Date: Fri, 9 Apr 2021 16:30:03 +1000 From: Peter Grehan <grehan@freebsd.org> To: Matt Churchyard <matt.home@userve.net> Cc: freebsd-virtualization@freebsd.org Subject: Re: bhyve current windows status Message-ID: <4d863f34-6df0-0b0a-f487-e492324e8752@freebsd.org> In-Reply-To: <7850c18aba62e6150f227f3c1168974c@userve.net> References: <7850c18aba62e6150f227f3c1168974c@userve.net>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Hi Matt,
> I'm after some general information on the current status/best practises
> for Windows on bhyve. Not entirely the correct place for this but then
> at the moment no-one else seems to really know the answers. Maybe I can
> help some of the other people who are just as unclear as me on what is
> actually the best information at this point.
This is as good a place as any.
> What are the current recommended devices/options for Windows (2019
> server in my case) - especially with ZFS. Should I be specifying a
> 512/4096 sector/block size via bhyve and/or zfs? I assume nvme &
> virtio-net are the current best options but is there a preferred virtio
> driver version. Are any of the other virtio drivers of any use to be
> installed or just the network drivers?
nvme - yes.
I'll leave the sector/block size issues to others. I don't touch any
of those params but don't use enough Windows apps to make a qualified call.
No need for other virtio drivers. For virtio-net, the recommendation
is to use the latest one.
> Are there any known problems with applications like AD/Exchange? I know
> that SQL 2012 had massive storage overhead issues on ZFS due to 512 byte
> writes, but I'm not sure if that still affects newer versions or other
> applications?
As above, I'll leave it up to others to chime in here.
> The system I am currently using is a Xeon E5-2670, which I know was
> terrible before the TPR commit. My test system seems to run reasonably
> on 12.2 (although I'd be intruiged to compare against ESXi if I had the
> time), but do you think I would expect to see any significant gains by
> using a CPU with APICv? (not that I expect anyone has done any
> benchmarking of this)
It's been a long while since I've benchmarked APICv, and have never
benched it on Windows, but my expectation is it won't make a lot of
difference unless you have a very i/o intensive workload.
> Are there any other changes in being worked on that are likely to have
> an impact on support or performance?
No. The main focus for Windows guests right now is GPU passthru.
> I believe quite a bit of work is
> being done on the UEFI firmware but I expect that doesn't really affect
> much other than the boot process. I'm sure I saw reference to the devs
> having regular bhyve calls, but I have little idea what is currently
> being worked on.
You can always ask here. For interactive response, there's the bhyve
office hours which you are most welcome to participate in:
https://wiki.freebsd.org/bhyve/OfficeHours
later,
Peter.
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?4d863f34-6df0-0b0a-f487-e492324e8752>