Re: Xen emulated network cards (was Re: FreeBSD HVM guests?)

[Thor Lancelot Simon <tls%rek.tjls.com@localhost>]

On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 09:37:13PM +0100, Stephen Borrill wrote:
> On Wed, 20 May 2009, Thor Lancelot Simon wrote:
>>
>> "pcnet" should work with our "pcn" or "le" drivers and "lance" should
>> work with our "le" driver.  I have noticed some problems with emulated
>> pcnet devices in the past, though.  The main advantage to using pcn
>> instead of le is a larger dma descriptor ring.
>
> I failed to say that I am using Windows Server 2003 in the domU.
>
> Looking through the hvm example doc and running strings on  
> /usr/pkg/libexec/qemu-dm shows the only valid options are ne2k_pci, pcnet 
> and rtl8139 with the latter being the default (not ne2k_pci as I'd  
> assumed from earlier in the thread).
>
> So rtl8139 is probably the best of the alternatives.

No.  Unless rtl8139 emulates an 8139C (unlikely at best) it, too, is a
PIO-only device.  Use pcnet.  At least you'll get DMA.