Superpages and VMware ESXi 3.5u4 crashes

[Alan Cox]

Peter Kieser wrote:
> On 9/24/2009 10:23 PM, Alan Cox wrote:
>> I would agree that this seems like a bug in ESX.  Nonetheless, I'm
>> curious to know something about our your system.  What type of processor
>> are you using, and in particular is ESX using hardware supported nested
>> paging?
>>
>> Regards,
>> Alan
>>
>
> I'm using an AMD Phenom 9950. How would I tell if ESXi is using 
> hardware supported nested paging? Is this something I can tell in 
> FreeBSD?

Ok.  Your processor does support nested paging, although you may have to 
explicitly enable it in your BIOS.  FreeBSD can't tell whether you're 
using nested paging.  Support for nested paging is implemented in the 
hypervisor and is invisible to the guess, so only ESX can tell you if 
it's being used.  Unfortunately, I'm not familiar enough with ESX to 
tell you how to determine this.

If you're not currently using nested paging, it's plausible that turning 
it on could make this problem go away.  Likewise, if you are currently 
using nested paging, turning it off may help.  If nothing else, this 
could help narrow down where the problem lies.

Alan