Re: [Xen-users] HD timeouts with busy xen domains

[Itai Tavor <itai@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 12/05/2006, at 3:09 AM, Stefan Kaltenbrunner wrote:

> Itai Tavor wrote:
> > On 11/05/2006, at 5:22 PM, Rick van der LInde wrote:
> >
> > > Itai Tavor wrote:
> > >
> > > > Hi,
> > > >
> > > > Now that I've got that 3-day-long, let's-waste-some-time-with-a-
> > > > broken-dom0 episode, I can get back to the real problems that are
> > > > preventing me from getting any use out of my Xen-based server.
> > > >
> > > > What is happening, basically, is that as soon as some guest   
> > > > domains
> > > > get busy, the hard disks go south for the winter.
> > > >
> > > > I know this is not really a Xen issue (at least not directly) but
> > > > as  the problem only happens in a Xen setup, I thought I'd try to
> > > > ask  about it here.
> > > >
> > > > The server has four SATA hard disks. It has worked with the same
> > > > hardware setup for many months, with processor- and disk- intensive
> > > > applications, with no problems. Now, I can start dom0  and guest
> > > > domains with no problem, and they run fine as long as  they don't
> > > > try  to do a lot. But as soon as they get busy - say,  compiling
> > > > something  - the console shows an endless stream of:
> > > >
> > > > ata1: command 0x35 timeout, stat 0x50 host_stat 0x64
> > > > ata2: command 0x25 timeout, stat 0x50 host_stat 0x64
> > > > ata4: command 0x35 timeout, stat 0x50 host_stat 0x4
> > > >
> > > > And the system stops responding, until I reset the server or throw
> > > > it  out the window (well, not yet, but it's coming).
> > > >
> > > > I've seen posts saying that these errors are related to APIC, so  I
> > > > tried adding "noapic acpi=off" to the dom0 kernel command line.  No
> > > > change.
> > > >
> > > > If anyone's wondering why ata3 isn't in the list... it's a
> > > > different  drive - a 250GB WD while 1, 2 and 4 are 400GB Seagates.
> > > > Interesting?
> > > >
> > > > Any ideas/suggestions?
> FWIW - I'm seeing the same issue (DMA timeouts under moderate IO  
> loads -
> like building a kernel) here on both ICH7 and IT8212 controller IDE
> disks on xen 3.0.2 and unstable.
> This issue makes Xen rather unusable for me and is not reproducable
> without xen either ...
>
> Stefan
This can only be described as good news of the bad kind.

Anyway... I'm upgrading the server mobo and CPU today, I'll know soon  
if the problem carries over to the new setup. If I'm lucky, we'll be  
able to forget about it until the next unlucky user hits it.
Itai

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