VirtualBox 4.1.22 on FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE problem: VBoxHeadless eats 100% CPU

Fri Nov 16 19:28:44 UTC 2012

On Fri, Nov 16, 2012 at 9:53 PM, Marek Salwerowicz <marek_sal at wp.pl> wrote:
> W dniu 2012-11-16 16:22, Alex Chistyakov pisze:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> My system is an amd64 box running FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE on top of ZFS.
>> I try to setup a VirtualBox VM from an Ubuntu 12.04 Server
>> installation CD in a headless mode using VNC.
>> Top shows that VBoxHeadless process consumes 100% CPU almost all the
>> time and it takes forever to boot from the CD image:
>>
>>    PID USERNAME    THR PRI NICE   SIZE    RES STATE   C   TIME   WCPU
>> COMMAND
>>   1652 vbox         19  22    0   358M   170M IPRT S  3   7:18 100.00%
>> VBoxHeadless
>>
>> I get lots of repeating "ioctl(7,0x200056c1 { IO 0x56('V'), 193, 0
>> },0x0) = 0 (0x0)" lines every time I try to run truss on the running
>> VBoxHeadless process, like this:
>>
>> ioctl(7,0x200056c1 { IO 0x56('V'), 193, 0 },0x0) = 0 (0x0)
>> ioctl(7,0x200056c1 { IO 0x56('V'), 193, 0 },0x0) = 0 (0x0)
>> ioctl(7,0x200056c1 { IO 0x56('V'), 193, 0 },0x0) = 0 (0x0)
>> ioctl(7,0x200056c1 { IO 0x56('V'), 193, 0 },0x0) = 0 (0x0)
>> ioctl(7,0x200056c1 { IO 0x56('V'), 193, 0 },0x0) = 0 (0x0)
>> ioctl(7,0x200056c1 { IO 0x56('V'), 193, 0 },0x0) = 0 (0x0)
>> ioctl(7,0x200056c1 { IO 0x56('V'), 193, 0 },0x0) = 0 (0x0)
>> ioctl(7,0x200056c1 { IO 0x56('V'), 193, 0 },0x0) = 0 (0x0)
>> ioctl(7,0x200056c1 { IO 0x56('V'), 193, 0 },0x0) = 0 (0x0)
>> ioctl(7,0x200056c1 { IO 0x56('V'), 193, 0 },0x0) = 0 (0x0)
>> ioctl(7,0x200056c1 { IO 0x56('V'), 193, 0 },0x0) = 0 (0x0)
>>
>> and it looks like this system call prevails in truss stats:
>>
>> [root at ci ~]# wc -l truss.vbox.log
>>   1174962 truss.vbox.log
>> [root at ci ~]# cat truss.vbox.log | grep 'ioctl(7,0x200056c1' | wc -l
>>   1013997
>> [root at ci ~]#
>>
>> FD 7 is /dev/vboxdrv0, does this indicate a problem in communicating
>> with a kernel VirtualBox driver?
>> What should I do to resolve this situation?
>
> Could you write down the VBoxManage commands you use to create the VM ?

Yeah sure:

VBoxManage createhd --filename "st11.vdi" --size 30000
VBoxManage createvm --name Stage11 --ostype Ubuntu_64 --register
VBoxManage modifyvm Stage11 --memory 1024 --boot1 dvd --nic1 bridged
--bridgeadapter1 em0
VBoxManage storagectl Stage11 --name "SATA Controller" --add sata
--controller IntelAHCI --hostiocache on
VBoxManage storageattach Stage11 --storagectl "SATA Controller" --port
0 --device 0 --type hdd --medium "st11.vdi"
VBoxManage storagectl Stage11 --name "IDE Controller" --add ide
--controller PIIX4
VBoxManage storageattach Stage11 --storagectl "IDE Controller" --port
0 --device 0 --type dvddrive --medium ~/ubuntu-12.10-server-amd64.iso

> And post the VBoxManage showvminfo VM_NAME output.

[vbox at ci /usr/home/vbox]$ VBoxManage showvminfo Stage11
Name:            Stage11
Guest OS:        Ubuntu (64 bit)
UUID:            9525da0b-1d93-4ab4-bcb2-df038f63d780
Config file:     /home/vbox/VirtualBox VMs/Stage11/Stage11.vbox
Snapshot folder: /home/vbox/VirtualBox VMs/Stage11/Snapshots
Log folder:      /home/vbox/VirtualBox VMs/Stage11/Logs
Hardware UUID:   9525da0b-1d93-4ab4-bcb2-df038f63d780
Memory size:     1024MB
Page Fusion:     off
VRAM size:       8MB
CPU exec cap:    100%
HPET:            off
Chipset:         piix3
Firmware:        BIOS
Number of CPUs:  1
Synthetic Cpu:   off
CPUID overrides: None
Boot menu mode:  message and menu
Boot Device (1): DVD
Boot Device (2): DVD
Boot Device (3): HardDisk
Boot Device (4): Not Assigned
ACPI:            on
IOAPIC:          on
PAE:             on
Time offset:     0 ms
RTC:             local time
Hardw. virt.ext: on
Hardw. virt.ext exclusive: on
Nested Paging:   on
Large Pages:     on
VT-x VPID:       on
State:           running (since 2012-11-16T15:11:48.223000000)
Monitor count:   1
3D Acceleration: off
2D Video Acceleration: off
Teleporter Enabled: off
Teleporter Port: 0
Teleporter Address:
Teleporter Password:
Storage Controller Name (0):            SATA Controller
Storage Controller Type (0):            IntelAhci
Storage Controller Instance Number (0): 0
Storage Controller Max Port Count (0):  30
Storage Controller Port Count (0):      30
Storage Controller Bootable (0):        on
Storage Controller Name (1):            IDE Controller
Storage Controller Type (1):            PIIX4
Storage Controller Instance Number (1): 0
Storage Controller Max Port Count (1):  2
Storage Controller Port Count (1):      2
Storage Controller Bootable (1):        on
SATA Controller (0, 0): /usr/home/vbox/st11.vdi (UUID:
010dcaaa-9609-4022-8f8a-fe65d2954e5a)
IDE Controller (0, 0): /home/vbox/ubuntu-12.10-server-amd64.iso (UUID:
8d9d5af9-341e-47c6-8b8f-943c4bcc350d)
NIC 1:           MAC: 080027BE852C, Attachment: Bridged Interface
'em0', Cable connected: on, Trace: off (file: none), Type: 82540EM,
Reported speed: 0 Mbps, Boot priority: 0, Promisc Policy: deny
NIC 2:           disabled
NIC 3:           disabled
NIC 4:           disabled
NIC 5:           disabled
NIC 6:           disabled
NIC 7:           disabled
NIC 8:           disabled
Pointing Device: PS/2 Mouse
Keyboard Device: PS/2 Keyboard
UART 1:          disabled
UART 2:          disabled
Audio:           disabled
Clipboard Mode:  disabled
Video mode:      800x600x16
VRDE:            enabled (Address 0.0.0.0, Ports 3389, MultiConn: off,
ReuseSingleConn: off, Authentication type: null)
Video redirection: disabled
USB:             disabled

USB Device Filters:

<none>

Available remote USB devices:

<none>

Currently Attached USB Devices:

<none>

Shared folders:  <none>

VRDE Connection:    not active
Clients so far:     0

Guest:

Configured memory balloon size:      0 MB
OS type:                             Ubuntu_64
Additions run level:                 0

Guest Facilities:

No active facilities.

BTW I've tried to disable nested pages, IOAPIC and ACPI but to no avail.

> What is your hardware?

Core i7-3930K on Intel DX79TO w/64 Gb RAM, ST33000651AS and ST3000DM001 HDDs

Thank you!

--
SY,
Alex