RHEL 6 Virtualization, Paravirtualization

Paravirtualization is a big deal. It is avoided by VMware, is alchemy in Citrix Xen, and is cryptically alluded to in RHEL 6. Yet, for those of us that are almost exclusively Linux, the performance and density advantages are huge. Even Windows XP performance is noticeably improved running "para-virt". (As for Vista and Win7... they're both hogs, no matter what.)

In ten words or less, paravirtualization improves performance by loading a version of the operating system optimized for the host's hypervisor.

In the RHEL 6 Virtualization guide Chapter 8, they state that para-virt does not work with KVM. This would imply that there is no way to optimize a RHEL 6 VM on the RHEL 6 platform. Given that, why not just run VMware?

Yet in Chapter 11, they mention that para-virt drivers are automatically loaded and installed for RHEL 6 VMs and Linux VMs based on the 2.6.27 or newer kernel.

So... Which is it... Para-virt yes or para-virt no?

Survey says: Kernel no, drivers yes. But, of course, there's a catch.

Once the VM is installed and running, execute an lsmod | grep virtio. Look at the last line. The items at the right of the numbers will indicate which para-virt drivers are used. You want four of them, but may only have three. Depending on how the VM accesses the outside network, the virtio_net driver may be missing.

To enable virtio_net, a specific sequence of events must be followed:

1. Power off the VM
2. From virt-manager, Open the VM
3. Select View and Details
4. Select NIC
5. Change Device model to "vrtio"
6. Apply, exit, and Run the VM

Upon boot, the virtio_net driver should be listed.

Call it a bug, but if you try this with the VM powered on, it will claim to work, but will not.

As for performance without a para-virt kernel, I am still a little skeptical.