On Fri, Jun 29, 2012 at 11:52 PM, Michael Eager <eager@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On 06/28/2012 06:33 PM, Ted Miller wrote:
> > On 06/28/2012 12:45 PM, Michael Eager wrote:
> >> Hi --
> >>
> >> I have a server running CentOS 5.8. It has a 6-core AMD processor,
> >> 16Gb memory, and a RAID 5 file system. It serves as both a file server
> >> and to run several VMware virtual machines. The guest machines run
> >> Windows 7 and various versions of Linux.
> >>
> >> The system is running the latest version of VMware Workstation.
> >> Until recently, I started VMs using the VMware Workstation GUI.
> >> The system has been very stable and seldom crashes.
> >>
> >> Recently, I set up an init script to start several VMs at boot
> >> time using the vmrun command. This appeared to work correctly,
> >> but the system has become unstable, freezing at various times.
> >> When the system freezes, there is no console response and it
> >> does not respond to a ping. There is nothing in syslog to
> >> indicate any error.
> >>
> >> The script started 8 VMs. I've cut back to now running 4 VMs
> >> and the system appears stable.
> >>
> >> Is there some relation between the number of cores and the number
> >> of VMs one can run?
> >>
> >> Is there something else which might cause the system to crash
> >> when running multiple VMs?
> >>
> >> Any suggestions to identify why the system crashed?
> >>
> > Are you staggering the startups of the VMs? The server may be choking
> > trying to boot 8 machines at once. I suggest starting a VM every 30-60
> > seconds, so that you aren't trying to boot all 8 at once. Don't know if
> it
> > will help, but it might.
>
> The crashs happen long after boot time when all of the VMs are running.
>
> (Actually, startup goes very smoothly, with the VMs starting in parallel
> in the background while system boot completes.)
>
> So, the VM's are starting their boot process while the host system is
still starting it's boot process? You might want to make sure your host
system is finished it's boot process before any of the VM's want to try and
start. I know you did say it's after they all boot that the issue begins,
but I guess it's best to be safe than sorry just in case there's something
that hasn't been started that's needed by the VM's.
How long do they stay up for?
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