From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Alexander Graf Subject: Re: [PATCH] Add microcode patch level dummy Date: Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:08:47 +0100 Message-ID: <49623E9F.2000008@suse.de> References: <1231167767-851-1-git-send-email-agraf@suse.de> <4962353D.70909@codemonkey.ws> <496235B0.2090802@suse.de> <496237E5.6050503@codemonkey.ws> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: kvm@vger.kernel.org, avi@redhat.com To: Anthony Liguori Return-path: Received: from cantor2.suse.de ([195.135.220.15]:55734 "EHLO mx2.suse.de" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751405AbZAERIh (ORCPT ); Mon, 5 Jan 2009 12:08:37 -0500 In-Reply-To: <496237E5.6050503@codemonkey.ws> Sender: kvm-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: Anthony Liguori wrote: > Alexander Graf wrote: >> Anthony Liguori wrote: >> >>> Alexander Graf wrote: >>> >>>> VMware ESX checks if the microcode level is correct when using a >>>> barcelona CPU, in >>>> order to see if it actually can use SVM. Let's tell it we're on the >>>> safe side... >>>> >>> Sounds like you're able to boot ESX? Are you able to run a guest yet? >>> >> >> The moment you wrote the mail I just managed to get ReactOS running in >> ESX. It does not use SVM yet though. I wonder when/if ESX actually does >> use SVM. >> > > I'm pretty certain that if ESX detects that it is running under ESX, > it disables SVM/VT. There was a fair bit of noise a few months ago > because a certain beta version of VMware didn't do this which meant > you could no longer run ESX nested. They quickly fixed that. > > I'd try disabling vmport and the hypervisor present bit. Now - that's the issue. VMware tries to detect the CPU TSC speed and matches if that's a multiple of the bus speed (66Mhz). If not, it panics. The only way I found around this was to expose the TSC frequency bits to ESX using the VMware backdoor - but now it thinks it's actually running inside VMware! Alex