From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Oct 3 20:06:20 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5D42F16A403 for ; Tue, 3 Oct 2006 20:06:20 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from lists@jnielsen.net) Received: from ns1.jnielsen.net (ns1.jnielsen.net [69.55.238.237]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DFDBB43D5C for ; Tue, 3 Oct 2006 20:06:16 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from lists@jnielsen.net) Received: from localhost (jn@ns1 [69.55.238.237]) (authenticated bits=0) by ns1.jnielsen.net (8.12.9p2/8.12.9) with ESMTP id k93K6ECJ041816; Tue, 3 Oct 2006 13:06:16 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from lists@jnielsen.net) From: John Nielsen To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2006 16:05:53 -0400 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.4 References: <4522969F.9010504@seamanpaper.com> In-Reply-To: <4522969F.9010504@seamanpaper.com> X-Face: #X5#Y*q>F:]zT!DegL3z5Xo'^MN[$8k\[4^3rN~wm=s=Uw(sW}R?3b^*f1Wu*.<=?utf-8?q?of=5F4NrS=0A=09P*M/9CpxDo!D6?=)IY1w<9B1jB; tBQf[RU-R<,I)e"$q7N7 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200610031605.54121.lists@jnielsen.net> X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV version 0.88.4, clamav-milter version 0.88.4 on ns1.jnielsen.net X-Virus-Status: Clean Cc: Jeff Dickens Subject: Re: optimal kernel options for VMWARE guest system X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2006 20:06:20 -0000 On Tuesday 03 October 2006 12:58, Jeff Dickens wrote: > I have some Freebsd systems that are running as VMware guests. I'd like > to configure their kernels so as to minimize the overhead on the VMware > host system. After reading and partially digesting the white paper on > timekeeping in VMware virtual machines > (http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vmware_timekeeping.pdf) it appears that I > might want to make some changes. > > Has anyone addressed this issue? I haven't read the white paper (yet; thanks for the link), but I've had good results with recent -STABLE VM's running under ESX server 3. Some thoughts: As I do on most of my installs, I trimmed down GENERIC to include just the drivers I use. In this case that was mpt for the disk and le for the network (although I suspect forcing the VM to present e1000 hardware and then using the em driver would work as well if not better). The VMware tools package that comes with ESX server does a poor job of getting itself to run, but it can be made to work without too much difficulty. Don't use the port, run the included install script to install the files, ignore the custom network driver and compile the memory management module from source (included). If using X.org, use the built-in vmware display driver, and copy the vmmouse driver .o file from the VMware tools dist to the appropriate dir under /usr/X11. Even though the included file is for X.org 6.8, it works fine with 6.9/7.0 (X.org 7.1 should include the vmmouse driver.) Run the VMware tools config script from a non-X terminal (and you can ignore the warning about running it remotely if you're using SSH), so it won't mess with your X display (it doesn't do anything not accomplished above). Then run the rc.d script to start the VMware tools. I haven't noticed any timekeeping issues so far. JN