I am experiencing a multicpre problem with fedora14 / kernel 2.6.35.6-45.fc14.x86_64 #1 SMP. (standard from the distro). The host has a total of 2 cores .
yet a virtual machine started with 'smp 2' ( or xml : <vcpu>2</vcpu>) will not run on 2 pyhs cores . it will use just 1 core ('top' at the host shows 100%cpu while running
an endless loop process on the VM) and libvirt 'virsh vcpuinfo <vm name>' shows only 1 physical
cpu used (although 2 vcpus are used : 0, 1)

The kernel seems to be an SMP one ( so says the uname -a . what does '#1 SMP' mean ?) . Am I missing something ?
same XML on a DEBIAN machine will run the VM with 2 phys cores as should althpugh the host there has 4 cores
(>2)

Should I recompile the kernel src with some addtional flag OR reboot while adding 'smp' explicitly at the /boot/grub/menu.lst at the kernel invocation line ?

thanks

zvi

Does another system boot to a smp in the config you have? I doubt it is Fedora but might be. I'd suspect the VM or maybe even the host system is not fully supported.

Yes another system - but different HW- (DEBIAN 5 with kernel 2.6.36Trunk) when using the same XML starts a VM that makes use of 2 cores while running a cpu bound application .
On both systems I have same qemu-kvm-0.13.0 running .

The fedora14 ,now with the latest fedora kernel - 2.6.35.11-83.fc14.x86_64 #1 SMP (which I have built with
CONFIG_X86_64_SMP=y ), does not utilize the 2 cores (just 1) when running same VM (same XML ) and same application .

To my knowledge the fedora14 system HW supports smp . cat /proc/cpuinfo shows 2 cores and gives following info for processor 1 :

processor : 1
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 15
model name : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E6550 @ 2.33GHz
stepping : 11
cpu MHz : 2000.000
cache size : 4096 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 2
core id : 1
cpu cores : 2
apicid : 1
initial apicid : 1
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 10
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmovpat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm lahf_lm tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority
bogomips : 4654.99
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:


Am I wrong ?

thanks