MediaPortal TVService on virtualized Windows XP

cPH · 2007-04-23, 21:31

I am planning to build a very special TVE3 server. Hardware is a ASUS A8N-VM CSM with an Athlon 64 CPU, plenty of memory and currently 4x 250GB HDD as RAID 0+1.
My vision is to setup this single machine with several operating systems in virtual machines. In particular I think of installing Linux as host OS, very likely openSuse 10.2 with Xen virtualization. Based on this host OS, several guest operating systems should be installed (among others Windows Server 2003 as DC and filer for my recordings). One of these machines should be a dedicated Windows XP machine with TVService.
This virtual machine should finally be assigned following hardware:

2 Mantis 2033 DVB-c cards (PCI)
1 FloppyDTV C/CI DVB-c (Firewire)

I read it should be possible to assign physical hardware directly to virtual machines which should make this possible.
Therefore, I already have two pending questions:

I should be able configuring host und guest OS for bypassing my physical hardware. Assigning PCI hardware should not be any problem. I am more afraid of assigning Firewire hardware as I cannot assign a physical firewire controller to the guest WinXP.
MediaPortal is using DirectX 9.0c. Could it be possible to arise any issues as virtual machines are not capable of DirectX. Nevertheless, it should not be needed as this virtual machine only should make the TVService available to network clients

It would be nice if there is anybody with virtualization (advanced) experience. Thanks in advance,
Christoph

stoked · 2008-04-16, 12:01

Did you ever get this working? I'm curious if Xen can allow a Windows guest to have native access to PCI devices. If so, then I will attempt to go this route as I'd prefer to use a linux OS as a server.

c.emsenhuber · 2008-04-16, 13:46

A long time ago, I heard you can pass by any PCI device through Xen. You only have to identify your PCI device (lspci -vn I guess).
Anyway, in the meantime I bought an Vantage DVB-S receiver and don't use MediaPortal anymore

. Of course, I regularly miss MediaPortal. By now I have not ever tried Xen virtualisation. Kind regards and good luck!

deebo · 2008-04-16, 15:15

i tried running a virtualized tve3 win xp via linux 2.6.xx and vmware

every time i tried scanning a channel the vm bluescreened

stoked · 2008-04-16, 19:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by deebo

i tried running a virtualized tve3 win xp via linux 2.6.xx and vmware

every time i tried scanning a channel the vm bluescreened

Were you using a a PCI DVB card? I read that people have it running fine under VMware when using a USB DVB, but I have 2 PCI DVB cards.

deebo · 2008-04-16, 19:48

i was using a usb dual tuner (terratec cinergy)

stoked · 2008-04-23, 23:03

I may pick up a Intel VT-d motherboard to allow me to give direct access to a guest Windows OS via Xen. I hope it works, my reasoning is I'd like to run linux software RAID5 with LVM for my media storage, which would also allow for me to run Mediaportal clients diskless with AoE. The only reason to have Winblows on my server is TVServer...

stoked · 2008-05-17, 12:59

Got TVServer running using an Intel VT-d mobo and Xen. Took me forever, went through several distros and almost 2 full days. See the linux thread, I may post a how-to if people are interested.

Diggen · 2008-05-18, 12:44

It would be nice if you can post some short informations of how you did it.
Especially your hardware configuration, Vt-d enabled board, Processor, RAM, ... But also which Distribution and Xen version.

I had tought about the same but have a time and money problem

At the moment 2 Servers gets dusty here, one fore MP, one for Router/NAS/others.
The second server is already virtualized with Vmware. Xen gave me headache because of the Software installation

stoked · 2008-05-18, 20:44

OK, my server config is the following:
Asus P5E-VM DO (Intel Q35 chipset - Q35 not P35/G35) See the Xen VT-d Wiki for VT-d enabled chipsets. Buying the chipset doesn't automatically mean it supports VT-d it MUST be enabled in the bios. From my research only the Intel Q35DMCH and Asus P5E-VM Q35 boards have functioning VT-d which are inexpensive mobos compared to the X38/X48. I chose the Asus because it had 2 PCI slots ie. more DVB card space.
Q6600 quad core CPU (picked up a used for for fairly cheap)
2GB RAM (will add more)
3 x 750GB Hitachi 7K1000 HD's in linux software RAID5 using mdadm and LVM.
Intel Pro 1000 Gigabit PCIe NIC

I don't recommend attempting this for linux newbies, you should probably have at least a mediocre knowledge of linux. Xen currently officially only supports kernel 2.6.18, and while most distributions have forward patched Xen to support their distro's kernel, I don't recommend trying anything but a distro with a 2.6.18 kernel. I ended up with CentOS 5.1, do not use the Xen that ships with the installer, I tried it and it messed up my compiling from source. So install CentOS without Xen, install mercurial from rpmforge, and download the Xen source from mercurial. compile it (make sure you read the installation notes and grab ALL the dependencies, the Makefile won't complain that you don't have them until after 15-20min of compiling). Follow the above wiki that I linked. What messed me up was the wiki was missing the vtd=1 flag in the grub kernel line. After I put that in, xm dmesg states "Intel VT-d enabled".

Anyways that's off the top of my head. There's a guy working on GPL PV drivers for Windows DomU's but they are extremely beta. I managed to get good gigabit TCP performance, but UDP performance outbound is poor for some reason. However, it's good enough to stream TV.

2007-04-23, 21:31	#1 (permalink)
cPH Portal Member Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Linz Age: 30 Posts: 23 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts Country: My System	MediaPortal TVService on virtualized Windows XP I am planning to build a very special TVE3 server. Hardware is a ASUS A8N-VM CSM with an Athlon 64 CPU, plenty of memory and currently 4x 250GB HDD as RAID 0+1. My vision is to setup this single machine with several operating systems in virtual machines. In particular I think of installing Linux as host OS, very likely openSuse 10.2 with Xen virtualization. Based on this host OS, several guest operating systems should be installed (among others Windows Server 2003 as DC and filer for my recordings). One of these machines should be a dedicated Windows XP machine with TVService. This virtual machine should finally be assigned following hardware: 2 Mantis 2033 DVB-c cards (PCI) 1 FloppyDTV C/CI DVB-c (Firewire) I read it should be possible to assign physical hardware directly to virtual machines which should make this possible. Therefore, I already have two pending questions: I should be able configuring host und guest OS for bypassing my physical hardware. Assigning PCI hardware should not be any problem. I am more afraid of assigning Firewire hardware as I cannot assign a physical firewire controller to the guest WinXP. MediaPortal is using DirectX 9.0c. Could it be possible to arise any issues as virtual machines are not capable of DirectX. Nevertheless, it should not be needed as this virtual machine only should make the TVService available to network clients It would be nice if there is anybody with virtualization (advanced) experience. Thanks in advance, Christoph

2008-04-16, 15:15	#4 (permalink)
deebo Portal Member Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 194 Thanks: 0 Thanked 2 Times in 2 Posts	i tried running a virtualized tve3 win xp via linux 2.6.xx and vmware every time i tried scanning a channel the vm bluescreened __________________ amd BE2350 / 2GB / 8500gt / terratec diversity / xp sp2

2008-04-16, 19:48	#6 (permalink)
deebo Portal Member Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 194 Thanks: 0 Thanked 2 Times in 2 Posts	i was using a usb dual tuner (terratec cinergy) __________________ amd BE2350 / 2GB / 8500gt / terratec diversity / xp sp2

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2008-04-16, 12:01	#2 (permalink)
stoked Portal Member Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 80 Thanks: 2 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts My System	Did you ever get this working? I'm curious if Xen can allow a Windows guest to have native access to PCI devices. If so, then I will attempt to go this route as I'd prefer to use a linux OS as a server.

2008-04-16, 13:46	#3 (permalink)
c.emsenhuber Portal User Join Date: Feb 2007 Posts: 1 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	A long time ago, I heard you can pass by any PCI device through Xen. You only have to identify your PCI device (lspci -vn I guess). Anyway, in the meantime I bought an Vantage DVB-S receiver and don't use MediaPortal anymore . Of course, I regularly miss MediaPortal. By now I have not ever tried Xen virtualisation. Kind regards and good luck!

2008-04-23, 23:03	#7 (permalink)
stoked Portal Member Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 80 Thanks: 2 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts My System	I may pick up a Intel VT-d motherboard to allow me to give direct access to a guest Windows OS via Xen. I hope it works, my reasoning is I'd like to run linux software RAID5 with LVM for my media storage, which would also allow for me to run Mediaportal clients diskless with AoE. The only reason to have Winblows on my server is TVServer...

2008-05-17, 12:59	#8 (permalink)
stoked Portal Member Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 80 Thanks: 2 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts My System	Got TVServer running using an Intel VT-d mobo and Xen. Took me forever, went through several distros and almost 2 full days. See the linux thread, I may post a how-to if people are interested.

2008-05-18, 12:44	#9 (permalink)
Diggen Portal Member Join Date: Apr 2007 Posts: 41 Thanks: 1 Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post Country: My System	It would be nice if you can post some short informations of how you did it. Especially your hardware configuration, Vt-d enabled board, Processor, RAM, ... But also which Distribution and Xen version. I had tought about the same but have a time and money problem At the moment 2 Servers gets dusty here, one fore MP, one for Router/NAS/others. The second server is already virtualized with Vmware. Xen gave me headache because of the Software installation

2008-05-18, 20:44	#10 (permalink)
stoked Portal Member Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 80 Thanks: 2 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts My System	OK, my server config is the following: Asus P5E-VM DO (Intel Q35 chipset - Q35 not P35/G35) See the Xen VT-d Wiki for VT-d enabled chipsets. Buying the chipset doesn't automatically mean it supports VT-d it MUST be enabled in the bios. From my research only the Intel Q35DMCH and Asus P5E-VM Q35 boards have functioning VT-d which are inexpensive mobos compared to the X38/X48. I chose the Asus because it had 2 PCI slots ie. more DVB card space. Q6600 quad core CPU (picked up a used for for fairly cheap) 2GB RAM (will add more) 3 x 750GB Hitachi 7K1000 HD's in linux software RAID5 using mdadm and LVM. Intel Pro 1000 Gigabit PCIe NIC I don't recommend attempting this for linux newbies, you should probably have at least a mediocre knowledge of linux. Xen currently officially only supports kernel 2.6.18, and while most distributions have forward patched Xen to support their distro's kernel, I don't recommend trying anything but a distro with a 2.6.18 kernel. I ended up with CentOS 5.1, do not use the Xen that ships with the installer, I tried it and it messed up my compiling from source. So install CentOS without Xen, install mercurial from rpmforge, and download the Xen source from mercurial. compile it (make sure you read the installation notes and grab ALL the dependencies, the Makefile won't complain that you don't have them until after 15-20min of compiling). Follow the above wiki that I linked. What messed me up was the wiki was missing the vtd=1 flag in the grub kernel line. After I put that in, xm dmesg states "Intel VT-d enabled". Anyways that's off the top of my head. There's a guy working on GPL PV drivers for Windows DomU's but they are extremely beta. I managed to get good gigabit TCP performance, but UDP performance outbound is poor for some reason. However, it's good enough to stream TV.