Warning to VMWare SMP users

Berserker · 28 Mar 2008 at 09:59

Just thought I'd better post a warning about a problem I've seen on most/all of my VMs...

It looks like a new core - fahcore_a2 - has recently been posted which isn't quite so memory friendly. I've had several workunits crash with out of memory errors as I use quite a tight memory/disk space configuration on all my VMWare installs.

It's a bit of a quandry this one for me. Do I go around and reconfigure all my VMs with more swap space and risk workunits thrashing (configuring more RAM isn't an option), or leave it as is and let them get killed for not honouring the memory limits I've set (which admittedly are probably borderline)?

PS - I'm certainly not the only one to have hit this problem.

Berserker · 28 Mar 2008 at 10:29

Ubuntu, and pretty low (~400MB) to stop it thrashing it's head off.

Apparently fahcore_a2 needs about 800MB, though there are reports of them blowing up with 1GB RAM.

That means that at least in theory one should be OK for me, but I'm set up to run two as that's how a1 work runs best.

Net result - lots of people who have relied on all this lovely a1 work are going to take a PPD hit with a2, or have to spend money on 4GB RAM.

Berserker · 28 Mar 2008 at 12:00

One other warning - I suspect a2 work doesn't checkpoint properly. I've lost a few of them on reboots.

Berserker · 31 Mar 2008 at 22:25

I'm presently rebuilding all my VMs using Ubuntu Hardy Heron (previously I had a mix of Gutsy Gibbon and Edgy Eft VMs with various configurations). Done one so far and it's gone well.

The other change I'm making is to configure each VM with two disks - one for the OS and folding, and the other for swap. This means I'll be able to dynamically adjust the swap size without an OS rebuild.

Going to knacker my output for a few days while I do it as I'm letting each VM run dry and then replacing it when I have the time (which may be several days later). As a result, ms9cw got away.

Also looking at how much 4GB for my media PC will cost, then I'll move the 2GB from there to my server (in the hope that it'll not break the overclock on that).