[win-pv-devel] Windows PV 8.2.2 and development build

[Dominic Russell]

Hello,

I've tried the Windows PV 8.2.2 on few virtual computers and the latest development build on a virtual Windows 10 1803.

For 8.2.2, on one Windows 7, the network card does not start on a reboot, but if I simply deactivate and reactive it (by connecting through VNC), it initiates properly and starts working again. Any way to fix this?

On the latest development build, there is one peripheral with no drivers, I've installed all drivers found on the FTP site. Also the keyboard is not responsive in VNC with those drivers. I installed 8.2.2 on that virtual Windows 10, it works well except when I start BitTorrent, it makes Windows crash after few minutes. If I remove the network card driver, and configure the virtual computer to use ioemu, BitTorrent works flawlessly. Any way to fix this also?

Best regards,
Dominic Russell
MSI Bureautique inc.

[Paul Durrant]

-----Original Message-----
Behalf Of Dominic Russell
Sent: 21 September 2018 20:39
Subject: [win-pv-devel] Windows PV 8.2.2 and development build
Hello,
I've tried the Windows PV 8.2.2 on few virtual computers and the latest
development build on a virtual Windows 10 1803.
For 8.2.2, on one Windows 7, the network card does not start on a reboot,
but if I simply deactivate and reactive it (by connecting through VNC), it
initiates properly and starts working again. Any way to fix this?

Hi Dominic,

Could you provide the QEMU log for your VM? The PV drivers emit log messages via an I/O port that is emulated by QEMU. These messages will probably shed light on the failure you're seeing.
Without any such info. my guess would be that your VM is being starved of grant references by the storage stack (which starts earlier than the network stack). After boot, when the storage stack becomes less chatty, it frees some references up and hence the network driver has enough to start up. You may still see problems after this though. Try increasing the number of grant frames from the default 32... I typically run with 128.

On the latest development build, there is one peripheral with no drivers,
I've installed all drivers found on the FTP site.

Which URL? It appears that https://xenproject.org/downloads/windows-pv-drivers/development-builds.html is indeed out-of-date as it only lists the original 5 drivers. If you go directly to http://xenbits.xen.org/pvdrivers/win though, you should see all 8.

Also the keyboard is not responsive in VNC with those drivers.

You may need a newer version of QEMU. Support for PV HID in Windows is reliant on some fairly recent fixes. Which version of QEMU are you using?

I installed 8.2.2 on that
virtual Windows 10, it works well except when I start BitTorrent, it makes
Windows crash after few minutes. If I remove the network card driver, and
configure the virtual computer to use ioemu, BitTorrent works flawlessly.
Any way to fix this also?

Could you give me detail of the exact test you ran and what the BSOD code was? Again, it could be a problem of grant reference starvation so please increase the number of grant frames and test again first.

Cheers,

Paul