FreeNAS + VirtualBox + Windows 7 = Unstable?

[cyberjock]

Interesting. If others report no ill effects and I can't find any good reason to leave it disabled I might make the default enabled on the 9.3 vbox jail (assuming it ever happens).

 

[Jailer]

Disregard, figured it out.

 

[cyberjock]

Disregard, figured it out.

And the solution was???

 

[Jailer]

Unchecked the "use Host I/O cache" check box in the storage configuration menu. I didn't understand what petr was describing but I found it.

I unchecked it but it didn't work. Got windows 7 installed and was installing the vbox guest additions and it crashed. Oh well at least XP64 is still running strong and has been for a few weeks.

 

[cyberjock]

I'm really curious why my win7 VM works flawlessly for me. /shrug

 

[Jailer]

Me too, I've had no luck with it.

I would like to be able to get it to work so I can use a newer version of handbrake to encode videos. XP64 is working fine for this but I have to use an older version.

 

[Jailer]

Well I played around with it a bit more last night. Increased the amount or memory to 2048MB and increased the processor count to 8 with the checkbox for Host I/O cache unchecked. Managed to get Windows 7 x64 installed. Crashed once trying to install the vbox guest additions. Started it back up and got that installed. Tried to change the performance settings and it crashed again so I decided to leave everything alone at that point.

Installed handbrake and added an hour long episode of a series disk to see if it would stay running. It encoded the episode just fine and stayed running so I left it running idle overnight. I got a security run email so I checked and it was still running but it generated the same error that the 32 bit XP installation did when I tried installing and running that. No crashes but it generates errors.

Not looking for any help just figured I'd share what I found if anyone was interested. I'll stick with running XPx64 for what I'm trying to do.

Code:

freenas.local kernel log messages:
> igb1: link state changed to DOWN
> igb1: link state changed to UP
> epair0a: link state changed to DOWN
> epair0b: link state changed to DOWN
> epair0a: Ethernet address: 02:1b:80:00:08:0a
> epair0b: Ethernet address: 02:1b:80:00:0b:0b
> epair0a: link state changed to UP
> epair0b: link state changed to UP
> epair0a: promiscuous mode enabled
> ng_ether_ifnet_arrival_event: can't re-name node epair0b
> ifa_del_loopback_route: deletion failed
> Freed UMA keg (udp_inpcb) was not empty (90 items).  Lost 9 pages of memory.
> Freed UMA keg (udpcb) was not empty (1008 items).  Lost 6 pages of memory.
> Freed UMA keg (tcpreass) was not empty (672 items).  Lost 8 pages of memory.
> Freed UMA keg (tcptw) was not empty (2800 items).  Lost 56 pages of memory.
> Freed UMA keg (tcp_inpcb) was not empty (2660 items).  Lost 266 pages of memory.
> Freed UMA keg (tcpcb) was not empty (80 items).  Lost 20 pages of memory.
> Freed UMA keg (ripcb) was not empty (40 items).  Lost 4 pages of memory.
> hhook_vnet_uninit: hhook_head type=1, id=1 cleanup required
> hhook_vnet_uninit: hhook_head type=1, id=0 cleanup required
> pid 56431 (VBoxHeadless), uid 1001: exited on signal 11

And a screenshot of the console for the time frame of the error. It generated this error without crashing just like 32 bit XP did.

 

[1.21gigawatts]

Thanks for the update. Though this is "good enough" for encoding a video, it isn't going to cut it for anything even remotely mission critical. All in all, it's pretty disturbing that Windows in a VM isn't working on FreeNAS and works absolutely fine on Ubuntu. One of these days, I'll give it a shot on a current FreeBSD installation.

 

[Scharbag]

I had big issues when I tried to allow it to use the SATA controller (Vbox Storage Config). I changed to using the SCSI type controller and has been rock solid.

 

[Jailer]

Trying again with SCSI controller instead of SATA. Will report back tomorrow if it works or even sooner if it fails miserably. :p

 

[Jailer]

Scharbag, your a genius. :D

Re installed Winodws 7 x64 with the SCSI controller instead of the default SATA controller and it's been running all night without a single crash or error. Awesome.

 

[Scharbag]

:)

Happy I could help!! It caused me some consternation at first too. I remember seeing error logs that indicated something with the SATA controller, cannot recall the exact error, but they were causing the crash. Tried the SCSI driver for giggles and it worked. Not sure why exactly but such is life! The SAS driver works in Windows 8 too (Windows 8 does not seem to have drivers for the SCSI controller).

Cheers,

 

[1.21gigawatts]

I have just finished installing Windows 7 32 bit with the IDE countroller (If THAT doesn't work, I don't know what would), and it seems to be behaving well. I'll beat up on this for a while and then try a 64-bit installation. Oh, I REALLY hope this works OK.

On that subject, and not to stray too far from FreeNAS, does anyone know of a decent "torture test" for windows?

 

[Scharbag]

Did SCSI and SAS give you grief?

 

[petr]

That is really odd - are you guys saying that you have problems WITH the box checked? For me, box was unchecked by default (Ubuntu VM with SATA controller). When I checked it, it started working.

 

[Jailer]

Well my windows 7 x64 install crashed last night. First time since I've had it running with the SCSI adapter. I have the host I/O unchecked.

 

[Scharbag]

Hmm, sorry to hear that.

My settings are: SCSI with LSILogic Adapter and use host I/O cache selected. My VMs run well with these settings... Try with host I/O cache selected?

Cheers,

 

[1.21gigawatts]

Been away from this project for a while, but finally got back to it yesterday. I have set up a VM with SCSI/LSILogic, host I/O cache and 4GB RAM (host has 32GB). I have, so far, loaded Windows 7 Professional X64, performed all the updates, installed Guest Additions, installed Sage 50 Accounting (that was the original goal here), done the Sage updates, Installed MS Office 2013, done even more updates. I set up the original VM with one processor. I have since increased that to three processors, to make Sage a little snappier.

Right now, I'm installing yet another pile of updates. So far, all is well. Fingers are crossed.

 

[Scharbag]

Sweet to hear, hope it works for ya. My VMs have been rock solid using the LSI SCSI stuff too.

Cheers,

 

[1.21gigawatts]

Well... With the three processors, I was able to reliably crash the VM by starting Word 2013 and editing the "Welcome to Word" document. Switching back to a single processor has been "rock solid" (for some very loose definition of a rock that has only existed 8 hours). I'll continue to beat up on it for a while and then when I get the nerve, I'll put it in production.