Re: File corruption when running VMware.

Re: File corruption when running VMware.

[Petr Vandrovec]

On 24 Apr 02 at 2:01, Rik van Riel wrote:
> On Wed, 24 Apr 2002, Hong-Gunn Chew wrote:
> 
> > I have a repeatable problem when running VMware workstation 3.00 and
> > 3.01.  The cause is still unknown, and could be VMware itself, the
> > hardware or the kernel.
> 
> If you can reproduce it without VMware or with only the
> open source part of VMware (ie without any of the binary
> only parts) we might have a chance of debugging it.

Hi again,
  one of 2.4.x kernel images available in SuSE's 8.0 has patched&enabled 
support for page tables in high memory, and this quickly revealed
incompatibility between VMware's vmmon page table handling and
ptes above directly mapped range.

  So if you have >890MB of RAM and your kernel is compiled with support
for pte in high memory, please stop using VMware, or reconfigure your 
kernel to not use pte in high memory (4GB config without pte-in-highmem
is OK). Using pte-in-highmem with vmmon will cause kernel oopses and/or 
memory corruption :-(

  If you do not have >890MB of memory, then reason for your memory corruption
is still unknown to me.
                                          Best regards,
                                                    Petr Vandrovec
                                                    vandrove@vc.cvut.cz
                                                    

RE: File corruption when running VMware.

[Hong-Gunn Chew]

Hi Petr,

> Hi again,
>   one of 2.4.x kernel images available in SuSE's 8.0 has 
> patched&enabled 
> support for page tables in high memory, and this quickly 
> revealed incompatibility between VMware's vmmon page table 
> handling and ptes above directly mapped range.
> 
>   So if you have >890MB of RAM and your kernel is compiled 
> with support for pte in high memory, please stop using 
> VMware, or reconfigure your 
> kernel to not use pte in high memory (4GB config without 
> pte-in-highmem is OK). Using pte-in-highmem with vmmon will 
> cause kernel oopses and/or 
> memory corruption :-(

I do have 1GB of memory.  I will try to reconfigure my kernel
and see if there's still a problem.
Thanks for the info!

Cheers,
Hong-Gunn

Re: File corruption when running VMware.

[Andrea Arcangeli]

On Fri, Apr 26, 2002 at 05:30:37PM +0200, Petr Vandrovec wrote:
> On 24 Apr 02 at 2:01, Rik van Riel wrote:
> > On Wed, 24 Apr 2002, Hong-Gunn Chew wrote:
> > 
> > > I have a repeatable problem when running VMware workstation 3.00 and
> > > 3.01.  The cause is still unknown, and could be VMware itself, the
> > > hardware or the kernel.
> > 
> > If you can reproduce it without VMware or with only the
> > open source part of VMware (ie without any of the binary
> > only parts) we might have a chance of debugging it.
> 
> Hi again,
>   one of 2.4.x kernel images available in SuSE's 8.0 has patched&enabled 
> support for page tables in high memory, and this quickly revealed
> incompatibility between VMware's vmmon page table handling and
> ptes above directly mapped range.
> 
>   So if you have >890MB of RAM and your kernel is compiled with support
> for pte in high memory, please stop using VMware, or reconfigure your 
> kernel to not use pte in high memory (4GB config without pte-in-highmem
> is OK). Using pte-in-highmem with vmmon will cause kernel oopses and/or 

passing to the kernel mem=850M in lilo at boot will be enough.

> memory corruption :-(
> 
>   If you do not have >890MB of memory, then reason for your memory corruption
> is still unknown to me.
>                                           Best regards,
>                                                     Petr Vandrovec
>                                                     vandrove@vc.cvut.cz
>                                                     
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Andrea

Re: File corruption when running VMware.

[Andrea Arcangeli]

On Sat, Apr 27, 2002 at 01:01:34AM +0200, Andrea Arcangeli wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 26, 2002 at 05:30:37PM +0200, Petr Vandrovec wrote:
> > On 24 Apr 02 at 2:01, Rik van Riel wrote:
> > > On Wed, 24 Apr 2002, Hong-Gunn Chew wrote:
> > > 
> > > > I have a repeatable problem when running VMware workstation 3.00 and
> > > > 3.01.  The cause is still unknown, and could be VMware itself, the
> > > > hardware or the kernel.
> > > 
> > > If you can reproduce it without VMware or with only the
> > > open source part of VMware (ie without any of the binary
> > > only parts) we might have a chance of debugging it.
> > 
> > Hi again,
> >   one of 2.4.x kernel images available in SuSE's 8.0 has patched&enabled 
> > support for page tables in high memory, and this quickly revealed
> > incompatibility between VMware's vmmon page table handling and
> > ptes above directly mapped range.
> > 
> >   So if you have >890MB of RAM and your kernel is compiled with support
> > for pte in high memory, please stop using VMware, or reconfigure your 
> > kernel to not use pte in high memory (4GB config without pte-in-highmem
> > is OK). Using pte-in-highmem with vmmon will cause kernel oopses and/or 
> 
> passing to the kernel mem=850M in lilo at boot will be enough.

I downloaded your latest driver from your site (vmware-ws-any-update16
package) and I adjusted it this way:

--- vmware-ws-any-update16/vmmon-only/linux/hostif.c.~1~	Sun Mar 31 20:44:35 2002
+++ vmware-ws-any-update16/vmmon-only/linux/hostif.c	Sat Apr 27 01:12:50 2002
@@ -176,7 +176,7 @@
 	unsigned long pagenr;
 	pgd_t *pgd;
 	pmd_t *pmd;
-	pte_t *pte;
+	pte_t *ptep, pte;
 	
 	pgd = pgd_offset(current->mm, addr);
 	if (pgd_none(*pgd))
@@ -184,10 +184,12 @@
 	pmd = pmd_offset(pgd, addr);
 	if (pmd_none(*pmd))
 		return 0;
-	pte = pte_offset(pmd, addr);
-	if (!pte_present(*pte))
+	ptep = pte_offset_atomic(pmd, addr);
+	pte = *ptep;
+	pte_kunmap(ptep);
+	if (!pte_present(pte))
 		return 0;
-	pagenr = pte_pagenr(*pte);
+	pagenr = pte_pagenr(pte);
 	return pagenr;
 #else
    int pdoffset = PFN_2_PDOFF(ppn);
--- vmware-ws-any-update16/vmnet-only/vmnetInt.h.~1~	Sat Mar 23 04:27:54 2002
+++ vmware-ws-any-update16/vmnet-only/vmnetInt.h	Sat Apr 27 01:16:43 2002
@@ -96,10 +96,8 @@
 #endif
 
 
-#ifndef KERNEL_2_5_5
-#   define pte_offset_map(_dir, _address) pte_offset(_dir, _address)
-#   define pte_unmap(_pte)
-#endif
+#   define pte_offset_map(_dir, _address) pte_offset_atomic(_dir, _address)
+#   define pte_unmap(_pte) pte_kunmap(_pte);
 
 
 #ifndef KERNEL_2_4_8


I'm running the patched driver right now with vmware 3.0 workstataion
on my main desktop with 1G using 2.4.19-pre7 as kernel (pte-highmem
enabled of course). If I'll find any instability of the host OS I'll let
you know, so far it looks solid.

Hope this helps,

Andrea

Re: File corruption when running VMware.

[Andrea Arcangeli]

On Sat, Apr 27, 2002 at 01:56:23AM +0200, Andrea Arcangeli wrote:
> [..] using 2.4.19-pre7 [..]

typo sorry, s/pre7/pre7aa2/ obviously (the so patched driver wouldn't
compile against vanilla pre7).

Andrea

Re: File corruption when running VMware.

[Andrea Arcangeli]

On Sat, Apr 27, 2002 at 01:56:23AM +0200, Andrea Arcangeli wrote:
> enabled of course). If I'll find any instability of the host OS I'll let
> you know, so far it looks solid.

The instability appears only during the poweron/resume, I left it running
for a long time and it was solid, but only after I now restarted/stopped
it a few times it showed stability problems still. If the poweron
doesn't reboot the machine then it is solid (that's why I couldn't
notice it yesterday). Also correcting the #if 0 in the patch or adapting
the lower part doesn't help. The big question is: are them the only two
places touching the pagetables? I also wonder why you're using cr3
instead of using the pointer in current->mm, I assume they're different
and that you swap the cr3 internally to the vmware module during ctx
switches of tasks?

thanks,

Andrea

RE: Memory corruption when running VMware. (was File curruption when running VMware)

[Hong-Gunn Chew]

Hi Petr, Andrea,

Petr wrote:
>   So if you have >890MB of RAM and your kernel is compiled 
> with support for pte in high memory, please stop using 
> VMware, or reconfigure your 
> kernel to not use pte in high memory (4GB config without 
> pte-in-highmem is OK). Using pte-in-highmem with vmmon will 
> cause kernel oopses and/or 
> memory corruption :-(

I have been trying different kernel configurations to overcome this
problem.  I found that turning on APIC seem to work properly.  However
turning on IO-APIC causes it to hang just after X is started, which
seems to be during the startup of gdm.
I do have a silly question to ask though.  How do I compile the kernel
NOT to use pte in high memory?

Andrea wrote:
> passing to the kernel mem=850M in lilo at boot will be enough.

This did not work as it causes vmware to seg fault with a kernel oops:
	Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address
ffffe350
	 printing eip:
	f61ff30a
	*pde = 00001063
	*pte = 00000000
	Oops: 0000
	CPU:    0
	EIP:
0010:[nls_iso8859-1:__insmod_nls_iso8859-1_S.data_L2336+139562/11435686]
Tainted: PF
	EIP:    0010:[<f61ff30a>]    Tainted: PF
	EFLAGS: 00013286
	eax: ffffe350   ebx: e7652600   ecx: ffffe350   edx: 000000d0
	esi: e7652600   edi: 00000069   ebp: e7625de8   esp: e7625de8
	ds: 0018   es: 0018   ss: 0018
	Process vmware (pid: 2595, stackpage=e7625000)
	Stack: e7625e08 f61ff34d ffffe350 c02f8ee0 e7625e2c f5095a00
000000d0 e6d21000  
	       e7625eb8 f61ff41f e7652600 e7625e8d e7625e8e e7625e8f
e7625e40 00003286  
	       00003286 efe78d80 000001f0 00000000 e7589a80 c01e330f
000000bc 000001f0
	Call Trace:
[nls_iso8859-1:__insmod_nls_iso8859-1_S.data_L2336+139629/11435619]
[nls_iso8859-1:__insmod_nls_iso8859-1_S.data_L2336+139839/11435409]
[sys_sendmsg+303/480] [wait_for_buffers+86/144]
[nls_iso8859-1:__insmod_nls_iso8859-1_S.data_L2336+137406/11437842]
	Call Trace: [<f61ff34d>] [<f61ff41f>] [<c01e330f>] [<c0134a36>]
[<f61fea9e>]
	
[nls_iso8859-1:__insmod_nls_iso8859-1_S.data_L2336+132081/11443167]
[generic_file_readahead+288/304] [bounce_end_io_read+164/288]
[isapnp_set_mem+23/272] [vfs_link+23/256] [system_call+51/56]
	   [<f61fd5d1>] [<c01272b0>] [<c0131e94>] [<c01e0527>]
[<c013e487>]  [<c0106f0b>]
	
	Code: 8b 11 89 d0 25 00 07 01 00 3d 00 04 00 00 75 12 81 ca 00
00

Cheers,
Hong-Gunn

Re: Memory corruption when running VMware. (was File curruption when running VMware)

[Andrea Arcangeli]

On Fri, May 03, 2002 at 12:23:35PM +0930, Hong-Gunn Chew wrote:
> Hi Petr, Andrea,
> 
> Petr wrote:
> >   So if you have >890MB of RAM and your kernel is compiled 
> > with support for pte in high memory, please stop using 
> > VMware, or reconfigure your 
> > kernel to not use pte in high memory (4GB config without 
> > pte-in-highmem is OK). Using pte-in-highmem with vmmon will 
> > cause kernel oopses and/or 
> > memory corruption :-(
> 
> I have been trying different kernel configurations to overcome this
> problem.  I found that turning on APIC seem to work properly.  However
> turning on IO-APIC causes it to hang just after X is started, which
> seems to be during the startup of gdm.
> I do have a silly question to ask though.  How do I compile the kernel
> NOT to use pte in high memory?

the simplest patch to avoid pte in highmem is this. It's against 19pre7aa3
but it will apply cleanly to the kernel you're using.

--- 2.4.19pre7aa3/mm/memory.c.~1~	Tue Apr 30 19:53:08 2002
+++ 2.4.19pre7aa3/mm/memory.c	Fri May  3 09:58:23 2002
@@ -1493,7 +1493,7 @@
 {
 	struct page * page;
 
-	page = alloc_page(GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_HIGHMEM);
+	page = alloc_page(GFP_KERNEL);
 	if (page)
 		clear_pagetable(page);
 	return page;

However if I would be in you I'd simply add mem=850M to the append line
in /etc/lilo.conf until the vmmon/vmnet update is released, that should
be the most confortable approch from your part.

> Andrea wrote:
> > passing to the kernel mem=850M in lilo at boot will be enough.
> 
> This did not work as it causes vmware to seg fault with a kernel oops:

Hmm looking at the bounce_end_io_read it looks like the kernel didn't
recognized you specified mem=850M via lilo, not idea why. You should
check with `free` that your kernel is using only 850M of ram before
starting vmware. Can you show the contents of /proc/meminfo right after
boot?

> [generic_file_readahead+288/304] [bounce_end_io_read+164/288]
> [isapnp_set_mem+23/272] [vfs_link+23/256] [system_call+51/56]
> 	   [<f61fd5d1>] [<c01272b0>] [<c0131e94>] [<c01e0527>]
> [<c013e487>]  [<c0106f0b>]
> 	
> 	Code: 8b 11 89 d0 25 00 07 01 00 3d 00 04 00 00 75 12 81 ca 00
> 00
> 
> Cheers,
> Hong-Gunn


Andrea

Re: File corruption when running VMware.

[Petr Vandrovec]

On 24 Apr 02 at 12:54, Hong-Gunn Chew wrote:

> Further tests shows the corruption occurs only at the 3rd byte of a
> 16-byte block, and only the LSB is affected.
> Load on the machine is minimal and VMware is at the BIOS setup screen.

Never seen that, and nobody reported that. Are you sure that
vmmon/vmnet modules choosen by vmware-config.pl are correct ones?
If you exprience any problems, you should run 'vmware-config.pl --compile',
it will cause vmmon/vmnet to be build from scratch even if your
kernel looks like one for which precompiled module is available.

And next question - do you use vmmon/vmnet from VMware, or from my
site?
                                                    Petr
                                                    

File corruption when running VMware.

[Hong-Gunn Chew]

I have a repeatable problem when running VMware workstation 3.00 and
3.01.  The cause is still unknown, and could be VMware itself, the
hardware or the kernel.

When running VMware, a file read from disk can be corrupted and will
stay corrupted in memory in the disk cache.  It can be reproduced by
checking the md5sum of a large file (>200MB), with different results
each time when VMware is running.
Further tests shows the corruption occurs only at the 3rd byte of a
16-byte block, and only the LSB is affected.
Load on the machine is minimal and VMware is at the BIOS setup screen.

Has anyone encountered this problem before?  I can provide any
additional information that might be useful.

Cheers,
Hong-Gunn

System configuration:
CPU:		P4 2.0A 2.0GHz
RAM:		4x256MB RDRAM PC800
MB:		ASUS P4-TE firmware:1005
		Intel i850
Disk:		IBM Deskstar 120GXP 80GB
Graphics:	ATI 7500 OEM

Distri:	RedHat 7.2
Kernel:	2.4.18
X:		Xfree 4.2
glibc:	2.2.4-19.3

Re: File corruption when running VMware.

[Rik van Riel]

On Wed, 24 Apr 2002, Hong-Gunn Chew wrote:

> I have a repeatable problem when running VMware workstation 3.00 and
> 3.01.  The cause is still unknown, and could be VMware itself, the
> hardware or the kernel.

If you can reproduce it without VMware or with only the
open source part of VMware (ie without any of the binary
only parts) we might have a chance of debugging it.

If it only happens when you're using the binary only
parts of VMware you're probably better off talking to
the VMware people.

regards,

Rik
-- 
Bravely reimplemented by the knights who say "NIH".

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