| 1 | <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
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| 2 | <!DOCTYPE topic PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Topic//EN" "topic.dtd">
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| 3 | <topic xml:lang="en-us" id="collect-debug-info">
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| 4 | <title>Collecting Debugging Information</title>
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| 5 |
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| 6 | <body>
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| 7 | <p>
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| 8 | For problem determination, it is often important to collect
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| 9 | debugging information which can be analyzed by Oracle VM VirtualBox
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| 10 | support. This section contains information about what kind of
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| 11 | information can be obtained.
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| 12 | </p>
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| 13 | <p>
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| 14 | Every time Oracle VM VirtualBox starts up a VM, a so-called
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| 15 | <i>release log file</i> is created, containing
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| 16 | lots of information about the VM configuration and runtime
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| 17 | events. The log file is called <filepath>VBox.log</filepath> and
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| 18 | resides in the VM log file folder, which is
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| 19 | <filepath>$HOME/VirtualBox
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| 20 | VMs/<varname>VM-name</varname>/Logs</filepath> by
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| 21 | default.
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| 22 | </p>
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| 23 | <p>
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| 24 | When starting a VM, the configuration file of the last run will
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| 25 | be renamed to <filepath>.1</filepath>, up to
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| 26 | <filepath>.3</filepath>. Sometimes when there is a problem, it
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| 27 | is useful to have a look at the logs. Also when requesting
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| 28 | support for Oracle VM VirtualBox, supplying the corresponding log file
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| 29 | is mandatory.
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| 30 | </p>
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| 31 | <p>
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| 32 | For convenience, for each virtual machine, VirtualBox Manager can show
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| 33 | these logs in a window. Select a virtual machine from the
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| 34 | machine list on the left and click
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| 35 | <b outputclass="bold">Logs</b> in the machine tools menu.
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| 36 | </p>
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| 37 | <p>
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| 38 | The release log file, <filepath>VBox.log</filepath>, contains a
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| 39 | wealth of diagnostic information, such as Host OS type and
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| 40 | version, Oracle VM VirtualBox version and build. It also includes a
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| 41 | complete dump of the guest's configuration (CFGM), detailed
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| 42 | information about the host CPU type and supported features,
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| 43 | whether hardware virtualization is enabled, information about
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| 44 | VT-x/AMD-V setup, state transitions (such as creating, running,
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| 45 | paused, stopping), guest BIOS messages, Guest Additions
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| 46 | messages, device-specific log entries and, at the end of
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| 47 | execution, final guest state and condensed statistics.
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| 48 | </p>
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| 49 | <p>
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| 50 | In case of crashes, it is very important to collect
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| 51 | <i>crash dumps</i>. This is true for both host and
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| 52 | guest crashes. For information about enabling core dumps on
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| 53 | Linux, Oracle Solaris, and macOS systems, refer to the following
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| 54 | core dump article on the Oracle VM VirtualBox website:
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| 55 | </p>
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| 56 | <p><ph>http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Core_dump</ph>.
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| 57 | </p>
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| 58 | <p>
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| 59 | You can also use <userinput>VBoxManage debugvm</userinput> to create
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| 60 | a dump of a complete virtual machine. See
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| 61 | <xref href="man_VBoxManage-debugvm.dita">VBoxManage debugvm</xref>.
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| 62 | </p>
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| 63 | <p>
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| 64 | For network related problems, it is often helpful to capture a
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| 65 | trace of network traffic. If the traffic is routed through an
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| 66 | adapter on the host, it is possible to use Wireshark or a
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| 67 | similar tool to capture the traffic there. However, this often
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| 68 | also includes a lot of traffic unrelated to the VM.
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| 69 | </p>
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| 70 | <p>
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| 71 | Oracle VM VirtualBox provides an ability to capture network traffic
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| 72 | only on a specific VM's network adapter. Refer to the following
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| 73 | network tracing article on the Oracle VM VirtualBox website for
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| 74 | information on enabling this capture:
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| 75 | </p>
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| 76 | <p><ph>http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Network_tips</ph>.
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| 77 | </p>
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| 78 | <p>
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| 79 | The trace files created by Oracle VM VirtualBox are in
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| 80 | <filepath>.pcap</filepath> format and can be easily analyzed
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| 81 | with Wireshark.
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| 82 | </p>
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| 83 | </body>
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| 84 |
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| 85 | </topic>
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