[Fedora-xen] Formatting pauses during install

[Tarun Reddy]

On Jun 12, 2007, at 4:56 PM, Tom Horsley wrote:

> On Tue, 12 Jun 2007 12:16:44 -0600
> Tarun Reddy <treddy at rallydev.com> wrote:
>
>> I'm using Centos 5 dom0 on an x86_64 machine with 12GB of RAM.
>>
>> Tried to use virt-manager to install a Centos 4 domU (also tried with
>> Centos 5 domU) but the tool limits the disk to 16000 MB. So switch to
>> using virt-install and specified an 80GB disk. Everything proceed
>> well until "Formatting / file system" which stops at 11% (~8GB of the
>> 74GB / partition).
>
> Seems likely it might be the same bug as:
>
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=234160
>
> If you look at the VM you are trying to install in the virt-manager
> app, is it using as much CPU as it can get?
>
Thank you for the pointer! The load on the host shows 1 x number of  
guest hosts during those pauses. It did eventually finish the install  
but it took almost 2 hours with a local Centos mirror!

So looking at the bugzilla report, I noticed I didn't mention that I  
was using paravirtualized guest domains. Of course, the bug in  
bugzilla originally references fully virtualized guests. So, on a  
whim, I try a Centos 4.5 guest os fully virtualized. Apart from  
having to add noapic to my kernel boot line, it seems much more  
stable with no pauses at all. Go figure.

I was hoping to use a paravirtualized since I thought it might be  
faster.

Of course on a 32 bit Intel box (older Xeons), I have no issues with  
paravirtualized hosts, either Centos 5 or 4.5.

Baffled,
Tarun