VBoxManage errors at boot

[Thomas Hoffmann]

On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 8:02 AM, Bernhard Fröhlich <decke at freebsd.org>wrote:

> On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 8:53 AM, Thomas Hoffmann <trh411 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 11:25 PM, Thomas Hoffmann <trh411 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >> On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 10:31 PM, Thomas Hoffmann <trh411 at gmail.com
> >wrote:
> >>
> >>> I'm running emulators/virtualbox-ose-4.3.8 on -CURRENT r263411 amd64.
> The
> >>> last several boot sequences I have noticed the following errors in the
> >>> console log:
> >>>
> >>> Mar 19 22:11:01 tortoise kernel: VBoxManage: error: Failed to create
> the
> >>> VirtualBox object!
> >>> Mar 19 22:11:01 tortoise kernel: VBoxManage: error: Code NS_ERROR_ABORT
> >>> (0x80004004) - Operation aborted (extended info not available)
> >>> Mar 19 22:11:01 tortoise kernel: VBoxManage: error: Most likely, the
> >>> VirtualBox COM server is not running or failed to start.
> >>>
> >>> I'm perplexed by these messages because I do not have any cron jobs
> that
> >>> invoke VBoxManage @reboot for any purpose whatsoever be it managing or
> >>> starting a virtual machine.
> >>>
> >>> I'm thinking these messages appeared after the upgrade to 4.3.8, but I
> >>> cannot be certain.
> >>>
> >>> Can anyone provide a context for these errors?
> >>>
> >>> -Tom
> >>>
> >>
> >> I've done a bit of digging and can offer a bit more info. I upgraded
> >> virtualbox-ose to 4.3.8 on 3/3 and did not see the errors until 3/11, so
> >> the upgrade itself did not introduce the errors. The 3/3 upgrade was my
> >> last upgrade of virtualbox-ose and I did not re-install it after that.
> >>
> >> However, on 3/11 I built a new -CURRENT (r263062). Something in that
> build
> >> seems to have introduced the errors. My previous -CURRENT (r262295)
> built
> >> on 3/8 did not have the errors.
> >>
> >> I'm still looking into this.
> >>
> >> -Tom
> >>
> >
> > Okay, so I found the source of this error. In /usr/local/etc/rc.d/vboxnet
> > (I have vboxnet_enable in /etc/rc.conf) it attempts to execute the
> > following command for vboxnet_start:
> > # initialize configured host-only interfaces
> >         /usr/local/bin/VBoxManage list hostonlyifs >/dev/null
> >
> > I can run VBoxManage as a normal user without any problems, but when I
> run
> > VBoxManage as root it results in the same three errors from my original
> > post. That is why it errors out during the boot process. I don't know if
> > that behavior is normal or not.
> >
> > In any event,  don't understand the purpose of the VBoxManage command in
> > /usr/local/etc/rc.d/vboxnet since, contrary to the immediately preceding
> > comment, it is only listing (not initializing) hostonly interfaces and
> > sending the output to dev/null. It seems pointless.
> >
> > Anyway my conclusion is that the boot time error messages while annoying,
> > are harmless. I'm still not certain why the error messages just started
> > showing up in the console log on 3/11.
>
> It does exactly what the comment says. host-only interfaces need to be
> initialized (pretty early for some configurations) and the hostonlyifs
> listing
> is the least intrusive one which ensures that they are.
>
> It might be that the error output of vboxmanage has been switched to stderr
> now and we need to add an 2>/dev/null too. Have you recompiled all vbox
> kernel modules after your update to a new current?


Sigh. No I did not. I should have thought of that as a probable cause.
Thanks.

-Tom