Re: X58 Virtualization w/ Linux

Steve Novakov
2016-06-20T04:06:21Z

> Yes, if system freeze on boot, then it seems something wrong in linux
kernel. Steve, can you post the dmesg log and check whether there are
some additional devices on your board? I remember some legacy device
drivers are not friendly to IOMMU.

I kind of gave up on this and moved back to ESXi, though I am now
fighting HID device passthrough >___> (prosumer virtualization tech not
as robust as I imagined....). ESXi is passing through USB controllers (I
get non HID device, like a USB-ethernet adapter passthrough no problem)
and an Intel PCIe NIC, but I'm having issues with graphics cards. Tough
to say whether it's a driver or X server issue at the moment, the cards
are seemingly passed through in ESXi. I have an NVIDIA GT 730 and Radeon
HD5450 to play with. I'm worried a bit about the replacement of fglrx
and the use of "radeon" module in newer kernels, and how it deals with
passthrough, etc, with such an old card, but we'll see how it goes. I'm
also fighting being able to show the VM console and a graphics card
output at the same time (that's an X server configuration thing I think).

I can support some debugging though. I'll reinstall Ubuntu 16.04 server
on a spare drive and get it back to the state it was in. I'll send the
entire dmesg, lspci -nnk from just a base install. Should I also give
you dumps with "intel_iommu=on" and VT-d disabled in the BIOS? (I can't
boot if both things are on)

Steve Novakov
B.A.Sc Engineering Physics
PhD Student - Physics
University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
On 6/19/2016 10:07 PM, Yang Zhang wrote: