Timekeeping in stable/9

[Ronald Klop]

On Sat, 21 Jan 2012 14:11:51 +0100, Martin Sugioarto  
<martin at sugioarto.com> wrote:

> Am Sat, 21 Jan 2012 13:20:51 +0100
> schrieb "Ronald Klop" <ronald-freebsd8 at klop.yi.org>:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> As I understand it.
>> Host: FreeBSD 9
>> Guest: WinXP
>>
>> Which one has troubles with its clock? The host or the guest or both?
>
> Hi,
>
> only inside VirtualBox, I think it's only an application problem and
> my emails would be probably better addressed to ports at . ONLY the guest
> is affected when host is loaded.
>
> I noticed additionally:
>
> You get better results with a desync'ed clock in the guest system, when
> you start "openssl speed -multi 20" or similar. Within a few seconds the
> clock gets a 20 seconds difference.
>
>> How many CPU's did you assign to the guest?
>> Did you install virtualbox guest additions to the guest?
>
> Here a few details (guest additions are installed):
>
> Memory size:     1600MB
> Page Fusion:     off
> VRAM size:       256MB
> HPET:            on/off (tried both settings)
> Chipset:         piix3
> Firmware:        BIOS
> Number of CPUs:  1
> Synthetic Cpu:   off
> CPUID overrides: None
> [...]
> ACPI:            on
> IOAPIC:          off
> 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
> [...]
> 3D Acceleration: off
> 2D Video Acceleration: on
>
>> Do you run NTP on the guest XP also? If yes, turn it off.
>
> Windows XP default installation (synch'ed to time.windows.com).
> Switching this off, does not have any influence. I think MS-Windows
> does not do continuous synchronization, only at system start, I guess.
>
>> VBox guest additions can sync the guest clock with the host.
>
> I'll try to deinstall them. But I somehow like my shared folder.
>
>> BTW: My experience with VBox is that it is nice for hobby stuff, but
>> not for heavy load server stuff. VMWare does a better job there.
>
> Yes. I know. Still VirtualBox ist nice and cheap solution.
>
> --
> Martin

BTW: I used VBox on Linux at work. Same problems. Different problems come  
and go with different versions of Linux in combination with different  
versions of VirtualBox. Using VmWare ESXI solved it. If you search a lot  
on the vmware website you will find a free version.

Ronald.