Virtualbox causes sluggish host behavior

I have recently installed Virtualbox-bin (AUR package) and installed CentOS 6 on the virtual machine. I am using kernel 3.8.4 (standard arch kernel).
When launching CentOS on virtualbox the host starts becoming unresponsive and extremely sluggish. Browsing is very slow and sound playback from clementine is constantly interrupted.
I have noticed heavy disk usage, more than usual and with no reason.
CentOS is a minimal install. No DE and no "weird" services running.
PAE-NX, nested paging and VT-x AMD-V are enabled.
I have used this specific setup in the past without noticing the same problems, in Linux or Windows.
Any suggestions? Thanks in advance.
Last edited by Caret (2013-04-01 18:16:26)

geoko wrote:
Do you see this behavior only for this one VM or for all VMs?
If you want to look into what causes the heavy disk usage run "iotop" (install with pacman -S iotop). It will report disk read, write and swapping per process.
To find out how busy your drive is: use "iostat -d -x 5 3" from the package sysstat (pacman -S sysstat).
You can find more information here: http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/linux-dis … howto.html
I used these tools and everything runs smooth now. I guess it had to do with CentOS 6.

Similar Messages

Enabling ALL VLANs on a trunk link causes downstream hosts to intermittently fall off the network

In an effort to begin collapsing switches, I began to configure our two 3750g Core switches to Allow all VLANs to trunk to a downstream 6500.
The cores are HSRP-configured and are the root bridge priorities are set to match the HSRP active router correctly.
The trunk link that currently existed between the 3750 and the 6500 allowed only about 8 vlans, and the other day I removed the restriction to allow ALL VLANs 1-4096.
Then the next day, people started noticing servers not accessible and I investigated and noticed that they were intermittently failing ping replies. These servers were DOWNSTREAM from the 6500 two switches deep using trunk links as well.
One troubleshooting step I did was I pinged one of the HSRP IPs for the subnet the inaccessible server was on, got a reply from the gateway, and then I pinged the server again, and it replied!
Another behavior I noticed was that I was starting to have trouble telneting in to the the two switches downstream from the 6500. Sometimes I could telnet to one of them, other times I couldn't. These downstream switches are the ones that had the server ports for the servers that were intermittnetly dropping off the network. So at a time when I could session into one of these downstream switches I could ping the servers from there. THen their MACs would show up in the table and then I could ping them from anywhere. I would wait for five minutes for the MACs to age out and then low-and-behold the servers were no longer accessible from the user locations until pinged them from the switches they were on.
So, I gave up trying to fix, rolled back my trunk link betwen the 3750 and the 6500 to the few VLANs allowed as before, and then everything was happy again. I could ping all the servers, I could session in to all the downstream switches from the 6500.
Network topology: [3750-core]---TrunkLinkAllowedAll---[6500chassis]---trunklink---[3750-3-switchStack]----trunklink---[3750]
Any insights would be greatly appreciated
Thanks!

Thanks nkarthikeyan.
VTP transparent mode and pvst+ was definitely in place. I went ahead and did exactly what you said; the only thing that was different from what you said to do was the way I had allowing ALL VLANs on the trunk from Core to the 6500. I allowed only the needed VLANs on that trunk and all seems to be fine.
I still want to know why setting the trunk to allow 1-4094 would cause hosts to fall off the network and switch flooding to not work right. I did read some articles on the effects asymmetric routing can have on unicast flooding and perhaps that's the issue, since my core 3750 is configured with another core switch in an HSRP pair.

[SOLVED] VirtualBox: Arch Linux host unable to reach guest over NA...

Hello everyone,
I recently installed VirtualBox on my Arch Linux install to tinker with GitLab on a Debian VM. I've set up a standard VM running Debian (wheezy) and made sure it's network settings were set to "NAT". However, I am unable to ping or ssh to this VM (which is running an ssh server among other things). Where this gets a bit weirder is that I'm perfectly able to ping and ssh to my host machine (running Arch).
I installed the version of VirtualBox available on the official repos and I'm running on the default kernel too.
I've install VirutalBox by following the infos posted on the wiki. My current user is part of the vboxusers group :
% groups duane
disk lp wheel uucp locate rfkill games network video audio optical floppy storage scanner power users vboxusers
I've added the proper kernel modules to /etc/modules-load.d/virtualbox.conf so that they are loaded automatically on boot time :
vboxdrv
vboxnetadp
vboxnetflt
vboxpci
% lsmod | grep vbox
vboxpci 14581 0
vboxnetflt 17612 0
vboxnetadp 18355 0
vboxdrv 264794 5 vboxnetadp,vboxnetflt,vboxpci
I must also note that the net-tools package is installed.
Now, I get the ip adress of my host :
% ip addr
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN group default
link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
inet6 ::1/128 scope host
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: enp9s0: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state DOWN group default qlen 1000
link/ether f0:4d:a2:48:5b:38 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
3: wlp4s0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state UP group default qlen 1000
link/ether 5c:ac:4c:09:d3:f3 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
inet 192.168.1.22/24 brd 192.168.1.255 scope global wlp4s0
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
inet6 fe80::5eac:4cff:fe09:d3f3/64 scope link
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
Then I try to ping it from my Debian guest.
user@debian:~% ping 192.168.1.22 -c 3
PING 192.168.1.22 (192.168.1.22) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 192.168.1.22: icmp_req=1 ttl=63 time=0.961 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.22: icmp_req=2 ttl=63 time=0.722 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.22: icmp_req=3 ttl=63 time=0.680 ms
--- 192.168.1.22 ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 received, 0% packet loss, time 2001ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.680/0.787/0.961/0.127 ms
Now I get the ip adress of my guest :
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 08:00:27:77:0e:48
inet addr:10.0.2.15 Bcast:10.0.2.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::a00:27ff:fe77:e48/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:69 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:93 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:11577 (11.3 KiB) TX bytes:15395 (15.0 KiB)
lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
And I try to ping my guest from my host :
% ping 10.0.2.15 -c 3
PING 10.0.2.15 (10.0.2.15) 56(84) bytes of data.
--- 10.0.2.15 ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 2007ms
There. I hope I didn't give too much information.
I don't really understand what's going on there, usually that workfow works immediately in all the distributions I tried before, and on windows as well. I think I followed all the steps to make this work and yet it doesn't, and I'm not sure this problem is related to VirtualBox itself.
Thanks in advance for any tip or comment on that.
Last edited by Marneus68 (2014-01-24 10:19:39)

What I do for all my VB guest VM's is to set 2 network interfaces, one the normal (default) NAT, and the other a host-only interface. That way your guests are completely hidden from the local lan which may be desirable if e.g., your host is a laptop which you move around various places. The guests can access anything outbound and you can still ssh to them from the host (and also, using ssh ProxyCommand via that host if you want to access them remotely).

Recent Security update causes sluggish response in new computer

I recently ran the latest security update, and ever since my laptop has been sluggish. Simple things like trying to open a document on the internal HD, or open an external drive aliased to my desktop, give me a whirling colorwheel.
This is a new laptop and I didnt have these kind of issues before the security update, so I'm guessing thats the cause. I verified disk permissions after the update.
Anyone else having this problem?
Thanks
Duane

I verified disk permissions after the update.
Try repairing permissions and restarting your computer. If that does not work, try booting from your install disc & run _*Repair Disk*_ from the utility menu. To use the Install Mac OS X disc, insert the disc, and restart your computer while holding down the C key as it starts up.
Select your language.
Once on the desktop, select Utility in the menu bar.
Select _*Disk Utility.*_
Select the disk or volume in the list of disks and volumes, and then click *First Aid.*
Click _*Repair Disk.*_
Restart your computer when done.
Repair permissions after you reach the desktop-http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25751

[SOLVED] VirtualBox 4 & USB Host

I'm moving from Virtualbox 3.x (binary PUEL edition with USB from AUR) to 4.x. My 3.x was fully working including USB host.
I've uninstalled Vbox 3.x and installed the following packages:
- virtualbox 4.0.0-2
- virtualbox-additions 4.0.0-1
- virtualbox-ext-oracle 4.0.0-2
Extension pack shows up in Virtualbox extension manager (USB host). I've also installed guest additions and enabled USB host under VM's configuration. However I'm unable to select any of my USB devices (everything is grayed out). Is there any additional step to go through in order to get access to USB devices.
Thanks
Alphazo
PS: From my previous working 3.x installation I also have my user belonging to the vboxusers group and vboxdrv module loaded by rc.conf.
Last edited by alphazo (2010-12-26 23:53:46)

According to the wiki it is no longer required to mount usbfs by modifying /etc/fstab (although you need HAL to be running).. Again I had USB host working fine with VirtualBox 3 PUEL edition. I since moved to VirtualBox 4 (GPL) + extension pack for USB (PUEL) but can't get USB to work. I'm not sure the package virtualbox-sun can solve my problem.

[SOLVED] Virtualbox hangs the host computer

Hi all,
It's been some time since I experience this annoying bug :
Virtualbox completely hangs my computer whenever I click on the "configuration" for any virtual machine.
Even the magic sysreqs keys are not able to recover (they are enabled in /etc/sysctl.conf) , I'm obliged to hard reboot my machine
However, I can go into other menus in the GUI without problems. VMs work ok as well.
My host system :
3.7.8-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri Feb 15 03:39:05 EET 2013 x86_64 GNU/Linux
virtualbox 4.2.6-1
virtualbox-host-modules 4.2.6-6
no proprietary extension pack.
(kernel was upgraded today and the computer rebooted, virtualbox-host-modules were updated as well)
Using KDE 4.10
Nvidia integrated graphics (xf86-video-nouveau 1.0.6-1)
Thanks for any help on how to overcome this bug!
Last edited by fredo696 (2013-02-16 13:03:13)

Problem seems to be solved.
All I did was to click "remove all the warnings" in the Help menu, and remove some older VM files which might have been corrupt.

Virtualbox on windows host: which video driver to choose ?

Hello all:
i have installed archlinux on my vista box through vbox
well next step is to install X
but i dont know which video driver to choose
when i do lspci |grep VGA
i get
VGA compatible controller: InnoTek Systemberatung GmbH VirtualBox ...
so which driver does this correspond ?
my laptop has a ATI card

thanks but can you tell me how to install that guest additions ?
i noticed there's a menu item for that
but nothing happens when i click it

Can adapter cause erratic charging behavior?

For months, my 15" aluminum G4 Powerbook, which otherwise works fine, started slowly losing its charge--went down to 92%, 80%, sometimes 70%, then started recharging, apparently by itself. Also, the light often showed orange at 100 or 99% and sometimes turned green when it was going down. However, the battery appears to work normally when used without the adapter.
I called Apple and was told to reset the PMU and zap the PRAM, which helped. I then bought a new Macbook, and as soon as Apple had transferred my data from the PB to the Macbook, the weird behavior suddenly disappeared.
In the last couple of days, though, it's started again--battery apparently draining for no reason, then recharging again. This time, I tried tightening the connections at various times (duckhead, extension cord head, PB plug), and doing that does seem to get the battery to start recharging. I also noticed that the base of the adapter where the cord winds around the feet, and the adapter itself in that area, seem unusually warm. But the adapter is supposed to get warm when plugged in, right?
Has anyone else had this problem, and if so, did replacing the adapter fix it? (And should I buy fire insurance for my apartment?) Thanks for any advice you may have.

Here is an article on troubleshooting power adaptors:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1725
The body of the power adaptor can get warm, but it should not get too hot. If you think it is getting hot enough to possibly start a fire, you should stop using it immediately. Don't take any chances with it.
Do you have access to an Apple Store? If so, you could try one of their known good adaptors and see if the weird behavior continues with it. If not, then a new power adaptor might be in order. If the weird behavior continues, then you have a different problem.
You could also get your own power adaptor evaluated.
Good luck!

Opening CS5 comps in CS6 causes strange layer behavior

Hi Guys,
Yesterday I went to a CS6 workspace and installed After Effects.
I just imported a CS5 comp into After Effects CS6, it looked like everthing worked fine. After working a while I saw some really strange layer bugs happening. Layers pop off randomly in the composition viewer.
In some layers the Set Matte effect causes to blank the layer randomly. It flips the alpha from inverts the alpha randomly. the strange thing is that i needed to re-apply the effect and adjust the same settings, after that it worked fine.
Also when working with masks applied, the alpha changes randomly. I had it while using 3D stroke, the alpha of the stroke pops back and forth. I used Ease and wizz for the curve of the mask of the stroke. When i deactivated the script of the mask the problem went away. But it doesn't make any sense!?
Are there more people issuing the same problem as i have? Or is there anybody that can help me prevent it?
Thank you very much in advance.

thank you for your quick replies!
I updated After Effects but the issue is still there.
I found out that:
- it has something to do with the alpha channel, because it only happens when an alpha "set matte" or "track matte" is applied.
- It only becomes visible after a precomposition of the comp (before updating to 11.0.2 also in the comp with alpha channel)
- the issue is gone when the resolution/downsample factor is set to half (in the composition screen)
Really strange...

Cause of Erratic Behavior With Tethered Shooting

The first time I tried tethered shooting with my Nikon D3 and D2XS, I experienced very erratic behavior, including the import window popping up and images not downloading from the camera even though the software said they were.
I struggled with these issues for over an hour and discovered a very simple fix: Consult the camera manual. Nikon specifies a very specific procedure. First, make sure any CF cards you have in the camera are empty. Second, change the camera's USB setting to MTP/PTP. Third, TURN THE CAMERA OFF (VERY IMPORTANT). Fourth, connect the camera to your computer. Fifth, launch the software and go into Tether mode. Sixth, turn the camera on and start shooting.
When I did this, everything worked perfectly. The erratic behavior disappeared.
One other word of advice. Give a few extra seconds for the first image to download. They seem to speed up after that.

I would set both express in bridge mode and set to join or create its own network.
If you want excellent range then use ethernet to the express, set in bridge mode, set to create its own network and place the express more middle of the house.
Regarding the TC , keep it in an open environment especially if using N only mode(signal strength).

Virtualbox on windows host: how to install guest addtional

Hi all:
do i need to install the vbox kernel modual ?
can anyone point me some howto ?
there are quite a lot of documents on vbox on Linux host
i can't seem to find doc with a windows host
thanks

The host doesn't matter for installing guest additions.
If Linux is the guest os, just follow these instructions:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Vir … _Additions

Mac Pro RAID 5 disk goes offline frequently in a random way. What can be causing this odd behavior?

Hi dudes,
I installed recently two Mac Pro RAID cards inside their corresponding Mac Pro systems. Four 2 TB Hitachi SATA disks are contained inside each system, and configured as RAID 5. Yes, the operating system is installed on this RAID 5 volume in order to get the highest performance of the array, taking advantage of the RAID 5 protection (Autodesk Smoke runs in each system; this application works only with uncompressed video in real time). I already had tested both systems keeping separated the boot disk just for the operating system, and making the RAID 5 volume just with three 2 TB disks, but the performance was slow on both systems.
The performance is now very good, but unfortunately, in both systems happens that sometimes one of the disks goes offline with no apparent reason. The RAID Utility immediately reports the failure and it is mandatory to declare as spare the disk that went offline. Then the rebuild process begins, but in the meantime, the performance goes down in a noticeable way. Sometimes it is even worse, because the disk disappears completely. Then, it is mandatory to turn off the system, and boot it up again, in order to see in the RAID Utility the missing disk, which needs to be declared as spare in order to be reintegrated into the RAID 5 volume in a slow rebuilding process.
Some important remarks: this very new Mac Pro systems do not have the iPass cable (at least apparently; I already disassembled completely one of these systems). This cable is mentioned in one Mac RAID card manual that I found over the internet. The diagrams do not match exactly with the Mac Pro nor the Mac Pro RAID board. I did not find a proper iPass connector in any of the Mac Pro RAID cards (?!). So, my guess is that currently the communication between the system and its Mac Pro RAID card is just by means of the internal bus. I think that if the iPass connection were mandatory, the RAID Utility would report it with a noticeable error message. Please advise.
I think that these Mac Pro RAID cards need a firmware upgrade, in order to be able to work fine with big SATA drives. Again, please advise.
Thanks in advance from Mexico.
Sincerely,
Martin Ponce de Leon

Hi Grant,
Thank you for your prompt response. The manual is a PDF document issued by Apple and it seems OK, but no updated to the latest Mac Pro system and Mac Pro RAID. I do not find the link where I found this manual. The systems belong to one of our customers. As far as I remember, in the printed manual included with the boards, it is not mentioned anything about the iPass cable, just about the battery cable. Do you know where can I get a PDF manual of the latest Mac Pro RAID card and the latest Mac Pro system? This client is far from our offices. So, I would prefer a PDF copy of this manual.
The drives that have gone offline, once they are back, are reported in a good status in the RAID Utility. Besides that, I have tested them in another system in our facilites, and all of them work fine. So, my guess is that the high capacity drives are not yet supported by the Mac Pro RAID card, or it requires a firmware update.
They do need to have in the same volume OS and video storage because three disks do no provide a good performance (they need also RAID 5), but four disks work fine... excepting when one disk is missing. Please advise. Thank you.
Best Regards,
Martin

Why is 2.1.3 causing bizarre adjustment behavior?

I just downloaded and installed 2.1.3. Soon after I tried to adjust an image; but as soon as I moved the shadow slider the image went all wild — white with green lines. I tried another image, and when I moved the highlight slider the same thing happened, and same with contrast. (No problems on PS.) These images are on a Compact Flash card previously downloaded where other images behaved normally during adjustment, so it is not card corruption. (Camera is Nikon D300)
Is this a known issue on v 2.1.3? Or is there something idiosyncratic going on here? I would be grateful for any advice. I do minimal adjustments and prefer to stay in Aperture.
Thanks, Susan

This is my first use of this thing and I can't figure out how to ask a question, so I'm not replying I'm
asking. I am experiencing bizarre responses to various sliders in the adjustment inspector, shadows,
contrast and others. I have had no problems like this since I got the system last June, importing only
raw digital images. However for the last two weeks I have been scanning b&w negatives at 6400 dpi
as tiff files, which it turns out are at least 60MB and often 120MB in size. All of the Aperture problems started since this. I do not understand this but I'm wondering if the size of the files is something
Aperture is not comfortable with? I'm getting half black or sudden all black screens, occasionally
colored constructions, and complete shutdowns requiring relaunching three or four times every couple of hours. Any response would be helpful. I really like Aperture and hope to solve this. Thank you.greg

To/ From Dates in GL cause strange OB behavior

Hello Experts,
I have noticed that with the new feature to limit the GL with a 'To' Date the OB yields un-expected results mainly the Total balance as of the current date.
What I would expect would be the correct opening balance as of the from date with a possible field at the end that would provide a total balance in future postings.
Also when you sort by values I have noticed that it is a SQL style sorting, ie.. 1, 10, 100, 11, 12, 13... Etc, this is not that helpful for dollar totals and was hoping this might be a quick fix, it has been like this for a long time.
Best of luck,
John-Michael

Hi John, did you find the Solution ?
because I think I have a similar issue

Mail Causing Sluggish Computer Performance

Hi all --
I have a very new Macbook Pro 2.8GHz with 4 GB or RAM.
I have noticed lately that my computer has been getting a quite slow and unresponsive, effecting all areas and programs. For instance clicking a simple Preference Pane, I might have to wait 3 or 4 seconds for it to load rather than the normal, snappier, almost-instantaneous feel. Closing an open application window might take 5 seconds. I get a lot of hangs and have to force quite sometimes.
I tend to run Adobe CS4 apps plus Quark 8, Safari, Mail, iTunes all at the same time.
But my computer is a beast and should be able to handle this with ease.
As an experiment I tried running without Mail and suddenly everything is back to normal, super snappy and fast.
Obviously something is going wrong with Mail and the processor.
I should say that my Mail library of messages and attachments is quite large - maybe 6 gigs. Could that be why?
If that is why, can anyone tell me how to safely archive old mail messages such that I might be able to access them if I need to reference them for work etc.
Thanks for any thoughts/suggestions/ideas...
Scott

I found and deleted:
AccountTypes > com.apple.builtin.mailaccounts > MailAccounts.plist in the root folder and guess what -- Mail now seems to be running super snappy and is hardly taxing my CPU in Activity Monitor.
I don't know why that was there or why it worked, but it did, so that you very much!!!!
(I did recently move my old mail database to the new machine manually - maybe that's why - I just copied the data folder and the user library preferences -- I guess this was already sitting there in the new machine and they did not get along....)
Thanks again.

Virtualbox causes sluggish host behavior

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for