Fun with ones and zeros

KVM Networking

Still playing with KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine), this time checking out some networking features. I've been running Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Server (Hardy Heron), both as the host and as a VM on that host. Networking is setup to use a bridge.

KVM offers different emulated NICs, I took a quick look at running iperf between the VM and the host, and got these speeds for a few select NIC models:

  • RTL-8139C+ (the default): ~210 Mb/sec
  • Intel e1000 (somewhat recommended here): ~ 330Mb/sec
  • virtio: ~ 700Mb/sec

The thing about virtio though is that it doesn't work when the VMs RAM is set to 4GB. So I guess you can have fast networking, or lots of memory, but not both.

posted: Friday, 05 December 2008 09:16 | tags: kvm linux ubuntu

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