I have a Core 2 Quad with 8 GiB of RAM. When I installed FC7 (2.6.22.9-91.fc7), it only detected 4GiB (BIOS detects 8GiB). I added mem=8G to the kernel line in grub.conf, and then Gnome System Monitor showed 7.1GiB (vs I think 4.0). I then changed that to mem=16G, and the Gnome System Monitor shows 7.8 GiB. /proc/meminfo MemTotal shows 8201832kB, so that seems about right. That said, the problem seems to be solved for the kernel mentioned above. However, and this is why I am submitting this to the fedora-xen mailing list, the virtualization kernel (2.6.20-2936.fc7xen) shows 3.1GiB in Gnome System Monitor and 3214456KB in /proc/meminfo MemTotal. Additionally, "xm info" shows 3327 for total memory, so the problem isn't that it is there but not assigned to dom0. I tried the same thing with grub.conf for xen, but it did not work, mem=8G and mem=16G had no effect (this is shown to be a valid parameter in the Xen manual at [http://tx.downloads.xensource.com/downloads/docs/user/#SECTION0413000000000 0000000]). Since it didn't work on the kernel line, I tried it on the module (vmlinuz) line that has the other FC grub arguments, and that did not work either; then I tried placing that on both lines (also to no avail). I also tried dom0_mem=8G on the kernel line, and that caused a kernel panic stating not enough physical memory (got the same thing with dom0_mem=4G). Finally, as a side note, /proc/meminfo VmallocTotal shows 34359738367kB regardless of all of the above, and I don't know if that is normal or not (swap partition is 2GiB). Please let me know if you have fedora 7 x86_64 xen working with >4GB of memory, if there is any additional information that might be helpful, or if you have any suggestions I might try in order to resolve this. Thank you, Dustin
----- "Dustin Henning" Dustin.Henning@prd-inc.com wrote:
I have a Core 2 Quad with 8 GiB of RAM. When I installed FC7 (2.6.22.9-91.fc7), it only detected 4GiB (BIOS detects 8GiB). I added mem=8G to the kernel line in grub.conf, and then Gnome System Monitor showed 7.1GiB (vs I think 4.0). I then changed that to mem=16G, and the Gnome System Monitor shows 7.8 GiB. /proc/meminfo MemTotal shows 8201832kB, so that seems about right. That said, the problem seems to be solved for the kernel mentioned above. However, and this is why I am submitting this to the fedora-xen mailing list, the virtualization kernel (2.6.20-2936.fc7xen) shows 3.1GiB in Gnome System Monitor and 3214456KB in /proc/meminfo MemTotal. Additionally, "xm info" shows 3327 for total memory, so the problem isn't that it is there but not assigned to dom0. I tried the same thing with grub.conf for xen, but it did not work, mem=8G and mem=16G had no effect (this is shown to be a valid parameter in the Xen manual at [http://tx.downloads.xensource.com/downloads/docs/user/#SECTION0413000000000 0000000]). Since it didn't work on the kernel line, I tried it on the module (vmlinuz) line that has the other FC grub arguments, and that did not work either; then I tried placing that on both lines (also to no avail). I also tried dom0_mem=8G on the kernel line, and that caused a kernel panic stating not enough physical memory (got the same thing with dom0_mem=4G). Finally, as a side note, /proc/meminfo VmallocTotal shows 34359738367kB regardless of all of the above, and I don't know if that is normal or not (swap partition is 2GiB). Please let me know if you have fedora 7 x86_64 xen working with >4GB of memory, if there is any additional information that might be helpful, or if you have any suggestions I might try in order to resolve this. Thank you, Dustin
I have 4 procs with 16G RAM and no mem paramters in grub at all, and it looks like this:
Linux h 2.6.20-2931.fc7xen #1 SMP Mon Aug 13 10:11:56 EDT 2007 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
# grep 'model name' /proc/cpuinfo model name : AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 852 model name : AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 852 model name : AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 852 model name : AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 852
# grep Total /proc/meminfo MemTotal: 13335552 kB SwapTotal: 5261240 kB VmallocTotal: 34359738367 kB
# xm info |grep total total_memory : 16319
I have 3 domU's running with each allocated 1G, so 16-3=13 which I suppose explains the MemTotal line above from the perspective of dom0.
On an identical server running RHEL with no xen and I see something a bit different:
Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS release 4 (Nahant Update 5) Linux z 2.6.9-55.0.2.ELsmp #1 SMP Tue Jun 12 17:58:20 EDT 2007 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
# grep Total /proc/meminfo MemTotal: 16359284 kB HighTotal: 0 kB LowTotal: 16359284 kB SwapTotal: 5261240 kB VmallocTotal: 536870911 kB HugePages_Total: 0
Not sure if that was helpful. -- Dale Bewley - Unix Administrator - Shields Library - UC Davis GPG: 0xB098A0F3 0D5A 9AEB 43F4 F84C 7EFD 1753 064D 2583 B098 A0F3
-----Original Message----- From: fedora-xen-bounces@redhat.com [mailto:fedora-xen-bounces@redhat.com] On Behalf Of Dale Bewley Sent: Friday, October 19, 2007 11:46 To: fedora-xen Subject: Re: [Fedora-xen] 64-Bit RAM Detection >4GB?
I have 4 procs with 16G RAM and no mem paramters in grub at all, and it looks like this:
Linux h 2.6.20-2931.fc7xen #1 SMP Mon Aug 13 10:11:56 EDT 2007 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
# grep 'model name' /proc/cpuinfo model name : AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 852 model name : AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 852 model name : AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 852 model name : AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 852
# grep Total /proc/meminfo MemTotal: 13335552 kB SwapTotal: 5261240 kB VmallocTotal: 34359738367 kB
# xm info |grep total total_memory : 16319
I have 3 domU's running with each allocated 1G, so 16-3=13 which I suppose explains the MemTotal line above from the perspective of dom0.
On an identical server running RHEL with no xen and I see something a bit different:
Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS release 4 (Nahant Update 5) Linux z 2.6.9-55.0.2.ELsmp #1 SMP Tue Jun 12 17:58:20 EDT 2007 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
# grep Total /proc/meminfo MemTotal: 16359284 kB HighTotal: 0 kB LowTotal: 16359284 kB SwapTotal: 5261240 kB VmallocTotal: 536870911 kB HugePages_Total: 0
Not sure if that was helpful.
Dale Bewley - Unix Administrator - Shields Library - UC Davis GPG: 0xB098A0F3 0D5A 9AEB 43F4 F84C 7EFD 1753 064D 2583 B098 A0F3
Dale, That could be very helpful, or it might just get someone to blame Intel. Either way, thanks, now I at least know that it should work and I can try to determine why it isn't. As for the MemTotal, you are correct on why it is 13 instead of 16. However, if you shut down one of those domU's, the memory wouldn't necessarily be automatically re-assigned to dom0, and /proc/meminfo is based on what is assigned to dom0. I think "xm info" would be the correct way to see the detected memory in the system once domU's are created or if dom0 isn't assigned all memory. There may be other ways. Thanks, Dustin
-----Original Message----- From: fedora-xen-bounces@redhat.com [mailto:fedora-xen-bounces@redhat.com] On Behalf Of Dale Bewley Sent: Friday, October 19, 2007 11:46 To: fedora-xen Subject: Re: [Fedora-xen] 64-Bit RAM Detection >4GB?
I have 4 procs with 16G RAM and no mem paramters in grub at all, and it looks like this:
Linux h 2.6.20-2931.fc7xen #1 SMP Mon Aug 13 10:11:56 EDT 2007 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
# grep 'model name' /proc/cpuinfo model name : AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 852 model name : AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 852 model name : AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 852 model name : AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 852
# grep Total /proc/meminfo MemTotal: 13335552 kB SwapTotal: 5261240 kB VmallocTotal: 34359738367 kB
# xm info |grep total total_memory : 16319
I have 3 domU's running with each allocated 1G, so 16-3=13 which I suppose explains the MemTotal line above from the perspective of dom0.
On an identical server running RHEL with no xen and I see something a bit different:
Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS release 4 (Nahant Update 5) Linux z 2.6.9-55.0.2.ELsmp #1 SMP Tue Jun 12 17:58:20 EDT 2007 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
# grep Total /proc/meminfo MemTotal: 16359284 kB HighTotal: 0 kB LowTotal: 16359284 kB SwapTotal: 5261240 kB VmallocTotal: 536870911 kB HugePages_Total: 0
Not sure if that was helpful.
Dale Bewley - Unix Administrator - Shields Library - UC Davis GPG: 0xB098A0F3 0D5A 9AEB 43F4 F84C 7EFD 1753 064D 2583 B098 A0F3
Dale, Could you tell me if you passed any arguments to the installer during your initial install? Also, can you show me the appropriate portion of your grub.conf? I would like to see if maybe it is different than mine even though they are both pre-packaged installs. I had a machine with 2.6.20-2931.fc7xen, so I copied that to the machine in question, and it also only shows 3.1GiB for me. I compared the config files for that kernel and the one I was using, and they are identical (minus version and date comment lines), so that was as I expected, but it makes it less likely that my problem is a version problem and more likely that something else is haywire. Thanks, Dustin
On Fri, 2007-10-19 at 13:34 -0400, Dustin Henning wrote:
-----Original Message----- From: fedora-xen-bounces@redhat.com [mailto:fedora-xen-bounces@redhat.com] On Behalf Of Dale Bewley Sent: Friday, October 19, 2007 11:46 To: fedora-xen Subject: Re: [Fedora-xen] 64-Bit RAM Detection >4GB?
I have 4 procs with 16G RAM and no mem paramters in grub at all, and it looks like this:
Linux h 2.6.20-2931.fc7xen #1 SMP Mon Aug 13 10:11:56 EDT 2007 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
# grep 'model name' /proc/cpuinfo model name : AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 852 model name : AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 852 model name : AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 852 model name : AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 852
# grep Total /proc/meminfo MemTotal: 13335552 kB SwapTotal: 5261240 kB VmallocTotal: 34359738367 kB
# xm info |grep total total_memory : 16319
I have 3 domU's running with each allocated 1G, so 16-3=13 which I suppose explains the MemTotal line above from the perspective of dom0.
On an identical server running RHEL with no xen and I see something a bit different:
Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS release 4 (Nahant Update 5) Linux z 2.6.9-55.0.2.ELsmp #1 SMP Tue Jun 12 17:58:20 EDT 2007 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
# grep Total /proc/meminfo MemTotal: 16359284 kB HighTotal: 0 kB LowTotal: 16359284 kB SwapTotal: 5261240 kB VmallocTotal: 536870911 kB HugePages_Total: 0
Not sure if that was helpful.
Dale Bewley - Unix Administrator - Shields Library - UC Davis GPG: 0xB098A0F3 0D5A 9AEB 43F4 F84C 7EFD 1753 064D 2583 B098 A0F3
Dale, Could you tell me if you passed any arguments to the installer during your initial install? Also, can you show me the appropriate portion of your grub.conf? I would like to see if maybe it is different than mine even though they are both pre-packaged installs. I had a machine with 2.6.20-2931.fc7xen, so I copied that to the machine in question, and it also only shows 3.1GiB for me. I compared the config files for that kernel and the one I was using, and they are identical (minus version and date comment lines), so that was as I expected, but it makes it less likely that my problem is a version problem and more likely that something else is haywire. Thanks, Dustin
My install command line was: ksdevice=eth0 console=tty0 console=ttyS0,9600 load_ramdisk=1 initrd=f7/x86_64/initrd.img network ks=http://ks/ks-f7-v40z.cfg kssendmac BOOT_IMAGE=f7/x86_64/vmlinuz
My grub entry for the currently running kernel is: title Fedora (2.6.20-2931.fc7xen) root (hd0,0) kernel /xen.gz-2.6.20-2931.fc7 com1=9600 module /vmlinuz-2.6.20-2931.fc7xen ro root=/dev/VGRAID/LVRoot console=ttyS0,9600 module /initrd-2.6.20-2931.fc7xen.img
My messy KS and KS post script is attached.
During install, I did hit a bug https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=242107 that I had to work around by running mkinitrd before I rebooted. If I didn't I would be missing the RAID1 module and fail to boot, but that's not related to the memory issue.
The grub installed with Fedora has a bug that causes xen (and sometimes other kernels) to detect the memory wrong. Bug URLs follow: xen-users mailing list archive: [url]http://lists.xensource.com/archives/html/xen-users/2007-08/msg00028.htm l[/url] Bugzilla: [url]https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=250299%5B/url]
Theoretically, it could be argued that the BIOS is the problem and not grub, I mean, it sounds like Dale's machine was functional without this patch, and MSI isn't exactly a Linux Player. Either way, the patch suggested in those two locations resolved my issue.
-----Original Message----- From: fedora-xen-bounces@redhat.com [mailto:fedora-xen-bounces@redhat.com] On Behalf Of Dustin Henning Sent: Thursday, October 18, 2007 16:00 To: fedora-xen@redhat.com Subject: [Fedora-xen] 64-Bit RAM Detection >4GB?
I have a Core 2 Quad with 8 GiB of RAM. When I installed FC7 (2.6.22.9-91.fc7), it only detected 4GiB (BIOS detects 8GiB). I added mem=8G to the kernel line in grub.conf, and then Gnome System Monitor showed 7.1GiB (vs I think 4.0). I then changed that to mem=16G, and the Gnome System Monitor shows 7.8 GiB. /proc/meminfo MemTotal shows 8201832kB, so that seems about right. That said, the problem seems to be solved for the kernel mentioned above. However, and this is why I am submitting this to the fedora-xen mailing list, the virtualization kernel (2.6.20-2936.fc7xen) shows 3.1GiB in Gnome System Monitor and 3214456KB in /proc/meminfo MemTotal. Additionally, "xm info" shows 3327 for total memory, so the problem isn't that it is there but not assigned to dom0. I tried the same thing with grub.conf for xen, but it did not work, mem=8G and mem=16G had no effect (this is shown to be a valid parameter in the Xen manual at [http://tx.downloads.xensource.com/downloads/docs/user/#SECTION0413000000000 0000000]). Since it didn't work on the kernel line, I tried it on the module (vmlinuz) line that has the other FC grub arguments, and that did not work either; then I tried placing that on both lines (also to no avail). I also tried dom0_mem=8G on the kernel line, and that caused a kernel panic stating not enough physical memory (got the same thing with dom0_mem=4G). Finally, as a side note, /proc/meminfo VmallocTotal shows 34359738367kB regardless of all of the above, and I don't know if that is normal or not (swap partition is 2GiB). Please let me know if you have fedora 7 x86_64 xen working with >4GB of memory, if there is any additional information that might be helpful, or if you have any suggestions I might try in order to resolve this. Thank you, Dustin
Dustin Henning wrote:
The grub installed with Fedora has a bug that causes xen (and sometimes other kernels) to detect the memory wrong. Bug URLs follow: xen-users mailing list archive: [url]http://lists.xensource.com/archives/html/xen-users/2007-08/msg00028.htm l[/url] Bugzilla: [url]https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=250299%5B/url]
Theoretically, it could be argued that the BIOS is the problem and not grub, I mean, it sounds like Dale's machine was functional without this patch, and MSI isn't exactly a Linux Player. Either way, the patch suggested in those two locations resolved my issue.
Thanks for investigating this and posting the follow-up. I did read your original report, but had no idea how to help.
Rich.
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Dale Bewley -
Dustin Henning -
Richard W.M. Jones