After having installed Windows 2003 Enterprise Server in a Sun xVM (Xen 3.4.2-rc1-pre-xvm)-Environment, performance was slow due to qemu-dm's tremendous task to emulate ATA/IDE disk access and the Realtek 8139 network chipset.
Xen Block and network drivers however for Windows seemed to exist only in commercial binary-only form supplied from some of the Xen vendors. After googling around, I found the Xen Wiki which included an article about GPL PV drivers for Windows:
http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/XenWindowsGplPv
Inside this article there is a link where these drivers can be downloaded in binary form:
http://www.meadowcourt.org/downloads/
For Windows 2003 Server the driver binary Microsoft Installer Archive (msi) is "wnet".
For my 3.4.2-xen-Setp (Sun xVM with OpenSolaris snv_121 as Dom0) I had to use gplpv_fre_wnet_x86_0.10.0.98-dontuse.msi. The other two versions did not work (resulting in a bluescreening windows...). I did not take "dontuse" literally...
Xen Block and network drivers however for Windows seemed to exist only in commercial binary-only form supplied from some of the Xen vendors. After googling around, I found the Xen Wiki which included an article about GPL PV drivers for Windows:
http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/XenWindowsGplPv
Inside this article there is a link where these drivers can be downloaded in binary form:
http://www.meadowcourt.org/downloads/
For Windows 2003 Server the driver binary Microsoft Installer Archive (msi) is "wnet".
For my 3.4.2-xen-Setp (Sun xVM with OpenSolaris snv_121 as Dom0) I had to use gplpv_fre_wnet_x86_0.10.0.98-dontuse.msi. The other two versions did not work (resulting in a bluescreening windows...). I did not take "dontuse" literally...
After doubleclicking on the msi file downloaded before and waiting some minutes to have all the drivers installed, the system will recognize "new hardware" and each time a driver wizard tries to search for the right driver.
As the drivers are not signed for the Microsoft Windows Logo you have to accept the driver installation by clicking on "Continuing anyway".
The same behaviour is occuring when the virtual Xen networks card is installed.
Be careful: You'll lose your rtl8139-network configuration and by configuring the new xen network card (after reboot) the system will warn you about entering the same IP address configuration as seen with your rtl8139 network card (which will not be seen anymore, thanks to the xenhide-pseudo-device driver). That's not a problem as these two network interfaces will never be seen normally together.
As the drivers are not signed for the Microsoft Windows Logo you have to accept the driver installation by clicking on "Continuing anyway".
The same behaviour is occuring when the virtual Xen networks card is installed.
Be careful: You'll lose your rtl8139-network configuration and by configuring the new xen network card (after reboot) the system will warn you about entering the same IP address configuration as seen with your rtl8139 network card (which will not be seen anymore, thanks to the xenhide-pseudo-device driver). That's not a problem as these two network interfaces will never be seen normally together.
After installation of all "newly found hardware" the system wans to reboot and the speedup is already noticeable on boot.
The Windows logon screen appears much faster on the VNC network connection.
Performance boosted with these drivers, and there is no more CPU-bound "qemu-dm".
System overhead became very low. Below there are two screenshots showing you the output of "xentop" (not much CPU activity for three idling machines) and the Device Manager Overview of Windows 2003.
snv_121's memstat has included support for Xen's balloon memory driver allocations:
The Windows logon screen appears much faster on the VNC network connection.
Performance boosted with these drivers, and there is no more CPU-bound "qemu-dm".
System overhead became very low. Below there are two screenshots showing you the output of "xentop" (not much CPU activity for three idling machines) and the Device Manager Overview of Windows 2003.
snv_121's memstat has included support for Xen's balloon memory driver allocations:
pascal@pgt01:~# mdb -k
Loading modules: [ unix genunix specfs dtrace mac xpv_uppc xpv_psm scsi_vhci zfs mpt sd sockfs ip hook neti sctp arp usba fctl lofs fcip md random crypto logindmux ptm ufs sppp nfs ipc ]
> ::memstat
Page Summary Pages MB %Tot
------------ ---------------- ---------------- ----
Kernel 237471 927 12%
ZFS File Data 572808 2237 28%
Anon 34190 133 2%
Exec and libs 1402 5 0%
Page cache 13082 51 1%
Free (cachelist) 55962 218 3%
Free (freelist) 226332 884 11%
Balloon 895580 3498 44%
Total 2036827 7956
> 
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