[PATCH] VirtualBox 4.1.8 kmod panic with VIMAGE kernel

[Brandon Gooch]

On Sat, Mar 10, 2012 at 9:50 AM, Brandon Gooch
<jamesbrandongooch at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 10, 2012 at 3:00 AM, Bernhard Froehlich <decke at freebsd.org> wrote:
>> On 10.03.2012 05:42, Brandon Gooch wrote:
>>>
>>> It's my guess that not many people are running VirtualBox on a
>>> VIMAGE-enabled kernel.  However, for those of us who do (just me?),
>>> the attached patch is required to prevent a panic when running
>>> VirtualBox in such an environment. The patch belongs to the
>>> emulators/virtualbox-ose-kmod port.
>>>
>>> --- src/VBox/HostDrivers/VBoxNetAdp/VBoxNetAdp.c.orig   2011-12-19
>>> 07:01:06.000000000 -0600
>>> +++ src/VBox/HostDrivers/VBoxNetAdp/VBoxNetAdp.c        2011-12-26
>>> 14:54:27.000000000 -0600
>>> @@ -1189,6 +1189,7 @@
>>>  int  vboxNetAdpInit(void)
>>>  {
>>>     unsigned i;
>>> +    PVBOXNETADP pVboxnet0;
>>>     /*
>>>      * Init common members and call OS-specific init.
>>>      */
>>> @@ -1201,7 +1202,8 @@
>>>         vboxNetAdpOsInit(&g_aAdapters[i]);
>>>     }
>>>
>>> -    return VINF_SUCCESS;
>>> +    /* Create vboxnet0 */
>>> +    return vboxNetAdpCreate(&pVboxnet0, NULL);
>>>  }
>>>
>>>  /**
>>>
>>> If there is a more appropriate fix, please help me find it, otherwise,
>>> it would be great to have this committed!
>>
>>
>> Sorry, that I haven't committed the patch until now. Do you agree that
>> this patch is licensed under MIT License so I can send it upstream?
>
> Yes, absolutely. Do with it as you please...
>
> What I found when tracking this down led to this commit:
>
> https://www.virtualbox.org/changeset/35785/vbox
>
> https://www.virtualbox.org/browser/vbox/trunk/src/VBox/HostDrivers/VBoxNetAdp/VBoxNetAdp.c?rev=35785
>
> I'm not sure how the initial VBox network adapter is supposed to be
> created; maybe it should be deferred to the OS-specific init process
> (in VBoxNetAdp-freebsd.c)? Trouble is, not sure how to do that
> exactly, but anyway it seems more like a bug that was introduced.
>
> Attempting to push this upstream will reveal something I imagine :)
>
>> Current VIMAGE support is only for vboxnetflt and you are touching
>> vboxnetadp so that is probably why nobody used it before. Have you
>> tested it with a non VIMAGE kernel?
>
> I tested it with GENERIC, a custom kernel WITHOUT VIMAGE, and a custom
> kernel WITH VIMAGE. I tested on 9-STABLE (from this month) and now
> 10-CURRENT.
>
>> --
>> Bernhard Froehlich
>> http://www.bluelife.at/

Y'know, I think the real problem is that a VIMAGE-enabled kernel
doesn't allow for the creation of new interfaces after boot.

At least it was that way back in late 2010 when I was using a USB
network device...

So this is at BEST an attempt at a work-around, which I suspect will
fail in any case more complicated than VirtualBox running in vnet0
with 1 network interface -- but I'm not totally sure I even understand
the way the VBoxNetFlt and VBoxNetAdp drivers work!

-Brandon