Give hugepage memory for guests in KVM virtualization

[root@humbles-lap qemu_upstream]# cat /proc/meminfo |grep -i huge

AnonHugePages:    434176 kB

HugePages_Total:       0

HugePages_Free:        0

HugePages_Rsvd:        0

HugePages_Surp:        0

Hugepagesize:       2048 kB  ======; 2M

[root@humbles-lap qemu_upstream]#

[root@humbles-lap qemu_upstream]# sysctl -a |grep -i huge

vm.nr_hugepages = 0

vm.nr_hugepages_mempolicy = 0

vm.hugetlb_shm_group = 0

vm.hugepages_treat_as_movable = 0

vm.nr_overcommit_hugepages = 0

My guest have '512M' of memory , so I decided to give <strong>"256" ( total 256*2M=512) as the number of hugepages

[root@humbles-lap qemu_upstream]# sysctl vm.nr_hugepages=256

vm.nr_hugepages = 256

[root@humbles-lap qemu_upstream]#

[root@humbles-lap qemu_upstream]# sysctl -a |grep -i huge

vm.nr_hugepages = 256

vm.nr_hugepages_mempolicy = 256

vm.hugetlb_shm_group = 0

vm.hugepages_treat_as_movable = 0

vm.nr_overcommit_hugepages = 0

[root@humbles-lap qemu_upstream]#

So, hugepage assignment reflected here:

[root@humbles-lap qemu_upstream]# cat /proc/meminfo |grep -i huge

AnonHugePages:    450560 kB

HugePages_Total:     256

HugePages_Free:      256

HugePages_Rsvd:        0

HugePages_Surp:        0

Hugepagesize:       2048 kB

[root@humbles-lap qemu_upstream]#

Once you assigned hugepages, you need to restart 'libvirtd" service...

[root@humbles-lap hpages]# service libvirtd restart

Stopping libvirtd daemon:                                  [  OK  ]

Starting libvirtd daemon:                                  [  OK  ]

[root@humbles-lap hpages]#

Check mount point for 'existence' of a directory as shown below:

[root@humbles-lap qemu_upstream]# cd /dev/hpages/

[root@humbles-lap hpages]# ls

libvirt

[root@humbles-lap hpages]# cd libvirt/

[root@humbles-lap libvirt]# ls

qemu

[root@humbles-lap libvirt]# cd qemu/

[root@humbles-lap qemu]# ls

[root@humbles-lap qemu]#

With the current configuration, I have NOT specified to have 'hugepage' backed memory for my guest..

[root@humbles-lap qemu_upstream]# cat /etc/libvirt/qemu/rhel5.4-x86_64-kvm.xml |grep -i memory

memory;524288/memory;

currentMemory;524288/currentMemory;

[root@humbles-lap qemu_upstream]#

I edited my guest xml configuration to say, this guest memory is backed with "HUGEPAGES"..

[root@humbles-lap qemu_upstream]# cat /etc/libvirt/qemu/rhel5.4-x86_64-kvm.xml|grep -i memory -A 2

memory;524288/memory;

currentMemory;524288/currentMemory;

;memoryBacking;

    hugepages/;

  /memoryBacking;

vcpu;2/vcpu;

os;

[root@humbles-lap qemu_upstream]#

Started guest:

[root@humbles-lap qemu_upstream]# virsh create /etc/libvirt/qemu/rhel5.4-x86_64-kvm.xml

Domain rhel5.4-x86_64-kvm created from /etc/libvirt/qemu/rhel5.4-x86_64-kvm.xml

[root@humbles-lap qemu_upstream]# virsh list

Id Name                 State

----------------------------------

1 rhel5.4-x86_64-kvm   running

[root@humbles-lap qemu_upstream]#

Now, check 'meminfo' in HOST system to know whether "HUGEPAGES" are used with GUESTS..

[root@humbles-lap qemu_upstream]# cat /proc/meminfo |grep -i huge

AnonHugePages:    483328 kB

HugePages_Total:     256

HugePages_Free:        0

HugePages_Rsvd:        0

HugePages_Surp:        0

Hugepagesize:       2048 kB

[root@humbles-lap qemu_upstream]#