FreeNAS + VirtualBox + Windows 7 = Unstable?

[1.21gigawatts]

Does ANYBODY have a stable installation of any variant of Windows 7 running in VirtualBox in FreeNAS? I have tried this with 9.2.1.9 and with 9.3 Beta and, well, the results are not at all good.

There are random hangs require rebooting not only the VM, but the VirtualBox jail as well. In my latest test (win7-x86 on Freenas 9.3), I am unable to get through all the (hundreds of, and don't get me started on THAT) windows updates without multiple hangs.

I saw some threads addressing this a while back, but no actual answers, other than "it's working OK now" with no further explanation.

So, does ANYONE have this working reliably? What's the voodoo required?

 

[cyberjock]

I have had no problems at all. /shrug

Literally I'm running the default config and nothing special.

 

[1.21gigawatts]

Could you get a little more specific? Hardware (wouldn't think it would make a difference), RAM, VM setup (# cpus, ram, disk setup), FreeNAS version, Windows version etc? This has happened on three different machines (two very similar, one a bit older). Other jails run OK, but this is just a mess, with oe without running anything else concurrently.

I am currently running as follows ( I probably ought to neaten this up at some point):
Hostnamefreenas93B.local Edit
BuildFreeNAS 9.3-BETA 2014-11-08 00:21:30 GMT
PlatformIntel(R) Atom(TM) CPU C2758 @ 2.40GHz
Memory16344MB ECC
System TimeThu Dec 04 17:53:14 EST 2014
Uptime5:53PM up 20:39, 0 users
Load Average0.14, 0.11, 0.08

4X WD RED 2T in RAIDZ2



Name:Win7_32
OS Type:Windows 7 (32 bit)

System
Base Memory:3072 MB
Processor(s):2
Boot Order:CD/DVD-ROM, Hard Disk
Acceleration:VT-x/AMD-V, Nested Paging

Preview

Display
Video Memory:16 MB
Remote Desktop Server Port:9000-9100 (192.168.0.4)

Storage
Controller: SATA
SATA Port 0:Win7_32.vdi (Normal, 100 GB)
Controller: IDE
IDE Secondary Master:[CD/DVD] VBoxGuestAdditions_4.3.12 (2).iso (61.77 MB)

Audio
Disabled

Network
Adapter 1:Intel PRO/1000 MT Desktop (Bridged adapter, epair1b)

 

[depasseg]

Are you running Win 7 in virtualbox in a freenas jail?

 

[cyberjock]

I'm on 9.2.1.8, X9SCM-F, 32GB of RAM.

I also ran it on my FreeNAS Mini (default build, nothing special) and it ran fine idle for more than 2 weeks. I didn't actually try to do anything with Windows because I had no serial number so it was only going to last for the 30 day trial (or whatever it is).

 

[1.21gigawatts]

Are you running Win 7 in virtualbox in a freenas jail?

Yes. At least trying to do so.

 

[1.21gigawatts]

I'm on 9.2.1.8, X9SCM-F, 32GB of RAM.

I also ran it on my FreeNAS Mini (default build, nothing special) and it ran fine idle for more than 2 weeks. I didn't actually try to do anything with Windows because I had no serial number so it was only going to last for the 30 day trial (or whatever it is).

FWIW, I just upped the RAM in the 9.3 box to 32G. Maybe that'll make a difference. I just noticed that on the first boot after the memory upgrade, Win7 has loaded an Intel Atom driver. That's certainly something I hadn't seen before...

 

[1.21gigawatts]

FWIW, I just upped the RAM in the 9.3 box to 32G. Maybe that'll make a difference. I just noticed that on the first boot after the memory upgrade, Win7 has loaded an Intel Atom driver. That's certainly something I hadn't seen before...

But... it didn't help.
Today I will set up yet another machine with 9.3 beta, maybe just a single drive and only attempt the Win7 install on this whistle-clean machine. I'll also set up vbox on a windows host and see if the same VM runs reliably there,

At this point, I just don't know where the problem lies. I need some form of windows to act as a Sage Accounting server. Right now I have it running on a user's workstation, and that's far less than optimal.

ANY guidance would be most welcome.

 

[1.21gigawatts]

OK, today there's a whole new set of troubleshooting data, and it's got me stumped (and more than a little worried).

My "standard build" is this:
OS: FreeNas 9.3 Release
MB: Supermicro A1SRI-2758-O
RAM: 4X Kingston KVR13LSE9/8
HDD: 4X WD RED 2TB RAIDZ-2

I took a completely different box with a Supermicro C2SBC-Q MB and Intel Core2 Quad Q9400 with 8GB RAM and loaded it up with today's released 9.3 on a single 250G drive. I was able to install the virtualbox jail and a clean copy of Windows 7 (x86), allowing it 2GB of RAM and a 100GB dynamic hard drive.
I beat up on that system for a half hour, and there were no problems.

Then, I took the drive and the USB stick out of that machine and put them into the Atom machine. Just the single hard drive, the flash drive and the 32GB of RAM. I set all of the BIOS settings to their defaults (except maybe the boot order).

The system came up, rebooted once after reconfiguring for the different ethernet controller. I had to tell the jail configuration where the root of the jails were located, but that's it. The virtualbox jail came up and I started the Windows VM.

The VM seemed sluggish, but it kept chugging along, for maybe five minutes, then it just hung, requiring a restart of the jail. On the next try, I upped the number of processors for the VM to four, just to see if it would speed things up. Maybe it did, maybe not, but the thing crashed again after just a few minutes.

I am now running Memtest-86 v4.0a (what I had handy). It is 74% of the way through its first pass, with no errors. I will let that run over what's left of the night.

Could there be some BIOS setting that needs tweaking? Maybe, but I've no idea at all where to begin with that. Ditto for the possibility of some tunable in freenas.

So, now I'm just totally at a loss. Again, if ANYONE has ANY insight or at least a suggestion of what to try next, or even a suggestion of where else to look for help, I'd appreciate it greatly.

 

[1.21gigawatts]

One more thing - This machine (and another built identically) have been running a jail with nginx and PHP and mysql and hosting several not-very-busy web sites without a hitch. Go figure.

 

[raidflex]

I would imagine running a Windows OS VM on an Atom CPU would not preform very well. As for the freezing, I would check the BIOS to make sure that all of the VT-x extensions have been enabled. I would also make sure that the jail that V-box is running in is up to date.

 

[Jailer]

Does you mouse cursor work ok? I can't get the mouse cursor to track properly and it's pretty much unusable because of it.

 

[1.21gigawatts]

Does you mouse cursor work ok? I can't get the mouse cursor to track properly and it's pretty much unusable because of it.

If you can find your way to the windows control panel and unchecked "increase precision" in the mouse settings, you'll be all set.

I wish my problem was that easy. Stay tuned for the next round.

 

[Jailer]

Thanks, that worked!

 

[1.21gigawatts]

Thanks, that worked!

Glad it worked. If you install the Guest Additions, it'll be even better.

 

[1.21gigawatts]

I'm now in contact with someone at Supermicro support. He suggested a few things that haven't helped so far (loading the supermicro chipset & lan drivers), but at least they didn't hang up the phone after hearing FreeNAS and VirtualBox. More tomorrow, I hope.

 

[Jailer]

Glad it worked. If you install the Guest Additions, it'll be even better.

I did and it is.......on XP. ;)

Now if I could just get the web console working I'd be all set.

 

[petr]

Similar experience here running Ubuntu distros - could you have a look into the logs to see what is going on right before the hang?

See my other post related to this topic:

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/wired-memory.9571/#post-160548

 

[raidflex]

Not sure why you guys are having an issue, its weird because I am running a small Lubuntu VM and it has been up for weeks without an issue.

 

[petr]

Ok, I am happy to update that I've found a way around the problem - at least I hope, running for a month now without any trouble or errors. For some reason, the Virtualbox does not like to have host IO caching disabled on my machine (and it's sadly the default). After enabling the Host IO caching for each drive, I seem to be running without trouble even during scrubs!

I've written a bit about the issue on my blog: http://petr.io/2014/12/25/virtualbox-freenas-maybe/