[gentoo-user] virtualbox + kernel panic 2.6.38-r2

[gentoo-user] virtualbox + kernel panic 2.6.38-r2

[James]

Anyone having any problems with VirtualBox and kernel panics?

I've tried vbox 3 and 4, both with the same behavior. Installing
Windows 7 as a guest and either (a) my system will completely freeze
(I'm assuming the kernel panicked), or (b) I'm thinking the Linux raid
module dies because the system becomes unresponsive (although I can
open a terminal, the shell doesn't come up, browser freezes, etc.).
The only fix for both of these problems is a hard reboot.

I have on idea how to go about troubleshooting this issue. I'd hate to
open a ticket with the vbox folks until I have more information.

The only thing I've read online that may be applicable is that there
have been some issues with kernel panics when you give the guest OS
more than 1 processor. It would suck badly if SMP didn't work well on
vbox.

Thoughts?
-james

Re: [gentoo-user] virtualbox + kernel panic 2.6.38-r2

[Tanstaafl]

On 2011-05-31 1:31 PM, James wrote:
> The only thing I've read online that may be applicable is that there
> have been some issues with kernel panics when you give the guest OS
> more than 1 processor. It would suck badly if SMP didn't work well on
> vbox.

My understanding is it is a general rule that you never give any VM more
than one processor, regardless of which vm hypervisor you are running...

Re: [gentoo-user] virtualbox + kernel panic 2.6.38-r2

[Mark Knecht]

On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 12:11 PM, Tanstaafl <tanstaafl@libertytrek.org> wrote:
> On 2011-05-31 1:31 PM, James wrote:
>> The only thing I've read online that may be applicable is that there
>> have been some issues with kernel panics when you give the guest OS
>> more than 1 processor. It would suck badly if SMP didn't work well on
>> vbox.
>
> My understanding is it is a general rule that you never give any VM more
> than one processor, regardless of which vm hypervisor you are running...
>
>
My platform is a Gentoo i7-980 Extreme processor so I have 12 CPUs (6
cores * 2 for hyperthreading)

In Virtualbox I'm running both Gentoo and Win 7 VMs, each allocated 4
processors. In Win 7 I have one app that uses everything it can find
so when it's running all 4 processors are 100% utilized. In Linux I
see the CPU usage at 33%. Win 7 is sluggish when this app is running
as it hogs from the system

In VMWare Player I'm running Win XP VMs with 2 processors. None of my
apps in XP use more than 1 processor. XP itself is quite responsive
even when these apps are using 1 of the 2 processors dedicated the the
VM.

I seldom run more than 1 app in any Windows VM as I don't trust
Windows. I've not had any problems with any of these VMs that I'd
associate with using multiple cores.

And yes, I do own these Windows licenses. VMs keep that money useful
until some day some Linux apps come along that do what these do for me
in Windows.

- Mark

Re: [gentoo-user] virtualbox + kernel panic 2.6.38-r2

[kashani]

On 5/31/2011 12:11 PM, Tanstaafl wrote:
> On 2011-05-31 1:31 PM, James wrote:
>> The only thing I've read online that may be applicable is that there
>> have been some issues with kernel panics when you give the guest OS
>> more than 1 processor. It would suck badly if SMP didn't work well on
>> vbox.
>
> My understanding is it is a general rule that you never give any VM more
> than one processor, regardless of which vm hypervisor you are running...
>

	If SMP in VMs were that much of a problem then EC2 and the rest of the 
clouds would be useless. I'd go so far as to say if you're not 
oversubscribing your physical CPUs by handing them out multiple times to 
your VMs you're leaving half of your infrastructure underutilized.

	That said vbox has never been completely stable for me in any 
configuration and I usually reboot my laptop once a week. I am running 
4.0.8 with a Gentoo guest (2.6.36-r5) using 2 CPUs. I haven't noticed 
any changes in stability since making the change to SMP last month. 
However there have been at least two SMP guest fixes in the 4.x version.

kashani

Re: [gentoo-user] virtualbox + kernel panic 2.6.38-r2

[Valmor de Almeida]

On 05/31/2011 01:31 PM, James wrote:
> Anyone having any problems with VirtualBox and kernel panics?
> 
> I've tried vbox 3 and 4, both with the same behavior. Installing
> Windows 7 as a guest and either (a) my system will completely freeze
> (I'm assuming the kernel panicked), or (b) I'm thinking the Linux raid
> module dies because the system becomes unresponsive (although I can
> open a terminal, the shell doesn't come up, browser freezes, etc.).
> The only fix for both of these problems is a hard reboot.
> 
> I have on idea how to go about troubleshooting this issue. I'd hate to
> open a ticket with the vbox folks until I have more information.
> 
> The only thing I've read online that may be applicable is that there
> have been some issues with kernel panics when you give the guest OS
> more than 1 processor. It would suck badly if SMP didn't work well on
> vbox.
> 
> Thoughts?
> -james
> 

I am running vbox 4.0.8 on

->  emerge --info
Portage 2.1.9.42 (default/linux/amd64/10.0, gcc-4.4.5, libc-0-r0,
2.6.38-gentoo-r6 x86_64)

with only one Win7 VM on a dual core laptop. It works fine and I use CAD
software that only runs on Windows.

What does your VBox.log say?

--
Valmor

Re: [gentoo-user] virtualbox + kernel panic 2.6.38-r2

[Mick]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: Text/Plain, Size: 1760 bytes --]

On Tuesday 31 May 2011 20:55:08 Mark Knecht wrote:
> On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 12:11 PM, Tanstaafl <tanstaafl@libertytrek.org> 
wrote:
> > On 2011-05-31 1:31 PM, James wrote:
> >> The only thing I've read online that may be applicable is that there
> >> have been some issues with kernel panics when you give the guest OS
> >> more than 1 processor. It would suck badly if SMP didn't work well on
> >> vbox.
> > 
> > My understanding is it is a general rule that you never give any VM more
> > than one processor, regardless of which vm hypervisor you are running...
> 
> My platform is a Gentoo i7-980 Extreme processor so I have 12 CPUs (6
> cores * 2 for hyperthreading)
> 
> In Virtualbox I'm running both Gentoo and Win 7 VMs, each allocated 4
> processors. In Win 7 I have one app that uses everything it can find
> so when it's running all 4 processors are 100% utilized. In Linux I
> see the CPU usage at 33%. Win 7 is sluggish when this app is running
> as it hogs from the system
> 
> In VMWare Player I'm running Win XP VMs with 2 processors. None of my
> apps in XP use more than 1 processor. XP itself is quite responsive
> even when these apps are using 1 of the 2 processors dedicated the the
> VM.
> 
> I seldom run more than 1 app in any Windows VM as I don't trust
> Windows. I've not had any problems with any of these VMs that I'd
> associate with using multiple cores.
> 
> And yes, I do own these Windows licenses. VMs keep that money useful
> until some day some Linux apps come along that do what these do for me
> in Windows.

A bit OT I guess, but what apps are you using that do not have a Linux 
alternative Mark?  Answer off list if you wish so we do not hijack the thread.

-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] virtualbox + kernel panic 2.6.38-r2

[James]

There doesn't seem to be anything in the VBox.log that indicates the
system had a hard lockup. I imagine the kernel panicing resulted in
VirtualBox being unable to write to the log.

Is anyone running VB on a Linux raid partition? I've logically
narrowed down the issue to one of the following:

(a) I've read that network driver(s) have caused some hard lockups on
the host...I'm using bridged mode
(b) there are some strange messages that appear when the VM is started
(regarding misaligned sectors or something like that); I can't seem to
find the messages right now, however. I believe md was the one logging
the errors; maybe this has something to do with the hard lockup?
(c) SMP has probably been ruled out; I have two 4-core Intel 5570s;
the system is under no load whatsoever. In fact, the last two kernel
panics occurred during Windows installation.

Any other thoughts on how to troubleshoot this?

-james

On Wed, Jun 1, 2011 at 01:17, Mick <michaelkintzios@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tuesday 31 May 2011 20:55:08 Mark Knecht wrote:
>> On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 12:11 PM, Tanstaafl <tanstaafl@libertytrek.org>
> wrote:
>> > On 2011-05-31 1:31 PM, James wrote:
>> >> The only thing I've read online that may be applicable is that there
>> >> have been some issues with kernel panics when you give the guest OS
>> >> more than 1 processor. It would suck badly if SMP didn't work well on
>> >> vbox.
>> >
>> > My understanding is it is a general rule that you never give any VM more
>> > than one processor, regardless of which vm hypervisor you are running...
>>
>> My platform is a Gentoo i7-980 Extreme processor so I have 12 CPUs (6
>> cores * 2 for hyperthreading)
>>
>> In Virtualbox I'm running both Gentoo and Win 7 VMs, each allocated 4
>> processors. In Win 7 I have one app that uses everything it can find
>> so when it's running all 4 processors are 100% utilized. In Linux I
>> see the CPU usage at 33%. Win 7 is sluggish when this app is running
>> as it hogs from the system
>>
>> In VMWare Player I'm running Win XP VMs with 2 processors. None of my
>> apps in XP use more than 1 processor. XP itself is quite responsive
>> even when these apps are using 1 of the 2 processors dedicated the the
>> VM.
>>
>> I seldom run more than 1 app in any Windows VM as I don't trust
>> Windows. I've not had any problems with any of these VMs that I'd
>> associate with using multiple cores.
>>
>> And yes, I do own these Windows licenses. VMs keep that money useful
>> until some day some Linux apps come along that do what these do for me
>> in Windows.
>
> A bit OT I guess, but what apps are you using that do not have a Linux
> alternative Mark?  Answer off list if you wish so we do not hijack the thread.
>
> --
> Regards,
> Mick
>

Re: [gentoo-user] virtualbox + kernel panic 2.6.38-r2

[Mark Knecht]

On Wed, Jun 1, 2011 at 10:44 AM, James <jtp@nc.rr.com> wrote:
> There doesn't seem to be anything in the VBox.log that indicates the
> system had a hard lockup. I imagine the kernel panicing resulted in
> VirtualBox being unable to write to the log.
>
> Is anyone running VB on a Linux raid partition? I've logically
> narrowed down the issue to one of the following:
>
> (a) I've read that network driver(s) have caused some hard lockups on
> the host...I'm using bridged mode
> (b) there are some strange messages that appear when the VM is started
> (regarding misaligned sectors or something like that); I can't seem to
> find the messages right now, however. I believe md was the one logging
> the errors; maybe this has something to do with the hard lockup?
> (c) SMP has probably been ruled out; I have two 4-core Intel 5570s;
> the system is under no load whatsoever. In fact, the last two kernel
> panics occurred during Windows installation.
>
> Any other thoughts on how to troubleshoot this?
>
> -james

My Gentoo setup where the Vbox/VMWare executables are kept is a 3-disk RAID1.

The VMs are kept on a 5-disk RAID6. It's this RAID6 that gets the
workout when the VM gets busy.

If you can the messages that you're concerned about then I can check
for anything similar here. I'm currently running 3 VMs.

Note that if it is a RAID issue that it might not be an mdraid problem
but rather the actual disk drive not being up to the tasks it needs to
perform. I have a bunch of 1TB WD Green drives on my bookshelf due to
RAID problems. I replaced them with WD RAID Edition drives and haven't
seen a problem since.

HTH,
Mark

Re: [gentoo-user] virtualbox + kernel panic 2.6.38-r2

[James]

I'll get the error message and then post it here.

I'm using Samsung drives that haven't seen any other problems under
heavily utilization.

What specific kernel version are you using? What version of vbox?

-j


On Wed, Jun 1, 2011 at 14:52, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 1, 2011 at 10:44 AM, James <jtp@nc.rr.com> wrote:
>> There doesn't seem to be anything in the VBox.log that indicates the
>> system had a hard lockup. I imagine the kernel panicing resulted in
>> VirtualBox being unable to write to the log.
>>
>> Is anyone running VB on a Linux raid partition? I've logically
>> narrowed down the issue to one of the following:
>>
>> (a) I've read that network driver(s) have caused some hard lockups on
>> the host...I'm using bridged mode
>> (b) there are some strange messages that appear when the VM is started
>> (regarding misaligned sectors or something like that); I can't seem to
>> find the messages right now, however. I believe md was the one logging
>> the errors; maybe this has something to do with the hard lockup?
>> (c) SMP has probably been ruled out; I have two 4-core Intel 5570s;
>> the system is under no load whatsoever. In fact, the last two kernel
>> panics occurred during Windows installation.
>>
>> Any other thoughts on how to troubleshoot this?
>>
>> -james
>
> My Gentoo setup where the Vbox/VMWare executables are kept is a 3-disk RAID1.
>
> The VMs are kept on a 5-disk RAID6. It's this RAID6 that gets the
> workout when the VM gets busy.
>
> If you can the messages that you're concerned about then I can check
> for anything similar here. I'm currently running 3 VMs.
>
> Note that if it is a RAID issue that it might not be an mdraid problem
> but rather the actual disk drive not being up to the tasks it needs to
> perform. I have a bunch of 1TB WD Green drives on my bookshelf due to
> RAID problems. I replaced them with WD RAID Edition drives and haven't
> seen a problem since.
>
> HTH,
> Mark
>
>

Re: [gentoo-user] virtualbox + kernel panic 2.6.38-r2

[Mark Knecht]

On Wed, Jun 1, 2011 at 12:33 PM, James <jtp@nc.rr.com> wrote:
> I'll get the error message and then post it here.
>
> I'm using Samsung drives that haven't seen any other problems under
> heavily utilization.
>
> What specific kernel version are you using? What version of vbox?
>
> -j
>

The underlying Gentoo system running everything is 2.6.38-gentoo-r4.

Vbox is 4.0.8, although that's new in the last week. It's been 4.0.6
for a period of time. I see no benefit for Win 7 with 4.0.8 but my
Gentoo/KDE VM is certainly doing better with the new version. I used
to have to double click a lot of things with 4.0.6. That's gone away
now.

HTH,
Mark