SOLVED I'm about to give up on virtualbox

[Rilo Ravestein]

I've tried several times to get one or two VMs working. Win7pro and Mint 17.2

For win7: Everytime during first installation, the VM just stops at least once. Starting over the installation in the same VM sometimes works. Then, windows update starts updating like 280 updates: machine hangs or stops. Reboot results in windows update trying to reverse all those updates. Starting over again. Doing updates again: yeah, finally done. Installing MSoffice: ok. Windows update again doing like 200 updates. Machine stops again. Reboot, updating continues. Finally done. Or not. Random freezes or stops, not booting, sigh...

OK, let's have a go with Linux Mint. Live OS starts, installing.... VM stops. 2nd try, installation ok. Now updating ok. Now lets try to get that display working better (As in: normal resolution). Machine freezes.

I'm reading that a lot of people get it to work just fine, so i'm really wondering what is going wrong here. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[anodos]

I've tried several times to get one or two VMs working. Win7pro and Mint 17.2

For win7: Everytime during first installation, the VM just stops at least once. Starting over the installation in the same VM sometimes works. Then, windows update starts updating like 280 updates: machine hangs or stops. Reboot results in windows update trying to reverse all those updates. Starting over again. Doing updates again: yeah, finally done. Installing MSoffice: ok. Windows update again doing like 200 updates. Machine stops again. Reboot, updating continues. Finally done. Or not. Random freezes or stops, not booting, sigh...

OK, let's have a go with Linux Mint. Live OS starts, installing.... VM stops. 2nd try, installation ok. Now updating ok. Now lets try to get that display working better (As in: normal resolution). Machine freezes.

I'm reading that a lot of people get it to work just fine, so i'm really wondering what is going wrong here. Any help would be appreciated.

"Just fine" is a bit of an overstatement. Capricious is a better adjective. I felt quite a bit of relief when I was finally able to migrate VMs away from virtualbox.

 

[Rilo Ravestein]

i'm almost considering looking into virtualizing FreeNAS with ESXi. But there are so many warnings here....

 

[Jailer]

Capricious is a better adjective

Exactly.

The only windows installation I've been able to get to run stable is XP x64. Now Mint 17.2 I've no issues at all with. Are you changing any of the defaults when you're creating the VM? I installed mine with defaults and it runs fine. In fact every linux or BSD variant I've tried works fine.

 

[toadman]

i'm almost considering looking into virtualizing FreeNAS with ESXi. But there are so many warnings here....

Warnings, yes, to try and prevent people from making grave errors. But it will work. I've done it for 2+ years. As long as you know what you are doing, it's a great solution. iX runs systems this way too.

 

[Rilo Ravestein]

As long as you know what you are doing,

Yeah, that's the thing. I don't know what i'm doing (yet) regarding that subject.

 

[Rilo Ravestein]

Now Mint 17.2 I've no issues at all with. Are you changing any of the defaults when you're creating the VM?

I increased the memory to 2GB, added 1 core (to the default 1) and increased the max. disk size. Everything else is default.

 

[Jailer]

I think I gave mine 4GB (at work so I can't check) but 2 should work. And 1 core should be enough as well. Sorry I got nothing more to offer. :(

 

[toadman]

Yeah, that's the thing. I don't know what i'm doing (yet) regarding that subject.

Yep, read up. I'd make sure you cover the following:

• system HW capable of PCIe passthrough (VT-d or IOMMU) - has to be both the CPU and the motherboard
• use ecc memory
• you'll probably (well, "may") have to turn off the HPET timer in the VM
• enough resources for 2 vcpus and 8gb of memory allocated to freenas
• i think you want to use esxi 5.5 or 6.0 (I have run a freenas VM on both. 6.0 is working flawlessly for me right now with all current patches applied)

If you go this route, let us know how it works.

(Full disclosure my primary freenas is a physical system. It's not capable of PCIe passthrough, so can't virtualize. In the beginning I ran a VM on my esxi server as my backup freenas system. Having seen it run so well, and seeing that ixsystems is running virtualized freenas systems, I plan to make the VM the primary system when I upgrade the server HW. I do have an iscsi backing store for VMs that would benefit greatly from the virtual network speeds inside the esxi box.)

 

[Rilo Ravestein]

If you go this route, let us know how it works.

Well, maybe i'll look into it when i have the time. My hardware should be capable, my agenda not (yet). Also bhyve looks promising, but on the other hand; so did Virtualbox.
Anyway, i'm going to start reading up on the subject, and we'll see how it goes.

 

[ShimadaRiku]

For win7: Everytime during first installation, the VM just stops at least once.

I had issues with VM locking up too until I ran by this blog http://petr.io/2014/12/25/virtualbox-freenas-maybe/

 

[m0nkey_]

I'd personally give up running the VirtualBox jail as it's very out of date and isn't likely to be upgraded in the future.

 

[Rilo Ravestein]

I had issues with VM locking up too until I ran by this blog http://petr.io/2014/12/25/virtualbox-freenas-maybe/

You just made my day. Everything is now running very well. And fast. Even the updates. Thanks!

I'd personally give up running the VirtualBox jail as it's very out of date and isn't likely to be upgraded in the future.

FreeBSD version FreeNAS is based on is "outdated" too. Doesn't mean much actually.