GmbH
Karl-Hammerschmidt-Str. 34, 85609 Dornach b. Muenchen
Geschaeftsfuehrer: Jochen Polster; Thomas M. McCoy; Giuliano Meroni
Sitz: Dornach, Gemeinde Aschheim, Landkreis Muenchen
Registergericht Muenchen, HRB Nr. 43632

Re: Running KVM on a Laptop

[Bryon Roche]

On Fri, 13 Feb 2009 12:56:56 +1100, Ross McKay wrote:


> NB: don't use recent sources (post v80) if you want to run compressed
> qcow2 images, as you'll only get corruption. I was told on this list
> that QEMU has resolved the problem but that the patch hasn't been ported
> across to the KVM branch yet. As such, get a laptop with a *big* hard
> drive if you plan to run the latest versions. --

If you're playing with kvm-git, you should be able to pull these fixes in 
via cherry picking 16f197e29c19a4366a1d2ba3dcd0b4b8b0f86ce6, then 
86030aade7ae09f4cedfb13973e37ba30f3db073.

/B

Re: Running KVM on a Laptop

[Ross McKay]

Bryon Roche wrote:

>If you're playing with kvm-git, you should be able to pull these fixes in 
>via cherry picking 16f197e29c19a4366a1d2ba3dcd0b4b8b0f86ce6, then 
>86030aade7ae09f4cedfb13973e37ba30f3db073.

Thanks, but I have "other problems" at present so I'm just accepting
source tarballs to build from. v80 is working fine for me, so I'm
sticking with it for now.
-- 
Ross McKay, Toronto, NSW Australia
"There is more to life than simply increasing its speed." - Gandhi

Re: Running KVM on a Laptop

[Ross McKay]

Bryon Roche wrote:

>If you're playing with kvm-git, you should be able to pull these fixes in 
>via cherry picking 16f197e29c19a4366a1d2ba3dcd0b4b8b0f86ce6, then 
>86030aade7ae09f4cedfb13973e37ba30f3db073.

In fact, I compiled and installed kvm-84 today, and it seems to have
resolved the problem with qcow2 encrypted volumes corrupting. Thanks for
the prod, am now happily running on kvm-84.
-- 
Ross McKay, Toronto, NSW Australia
"Let the laddie play wi the knife - he'll learn"
- The Wee Book of Calvin

Re: Running KVM on a Laptop

[Louis-David Mitterrand]

On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 12:56:56PM +1100, Ross McKay wrote:
> dnjap wrote:
> 
> >I'm looking for a laptop on which I can run KVM.
> >
> >1. Does anyone have a list of AMD-V or VT-x capable laptop CPU's?
> 
> Is it not as simple as checking for the svm or vt flags?

No, one must also check that the bios allows enabling virtualization
support. My sony laptop has the right processor but no bios option.
Check that first!

-- 
http://www.critikart.net

Re: Running KVM on a Laptop

[TJ]

On Wed, 2009-02-18 at 08:45 +0100, Louis-David Mitterrand wrote:
> > Is it not as simple as checking for the svm or vt flags?
> 
> No, one must also check that the bios allows enabling virtualization
> support. My sony laptop has the right processor but no bios option.
> Check that first!

Louis-David, I just noticed your comment in passing and thought I'd let
you (and others with a Sony Vaio) know that it is possible to enable the
VT option in NVRAM even though the BIOS set-up menu doesn't support it.

I did it with this Vaio VGN-FE41Z with T7200 CPU back in mid 2007 and
not had to redo it since. I sometimes run several instances of KVM on
it.

The Phoenix BIOS does support storing in NVRAM and setting the VT-enable
bits using MSR 0x3A at boot time.

I was hoping to create a Linux tool to make the NVRAM change but due to:

 * each BIOS version uses a different token number to store the
VT-enable BIOS setting
 * to identify the token number you have to examine the BIOS executable
code
* currently the only 'safe' way to set the token in NVRAM is to use the
DOS symcmos.exe utility (from Phoenix)

A one-shot solution proved impractical so it is a case of doing it on a
per-BIOS-version basis.

If you want to email me off-list with the precise Sony model-number and
BIOS revision I should be able to help you enable the VT bit.

For some highly technical background see:

http://tjworld.net/wiki/Sony/Vaio/FE41Z/HackingBiosNvram