source: vbox/trunk/doc/manual/en_US/user_Troubleshooting.xml@ 74981

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<chapter id="Troubleshooting">

  <title>Troubleshooting</title>

  <para>
    This chapter provides answers to commonly asked questions. In order
    to improve your user experience with VirtualBox, it is recommended
    to read this section to learn more about common pitfalls and get
    recommendations on how to use the product.
  </para>

  <sect1 id="ts_procs-tools">

    <title>Procedures and Tools</title>

    <sect2 id="ts_categorize-isolate">

      <title>Categorizing and Isolating Problems</title>

      <para>
        More often than not, a virtualized guest behaves like a physical
        system. Any problems that a physical machine would encounter, a
        virtual machine will encounter as well. If, for example,
        Internet connectivity is lost due to external issues, virtual
        machines will be affected just as much as physical ones.
      </para>

      <para>
        If a true VirtualBox problem is encountered, it helps to
        categorize and isolate the problem first. Here are some of the
        questions that should be answered before reporting a problem:
      </para>

      <itemizedlist>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            Is the problem specific to a certain guest OS? Or a specific
            release of a guest OS? Especially with Linux guest related
            problems, the issue may be specific to a certain
            distribution and version of Linux.
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            Is the problem specific to a certain host OS? Problems are
            usually not host OS specific, because most of the VirtualBox
            code base is shared across all supported platforms, but
            especially in the areas of networking and USB support, there
            are significant differences between host platforms. Some GUI
            related issues are also host specific.
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            Is the problem specific to certain host hardware? This
            category of issues is typically related to the host CPU.
            Because of significant differences between VT-x and AMD-V,
            problems may be specific to one or the other technology. The
            exact CPU model may also make a difference, even for
            software virtualization, because different CPUs support
            different features, which may affect certain aspects of
            guest CPU operation.
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            Is the problem specific to a certain virtualization mode?
            Some problems may only occur in software virtualization
            mode, others may be specific to hardware virtualization.
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            Is the problem specific to guest SMP? That is, is it related
            to the number of virtual CPUs (VCPUs) in the guest? Using
            more than one CPU usually significantly affects the internal
            operation of a guest OS.
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            Is the problem specific to the Guest Additions? In some
            cases, this is obvious, such as a shared folders problem. In
            other cases such as display problems, it may be less
            obvious. If the problem is Guest Additions specific, is it
            also specific to a certain version of the Guest Additions?
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            Is the problem specific to a certain environment? Some
            problems are related to a particular environment external to
            the VM; this usually involves network setup. Certain
            configurations of external servers such as DHCP or PXE may
            expose problems which do not occur with other, similar
            servers.
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            Is the problem a regression? Knowing that an issue is a
            regression usually makes it significantly easier to find the
            solution. In this case, it is crucial to know which version
            is affected and which is not.
          </para>
        </listitem>

      </itemizedlist>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="collect-debug-info">

      <title>Collecting Debugging Information</title>

      <para>
        For problem determination, it is often important to collect
        debugging information which can be analyzed by VirtualBox
        support. This section contains information about what kind of
        information can be obtained.
      </para>

      <para>
        Every time VirtualBox starts up a VM, a so-called
        <emphasis>release log file</emphasis> is created, containing
        lots of information about the VM configuration and runtime
        events. The log file is called
        <computeroutput><literal>VBox.log</literal></computeroutput> and
        resides in the VM log file folder. Typically this will be a
        directory as follows:

<screen>$HOME/VirtualBox VMs/{machinename}/Logs</screen>
      </para>

      <para>
        When starting a VM, the configuration file of the last run will
        be renamed to <computeroutput>.1</computeroutput>, up to
        <computeroutput>.3</computeroutput>. Sometimes when there is a
        problem, it is useful to have a look at the logs. Also when
        requesting support for VirtualBox, supplying the corresponding
        log file is mandatory.
      </para>

      <para>
        For convenience, for each virtual machine, the VirtualBox main
        window can show these logs in a window. To access it, select a
        virtual machine from the list on the left and select
        <emphasis role="bold">Show logs...</emphasis> from the Machine
        menu.
      </para>

      <para>
        The release log file (VBox.log) contains a wealth of diagnostic
        information, such as Host OS type and version, VirtualBox
        version and build (32-bit or 64-bit), a complete dump of the
        guest's configuration (CFGM), detailed information about the
        host CPU type and supported features, whether hardware
        virtualization is enabled, information about VT-x/AMD-V setup,
        state transitions (such as creating, running, paused, stopping),
        guest BIOS messages, Guest Additions messages, device-specific
        log entries and, at the end of execution, final guest state and
        condensed statistics.
      </para>

      <para>
        In case of crashes, it is very important to collect
        <emphasis>crash dumps</emphasis>. This is true for both host and
        guest crashes. For information about enabling core dumps on
        Linux, Solaris, and OS X systems, refer to the following core
        dump article on the VirtualBox website:
      </para>

      <para>
        <ulink
          url="http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Core_dump">http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Core_dump</ulink>.
      </para>

      <para>
        You can also use <computeroutput>VBoxManage
        debugvm</computeroutput> to create a dump of a complete virtual
        machine. See <xref linkend="vboxmanage-debugvm" />.
      </para>

      <para>
        For network related problems, it is often helpful to capture a
        trace of network traffic. If the traffic is routed through an
        adapter on the host, it is possible to use Wireshark or a
        similar tool to capture the traffic there. However, this often
        also includes a lot of traffic unrelated to the VM.
      </para>

      <para>
        VirtualBox provides an ability to capture network traffic only
        on a specific VM's network adapter. Refer to the following
        network tracing article on the VirtualBox website for
        information on enabling this capture:
      </para>

      <para>
        <ulink
          url="http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Network_tips">http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Network_tips</ulink>.
      </para>

      <para>
        The trace files created by VirtualBox are in
        <computeroutput>.pcap</computeroutput> format and can be easily
        analyzed with Wireshark.
      </para>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="ts_debugger">

      <title>The Built-In VM Debugger</title>

      <para>
        VirtualBox includes a built-in VM debugger, which advanced users
        may find useful. This debugger allows for examining and, to some
        extent, controlling the VM state.
      </para>

      <warning>
        <para>
          Use the VM debugger at your own risk. There is no support for
          it, and the following documentation is only made available for
          advanced users with a very high level of familiarity with the
          x86/AMD64 machine instruction set, as well as detailed
          knowledge of the PC architecture. A degree of familiarity with
          the internals of the guest OS in question may also be very
          helpful.
        </para>
      </warning>

      <para>
        The VM debugger is available in all regular production versions
        of VirtualBox, but it is disabled by default because the average
        user will have little use for it. There are two ways to access
        the debugger:
      </para>

      <itemizedlist>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            Using a debugger console window displayed alongside the VM
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            Using the <computeroutput>telnet</computeroutput> protocol
            on port 5000
          </para>
        </listitem>

      </itemizedlist>

      <para>
        The debugger can be enabled in the following ways:
      </para>

      <itemizedlist>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            Start the VM directly using <computeroutput>VirtualBox
            --startvm</computeroutput>, with an additional
            <computeroutput>--dbg</computeroutput>,
            <computeroutput>--debug</computeroutput>, or
            <computeroutput>--debug-command-line</computeroutput>
            argument. See the VirtualBox usage help for details.
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            Set the
            <computeroutput>VBOX_GUI_DBG_ENABLED</computeroutput> or
            <computeroutput>VBOX_GUI_DBG_AUTO_SHOW</computeroutput>
            environment variable to
            <computeroutput>true</computeroutput> before launching the
            VirtualBox process. Setting these variables, only their
            presence is checked, is effective even when the first
            VirtualBox process is the VM selector window. VMs
            subsequently launched from the selector will have the
            debugger enabled.
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            Set the <computeroutput>GUI/Dbg/Enabled</computeroutput>
            extra data item to <computeroutput>true</computeroutput>
            before launching the VM. This can be set globally or on a
            per VM basis.
          </para>
        </listitem>

      </itemizedlist>

      <para>
        A new Debug menu entry is added to the VirtualBox application.
        This menu allows the user to open the debugger console.
      </para>

      <para>
        The VM debugger command syntax is loosely modeled on Microsoft
        and IBM debuggers used on DOS, OS/2, and Windows. Users familiar
        with symdeb, CodeView, or the OS/2 kernel debugger will find the
        VirtualBox VM debugger familiar.
      </para>

      <para>
        The most important command is
        <computeroutput>help</computeroutput>. This will print brief
        usage help for all debugger commands. The set of commands
        supported by the VM debugger changes frequently and the
        <computeroutput>help</computeroutput> command is always
        up-to-date.
      </para>

      <para>
        A brief summary of frequently used commands is as follows:
      </para>

      <itemizedlist>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            <computeroutput>stop</computeroutput>: Stops the VM
            execution and enables single stepping
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            <computeroutput>g</computeroutput>: Continue VM execution
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            <computeroutput>t</computeroutput>: Single step an
            instruction
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            <computeroutput>rg/rh/r</computeroutput>: Print the
            guest/hypervisor/current registers
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            <computeroutput>kg/kh/k</computeroutput>: Print the
            guest/hypervisor/current call stack
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            <computeroutput>da/db/dw/dd/dq</computeroutput>: Print
            memory contents as ASCII/bytes/words/dwords/qwords
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            <computeroutput>u</computeroutput>: Unassemble memory
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            <computeroutput>dg</computeroutput>: Print the guest's GDT
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            <computeroutput>di</computeroutput>: Print the guest's IDT
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            <computeroutput>dl</computeroutput>: Print the guest's LDT
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            <computeroutput>dt</computeroutput>: Print the guest's TSS
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            <computeroutput>dp*</computeroutput>: Print the guest's page
            table structures
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            <computeroutput>bp/br</computeroutput>: Set a
            normal/recompiler breakpoint
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            <computeroutput>bl</computeroutput>: List breakpoints
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            <computeroutput>bc</computeroutput>: Clear a breakpoint
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            <computeroutput>writecore</computeroutput>: Write a VM core
            file to disk. See <xref linkend="ts_guest-core-format" />
          </para>
        </listitem>

      </itemizedlist>

      <para>
        See the built-in <computeroutput>help</computeroutput> for other
        available commands.
      </para>

      <para>
        The VM debugger supports symbolic debugging, although symbols
        for guest code are often not available. For Solaris guests, the
        <computeroutput>detect</computeroutput> command automatically
        determines the guest OS version and locates kernel symbols in
        guest's memory. Symbolic debugging is then available. For Linux
        guests, the <computeroutput>detect</computeroutput> commands
        also determines the guest OS version, but there are no symbols
        in the guest's memory. Kernel symbols are available in the file
        <computeroutput>/proc/kallsyms</computeroutput> on Linux guests.
        This file must be copied to the host, for example using
        <computeroutput>scp</computeroutput>. The
        <computeroutput>loadmap</computeroutput> debugger command can be
        used to make the symbol information available to the VM
        debugger. Note that the
        <computeroutput>kallsyms</computeroutput> file contains the
        symbols for the currently loaded modules. If the guest's
        configuration changes, the symbols will change as well and must
        be updated.
      </para>

      <para>
        For all guests, a simple way to verify that the correct symbols
        are loaded is the <computeroutput>k</computeroutput> command.
        The guest is normally idling and it should be clear from the
        symbolic information that the guest operating system's idle loop
        is being executed.
      </para>

      <para>
        Another group of debugger commands is the set of
        <computeroutput>info</computeroutput> commands. Running
        <computeroutput>info help</computeroutput> provides complete
        usage information. The information commands provide ad-hoc data
        pertinent to various emulated devices and aspects of the VMM.
        There is no general guideline for using the
        <computeroutput>info</computeroutput> commands, the right
        command to use depends entirely on the problem being
        investigated. Some of the <computeroutput>info</computeroutput>
        commands are as follows:
      </para>

      <itemizedlist>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            <computeroutput>cfgm</computeroutput>: Print a branch of the
            configuration tree
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            <computeroutput>cpuid</computeroutput>: Display the guest
            CPUID leaves
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            <computeroutput>ioport</computeroutput>: Print registered
            I/O port ranges
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            <computeroutput>mmio</computeroutput>: Print registered MMIO
            ranges
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            <computeroutput>mode</computeroutput> -- print the current
            paging mode
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            <computeroutput>pit</computeroutput>: Print the i8254 PIT
            state
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            <computeroutput>pic</computeroutput>: Print the i8259A PIC
            state
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            <computeroutput>ohci/ehci/xhci</computeroutput>: Print a
            subset of the OHCI/EHCI/xHCI USB controller state
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            <computeroutput>pcnet0</computeroutput>: Print the PCnet
            state
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            <computeroutput>vgatext</computeroutput>: Print the contents
            of the VGA framebuffer formatted as standard text mode
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            <computeroutput>timers</computeroutput>: Print all VM timers
          </para>
        </listitem>

      </itemizedlist>

      <para>
        The output of the <computeroutput>info</computeroutput> commands
        generally requires in-depth knowledge of the emulated device
        and/or VirtualBox VMM internals. However, when used properly,
        the information provided can be invaluable.
      </para>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="ts_guest-core-format">

      <title>VM Core Format</title>

      <para>
        VirtualBox uses the 64-bit ELF format for its VM core files
        created by <computeroutput>VBoxManage debugvm</computeroutput>,
        see <xref linkend="vboxmanage-debugvm" />. The VM core file
        contain the memory and CPU dumps of the VM and can be useful for
        debugging your guest OS. The 64-bit ELF object format
        specification can be obtained at:
      </para>

      <para>
        <ulink
      url="http://downloads.openwatcom.org/ftp/devel/docs/elf-64-gen.pdf">http://downloads.openwatcom.org/ftp/devel/docs/elf-64-gen.pdf</ulink>.
      </para>

      <para>
        The overall layout of the VM core format is as follows:
      </para>

      <para>
<screen>[ ELF 64 Header]
[ Program Header, type PT_NOTE ]
  &rarr; offset to COREDESCRIPTOR
[ Program Header, type PT_LOAD ] - one for each contiguous physical memory range
  &rarr; Memory offset of range
  &rarr; File offset
[ Note Header, type NT_VBOXCORE ]
[ COREDESCRIPTOR ]
  &rarr; Magic
  &rarr; VM core file version
  &rarr; VBox version
  &rarr; Number of vCPUs etc.
[ Note Header, type NT_VBOXCPU ] - one for each vCPU
[ vCPU 1 Note Header ]
  [ DBGFCORECPU - vCPU 1 dump ]
[ Additional Notes + Data ] - currently unused
[ Memory dump ]</screen>
      </para>

      <para>
        The memory descriptors contain physical addresses relative to
        the guest and not virtual addresses. Regions of memory such as
        MMIO regions are not included in the core file.
      </para>

      <para>
        The relevant data structures and definitions can be found in the
        VirtualBox sources under the following header files:
        <computeroutput>include/VBox/dbgfcorefmt.h</computeroutput>,
        <computeroutput>include/iprt/x86.h</computeroutput> and
        <computeroutput>src/VBox/Runtime/include/internal/ldrELFCommon.h</computeroutput>.
      </para>

      <para>
        The VM core file can be inspected using
        <computeroutput>elfdump</computeroutput> and GNU
        <computeroutput>readelf</computeroutput> or other similar
        utilities.
      </para>

    </sect2>

  </sect1>

  <sect1 id="ts_general">

    <title>General Troubleshooting</title>

    <sect2 id="ts_config-periodic-flush">

      <title>Guest Shows IDE/SATA Errors for File-Based Images on Slow Host File
        System</title>

      <para>
        Occasionally, some host file systems provide very poor writing
        performance and as a consequence cause the guest to time out
        IDE/SATA commands. This is normal behavior and should normally
        cause no real problems, as the guest should repeat commands that
        have timed out. However, guests such as some Linux versions have
        severe problems if a write to an image file takes longer than
        about 15 seconds. Some file systems however require more than a
        minute to complete a single write, if the host cache contains a
        large amount of data that needs to be written.
      </para>

      <para>
        The symptom for this problem is that the guest can no longer
        access its files during large write or copying operations,
        usually leading to an immediate hang of the guest.
      </para>

      <para>
        In order to work around this problem, the true fix is to use a
        faster file system that does not exhibit such unacceptable write
        performance, it is possible to flush the image file after a
        certain amount of data has been written. This interval is
        normally infinite, but can be configured individually for each
        disk of a VM.
      </para>

      <para>
        For IDE disks use the following command:
      </para>

<screen>VBoxManage setextradata "VM name"
      "VBoxInternal/Devices/piix3ide/0/LUN#[x]/Config/FlushInterval" [b]</screen>

      <para>
        For SATA disks use the following command:
      </para>

<screen>VBoxManage setextradata "VM name"
      "VBoxInternal/Devices/ahci/0/LUN#[x]/Config/FlushInterval" [b]</screen>

      <para>
        The value [x] that selects the disk for IDE is 0 for the master
        device on the first channel, 1 for the slave device on the first
        channel, 2 for the master device on the second channel or 3 for
        the slave device on the second channel. For SATA use values
        between 0 and 29. Only disks support this configuration option;
        it must not be set for CD/DVD drives.
      </para>

      <para>
        The unit of the interval [b] is the number of bytes written
        since the last flush. The value for it must be selected so that
        the occasional long write delays do not occur. Since the proper
        flush interval depends on the performance of the host and the
        host filesystem, finding the optimal value that makes the
        problem disappear requires some experimentation. Values between
        1000000 and 10000000 (1 to 10 megabytes) are a good starting
        point. Decreasing the interval both decreases the probability of
        the problem and the write performance of the guest. Setting the
        value unnecessarily low will cost performance without providing
        any benefits. An interval of 1 will cause a flush for each write
        operation and should solve the problem in any case, but has a
        severe write performance penalty.
      </para>

      <para>
        Providing a value of 0 for [b] is treated as an infinite flush
        interval, effectively disabling this workaround. Removing the
        extra data key by specifying no value for [b] has the same
        effect.
      </para>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="ts_ide-sata-flush">

      <title>Responding to Guest IDE/SATA Flush Requests</title>

      <para>
        If desired, the virtual disk images can be flushed when the
        guest issues the IDE FLUSH CACHE command. Normally these
        requests are ignored for improved performance. The parameters
        below are only accepted for disk drives. They must not be set
        for DVD drives.
      </para>

      <para>
        To enable flushing for IDE disks, issue the following command:
      </para>

<screen>VBoxManage setextradata "VM name" "VBoxInternal/Devices/piix3ide/0/LUN#[x]/Config/IgnoreFlush" 0</screen>

      <para>
        The value [x] that selects the disk is 0 for the master device
        on the first channel, 1 for the slave device on the first
        channel, 2 for the master device on the second channel or 3 for
        the master device on the second channel.
      </para>

      <para>
        To enable flushing for SATA disks, issue the following command:
      </para>

<screen>VBoxManage setextradata "VM name" "VBoxInternal/Devices/ahci/0/LUN#[x]/Config/IgnoreFlush" 0</screen>

      <para>
        The value [x] that selects the disk can be a value between 0 and
        29.
      </para>

      <para>
        Note that this does not affect the flushes performed according
        to the configuration described in
        <xref linkend="ts_config-periodic-flush"
      xrefstyle="template: %n" />.
        Restoring the default of ignoring flush commands is possible by
        setting the value to 1 or by removing the key.
      </para>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="ts_host-freq-boost">

      <title>Performance Variation with Frequency Boosting</title>

      <para>
        Many newer multi-core processors support some form of frequency
        boosting, which means that if only one core is utilized, it can
        run possibly 50% faster or even more than the rated CPU
        frequency. This causes measured performance to vary somewhat as
        a function of the momentary overall system load. The exact
        behavior depends strongly on the specific processor model.
      </para>

      <para>
        As a consequence, benchmarking on systems which utilize
        frequency boosting may produce unstable and non-repeatable
        results. This is especially true if benchmark runs are short, of
        the order of seconds. To obtain stable results, benchmarks must
        be run over longer periods of time and with a constant system
        load apart from the VM being tested.
      </para>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="ts_host-freq-scaling">

      <title>Frequency Scaling Effect on CPU Usage</title>

      <para>
        On some hardware platforms and operating systems, CPU frequency
        scaling may cause CPU usage reporting to be highly misleading.
        This happens in situations when the host CPU load is significant
        but not heavy, such as 15-30% of the maximum.
      </para>

      <para>
        Most operating systems determine CPU usage in terms of time
        spent, measuring for example how many nanoseconds the systems or
        a process was active within one second. However, in order to
        save energy, modern systems can significantly scale down CPU
        speed when the system is not fully loaded. Naturally, when the
        CPU is running at for example one half of its maximum speed, the
        same number of instructions will take roughly twice as long to
        execute compared to running at full speed.
      </para>

      <para>
        Depending on the specific hardware and host OS, this effect can
        very significantly skew the CPU usage reported by the OS; the
        reported CPU usage can be several times higher than what it
        would have been had the CPU been running at full speed. The
        effect can be observed both on the host OS and in a guest OS.
      </para>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="ts_win-cpu-usage-rept">

      <title>Inaccurate Windows CPU Usage Reporting</title>

      <para>
        CPU usage reporting tools which come with Windows, such as Task
        Manager or Resource Monitor, do not take the time spent
        processing hardware interrupts into account. If the interrupt
        load is heavy, with thousands of interrupts per second, CPU
        usage may be significantly underreported.
      </para>

      <para>
        This problem affects Windows as both host and guest OS.
        Sysinternals tools, such as Process Explorer, do not suffer from
        this problem.
      </para>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="ts_host-powermgmt">

      <title>Poor Performance Caused by Host Power Management</title>

      <para>
        On some hardware platforms and operating systems, virtualization
        performance is negatively affected by host CPU power management.
        The symptoms may be choppy audio in the guest or erratic guest
        clock behavior.
      </para>

      <para>
        Some of the problems may be caused by firmware and/or host
        operating system bugs. Therefore, updating the firmware and
        applying operating systems fixes is recommended.
      </para>

      <para>
        For optimal virtualization performance, the C1E power state
        support in the system's BIOS should be disabled, if such a
        setting is available. Not all systems support the C1E power
        state. On Intel systems, the <computeroutput>Intel C
        State</computeroutput> setting should be disabled. Disabling
        other power management settings may also improve performance.
        However, a balance between performance and power consumption
        must always be considered.
      </para>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="ts_gui-2d-grayed-out">

      <title>GUI: 2D Video Acceleration Option is Grayed Out</title>

      <para>
        To use 2D Video Acceleration within VirtualBox, your host's
        video card should support certain OpenGL extensions. On startup,
        VirtualBox checks for those extensions, and, if the test fails,
        this option is silently grayed out.
      </para>

      <para>
        To find out why it has failed, you can manually execute the
        following command:
      </para>

<screen>VBoxTestOGL --log "log_file_name" --test 2D</screen>

      <para>
        It will list the required OpenGL extensions one by one and will
        show you which one failed the test. This usually means that you
        are running an outdated or misconfigured OpenGL driver on your
        host. It can also mean that your video chip is lacking required
        functionality.
      </para>

    </sect2>

  </sect1>

  <sect1 id="ts_win-guests">

    <title>Windows Guests</title>

    <sect2 id="ts_win7-guest-usb3-support">

      <title>No USB 3.0 Support in Windows 7 Guests</title>

      <para>
        If a Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 guest is configured for
        USB 3.0 (xHCI) support, the guest OS will not have any USB
        support at all. This happens because Windows 7 predates USB 3.0
        and therefore does not ship with any xHCI drivers. Microsoft
        also does not offer any vendor-provided xHCI drivers via Windows
        Update.
      </para>

      <para>
        To solve this problem, it is necessary to download and install
        the Intel xHCI driver in the guest. Intel offers the driver as
        the USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller (xHCI) driver for Intel 7
        Series/C216 chipsets.
      </para>

      <para>
        Note that the driver only supports Windows 7 and Windows Server
        2008 R2. The driver package includes support for both 32-bit and
        64-bit OS variants.
      </para>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="ts_win-guest-bluescreen">

      <title>Windows Bluescreens After Changing VM Configuration</title>

      <para>
        Changing certain virtual machine settings can cause Windows
        guests to fail during start up with a bluescreen. This may
        happen if you change VM settings after installing Windows, or if
        you copy a disk image with an already installed Windows to a
        newly created VM which has settings that differ from the
        original machine.
      </para>

      <para>
        This applies in particular to the following settings:
      </para>

      <itemizedlist>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            The ACPI and I/O APIC settings should never be changed after
            installing Windows. Depending on the presence of these
            hardware features, the Windows installation program chooses
            special kernel and device driver versions and will fail to
            startup should these hardware features be removed. Enabling
            them for a Windows VM which was installed without them does
            not cause any harm. However, Windows will not use these
            features in this case.
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            Changing the storage controller hardware will cause bootup
            failures as well. This might also apply to you if you copy a
            disk image from an older version of VirtualBox to a virtual
            machine created with a newer VirtualBox version; the default
            subtype of IDE controller hardware was changed from PIIX3 to
            PIIX4 with VirtualBox 2.2. Make sure these settings are
            identical.
          </para>
        </listitem>

      </itemizedlist>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="ts_win-guest-bluescreen-smp">

      <title>Windows 0x101 Bluescreens with SMP Enabled (IPI Timeout)</title>

      <para>
        If a VM is configured to have more than one processor
        (symmetrical multiprocessing, SMP), some configurations of
        Windows guests crash with an 0x101 error message, indicating a
        timeout for inter-processor interrupts (IPIs). These interrupts
        synchronize memory management between processors.
      </para>

      <para>
        According to Microsoft, this is due to a race condition in
        Windows. A hotfix is available. See
        <ulink
          url="http://support.microsoft.com/kb/955076">http://support.microsoft.com/kb/955076</ulink>.
      </para>

      <para>
        If this does not help, please reduce the number of virtual
        processors to 1.
      </para>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="ts_win2k-guest-install">

      <title>Windows 2000 Installation Failures</title>

      <para>
        When installing Windows 2000 guests, you might run into one of
        the following issues:
      </para>

      <itemizedlist>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            Installation reboots, usually during component registration.
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            Installation fills the whole hard disk with empty log files.
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            Installation complains about a failure installing
            <literal>msgina.dll</literal>.
          </para>
        </listitem>

      </itemizedlist>

      <para>
        These problems are all caused by a bug in the hard disk driver
        of Windows 2000. After issuing a hard disk request, there is a
        race condition in the Windows driver code which leads to
        corruption if the operation completes too fast. For example, the
        hardware interrupt from the IDE controller arrives too soon.
        With physical hardware, there is a guaranteed delay in most
        systems so the problem is usually hidden there. However, it
        should be possible to also reproduce it on physical hardware. In
        a virtual environment, it is possible for the operation to be
        done immediately, especially on very fast systems with multiple
        CPUs, and the interrupt is signaled sooner than on a physical
        system. The solution is to introduce an artificial delay before
        delivering such interrupts. This delay can be configured for a
        VM using the following command:
      </para>

<screen>VBoxManage setextradata "VM name" "VBoxInternal/Devices/piix3ide/0/Config/IRQDelay" 1</screen>

      <para>
        This sets the delay to one millisecond. In case this does not
        help, increase it to a value between 1 and 5 milliseconds.
        Please note that this slows down disk performance. After
        installation, you should be able to remove the key, or set it to
        0.
      </para>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="ts_win-guest-bluescreen-record-info">

      <title>How to Record Bluescreen Information from Windows Guests</title>

      <para>
        When Windows guests run into a kernel crash, they display the
        infamous bluescreen. Depending on how Windows is configured, the
        information will remain on the screen until the machine is
        restarted or it will reboot automatically. During installation,
        Windows is usually configured to reboot automatically. With
        automatic reboots, there is no chance to record the bluescreen
        information which might be important for problem determination.
      </para>

      <para>
        VirtualBox provides a method of halting a guest when it wants to
        perform a reset. In order to enable this feature, issue the
        following command:
      </para>

      <para>
<screen>VBoxManage setextradata "VM name" "VBoxInternal/PDM/HaltOnReset" 1</screen>
      </para>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="ts_pcnet-driver-win-2003-server-guest">

      <title>PCnet Driver Failure in 32-bit Windows Server 2003 Guests</title>

      <para>
        Certain editions of Windows 2000 and 2003 servers support more
        than 4 GB RAM on 32-bit systems. The AMD PCnet network driver
        shipped with Windows Server 2003 fails to load if the 32-bit
        guest OS uses paging extensions, which will occur with more than
        approximately 3.5 GB RAM assigned to the VM.
      </para>

      <para>
        This problem is known to occur with version 4.38.0.0 of the
        PCnet driver. The issue was fixed in version 4.51.0.0 of the
        driver, which is available as a separate download. An
        alternative solution may be changing the emulated NIC type to
        Intel PRO/1000 MT Desktop (82540EM), or reducing the RAM
        assigned to the VM to approximately 3.5 GB or less.
      </para>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="ts_win-vista-guest-networking">

      <title>No Networking in Windows Vista Guests</title>

      <para>
        With Windows Vista, Microsoft dropped support for the AMD PCNet
        card that VirtualBox used to provide as the default virtual
        network card before version 1.6.0. For Windows Vista guests,
        VirtualBox now uses an Intel E1000 card by default.
      </para>

      <para>
        If, for some reason, you still want to use the AMD card, you
        need to download the PCNet driver from the AMD website. This
        driver is available for 32-bit Windows only. You can transfer it
        into the virtual machine using a shared folder. See
        <xref linkend="sharedfolders" />.
      </para>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="ts_win-guest-high-cpu">

      <title>Windows Guests may Cause a High CPU Load</title>

      <para>
        Several background applications of Windows guests, especially
        virus scanners, are known to increases the CPU load notably even
        if the guest appears to be idle. We recommend to deactivate
        virus scanners within virtualized guests if possible.
      </para>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="ts_win-guest-shared-folders-access-delay">

      <title>Long Delays When Accessing Shared Folders</title>

      <para>
        The performance for accesses to shared folders from a Windows
        guest might be decreased due to delays during the resolution of
        the VirtualBox shared folders name service. To fix these delays,
        add the following entries to the file
        <computeroutput>\windows\system32\drivers\etc\lmhosts</computeroutput>
        of the Windows guest:
      </para>

<screen>255.255.255.255        VBOXSVR #PRE
255.255.255.255        VBOXSRV #PRE</screen>

      <para>
        After doing this change, a reboot of the guest is required.
      </para>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="ts_win98-guest-usb-tablet-coordinates">

      <title>USB Tablet Coordinates Wrong in Windows 98 Guests</title>

      <para>
        If a Windows 98 VM is configured to use the emulated USB tablet
        (absolute pointing device), the coordinate translation may be
        incorrect and the pointer is restricted to the upper left
        quarter of the guest's screen.
      </para>

      <para>
        The USB HID (Human Interface Device) drivers in Windows 98 are
        very old and do not handle tablets the same way all more recent
        operating systems do (Windows 2000 and later, Mac OS X,
        Solaris). To work around the problem, issue the following
        command:
      </para>

      <para>
<screen>VBoxManage setextradata "VM name" "VBoxInternal/USB/HidMouse/0/Config/CoordShift" 0</screen>
      </para>

      <para>
        To restore the default behavior, remove the key or set its value
        to 1.
      </para>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="ts_win-guest-active-dir-domain">

      <title>Windows Guests are Removed From an Active Directory Domain After
        Restoring a Snapshot</title>

      <para>
        If a Windows guest is a member of an Active Directory domain and
        the snapshot feature of VirtualBox is used, it could happen it
        loses this status after you restore an older snapshot.
      </para>

      <para>
        The reason is the automatic machine password changing performed
        by Windows at regular intervals for security purposes. You can
        disable this feature by following the instruction of the
        following article from Microsoft:
        <ulink
          url="http://support.microsoft.com/kb/154501">http://support.microsoft.com/kb/154501</ulink>
      </para>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="ts_d3d8-d3d9-restore">

      <title>Restoring d3d8.dll and d3d9.dll</title>

      <para>
        VirtualBox Guest Additions for Windows prior to 4.1.8 did not
        properly back up the original d3d8.dll and d3d9.dll system files
        when selecting and installing the experimental Direct3D support.
        This process replaces both system files with files from the
        VirtualBox Guest Additions so that Direct3D calls can be handled
        correctly. Although this issue was fixed with VirtualBox 4.1.8,
        there is no way the Windows Guest Additions installer can repair
        these files.
      </para>

      <para>
        Corruption of these files has no implications in case 3D
        acceleration is enabled and basic Direct3D support is installed,
        that is, without WDDM (on Windows Vista or higher) or on older
        Windows systems like Windows XP. With the basic Direct3D support
        all Direct3D 8.0 and Direct3D 9.0 applications will utilize
        VirtualBox Direct3D files directly and thus will run as
        expected.
      </para>

      <para>
        For WDDM Direct3D support however, the originally shipped
        d3d8.dll and d3d9.dll files are required in order to run
        Direct3D 8.0 and Direct3D 9.0 applications. As a result of the
        above mentioned system files corruption these applications will
        not work anymore. See below for a step-by-step guide for
        restoring the original d3d8.dll and d3d9.dll system files in
        case the VirtualBox Guest Additions installer warned about those
        incorrect files or when having trouble running Direct3D
        applications.
      </para>

      <note>
        <para>
          Starting at Windows 7 the 3D desktop, called Aero, uses
          DirectX 10 for rendering so that corrupted d3d8.dll and
          d3d9.dll system files will have no effect on the actual
          rendering.
        </para>
      </note>

      <para>
        This is why such a detected file corruption is not considered as
        fatal for the basic Direct3D installation on all supported
        Windows guests, and for WDDM Direct3D installation on Windows 7
        and later guests.
      </para>

      <para>
        <emphasis role="bold">Extracting d3d8 and d3d9.dll from a
        Windows XP installation CD:</emphasis>
      </para>

      <orderedlist>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            Download and install the latest version of 7-Zip File
            Manager. See
            <ulink
          url="http//www.7-zip.org">http//www.7-zip.org</ulink>.
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            Browse into the installation CD. For example E:\i386, or
            E:\amd64 for the 64-bit version.
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            Locate the entries d3d8.dl_ and d3d9.dl_. Double-click on
            the file names and extract d3d8.dll and d3d9.dll.
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            Reboot Windows in Safe mode.
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            Copy the extracted d3d8.dll and d3d9.dll files to
            C:\Windows\system32 and C:\Windows\system32\dllcache.
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            Reboot Windows.
          </para>
        </listitem>

      </orderedlist>

      <para>
        <emphasis role="bold">Extracting d3d8 and d3d9.dll from a
        Windows XP Service pack:</emphasis>
      </para>

      <orderedlist>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            Download and install the latest version of 7-Zip File
            Manager. See
            <ulink
              url="http//www.7-zip.org">http//www.7-zip.org</ulink>.
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            Choose Open Inside, to open WindowsXP-KB936929-SP3-x86.exe
            as an archive and browse the i386 directory.
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            Locate the entries d3d8.dl_ and d3d9.dl_. Double-click on
            the file names and extract d3d8.dll and d3d9.dll.
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            Reboot Windows in Safe mode.
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            Copy the extracted d3d8.dll and d3d9.dll files to
            C:\Windows\system32 and C:\Windows\system32\dllcache.
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            Reboot Windows.
          </para>
        </listitem>

      </orderedlist>

      <para>
        Extracting d3d8 and d3d9.dll from a Vista/Windows7 installation
        CD or Service Pack ISO:
      </para>

      <orderedlist>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            Download and install the latest version of 7-Zip File
            Manager. See
            <ulink
          url="http//www.7-zip.org">http//www.7-zip.org</ulink>.
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            Browse into the installation CD. for example E:\sources.
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            Locate file install.wim and double-click the file. After the
            7-Zip utility unzips the file, you will see a few numbered
            folders. Each numeric subfolder represents a different
            version of Windows such as Starter or Home Basic.
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            Open one of the numeric folders and browse to the
            Windows\System32 directory, or C:\Windows\SysWOW64 for the
            64-bit version. Locate and extract the d3d8.dll and d3d9.dll
            files.
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            Copy extracted the d3d8.dll and d3d9.dll files to
            C:\Windows\system32 or C:\Windows\SysWOW64. Files from
            system32 should go to system32, from SysWOW64 to SysWOW64.
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            Reboot Windows.
          </para>
        </listitem>

      </orderedlist>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="ts_win31-ram-limitations">

      <title>Windows 3.x Limited to 64 MB RAM</title>

      <para>
        Windows 3.x guests are typically limited to 64 MB RAM, even if a
        VM is assigned much more memory. While Windows 3.1 is
        theoretically capable of using up to 512 MB RAM, it only uses
        memory available through the XMS interface. Versions of
        HIMEM.SYS, the Microsoft XMS manager, shipped with MS-DOS and
        Microsoft Windows 3.x can only use up to 64 MB on standard PCs.
      </para>

      <para>
        This is a HIMEM.SYS limitation documented by Microsoft in
        Knowledge base article KB 116256. Windows 3.1 memory limits are
        described in detail in Microsoft Knowledge base article KB
        84388.
      </para>

      <para>
        It is possible for Windows 3.x guests to utilize more than 64 MB
        RAM if a different XMS provider is used. That could be a newer
        HIMEM.SYS version, such as that shipped with Windows 98, or a
        more capable third-party memory manager, such as QEMM.
      </para>

    </sect2>

  </sect1>

  <sect1 id="ts_lin-x11-guests">

    <title>Linux and X11 Guests</title>

    <sect2 id="ts_linux-guest-high-cpu">

      <title>Linux Guests May Cause a High CPU load</title>

      <para>
        Some Linux guests may cause a high CPU load even if the guest
        system appears to be idle. This can be caused by a high timer
        frequency of the guest kernel. Some Linux distributions, for
        example Fedora, ship a Linux kernel configured for a timer
        frequency of 1000Hz. We recommend to recompile the guest kernel
        and to select a timer frequency of 100Hz.
      </para>

      <para>
        Linux kernels shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as of
        release 4.7 and 5.1 as well as kernels of related Linux
        distributions, such as CentOS and Oracle Linux, support a kernel
        parameter <emphasis>divider=N</emphasis>. Hence, such kernels
        support a lower timer frequency without recompilation. We
        suggest you add the kernel parameter
        <emphasis>divider=10</emphasis> to select a guest kernel timer
        frequency of 100Hz.
      </para>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="ts_linux-guest-amd-barcelona">

      <title>AMD Barcelona CPUs</title>

      <para>
        Most Linux-based guests will fail with AMD Phenoms or
        Barcelona-level Opterons due to a bug in the Linux kernel.
        Enable the I/O-APIC to work around the problem. See
        <xref
      linkend="settings-system" />.
      </para>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="ts_linux-buggy">

      <title>Buggy Linux 2.6 Kernel Versions</title>

      <para>
        The following bugs in Linux kernels prevent them from executing
        correctly in VirtualBox, causing VM boot crashes:
      </para>

      <itemizedlist>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            The Linux kernel version 2.6.18, and some 2.6.17 versions,
            introduced a race condition that can cause boot crashes in
            VirtualBox. Please use a kernel version 2.6.19 or later.
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            With hardware virtualization and the I/O APIC enabled,
            kernels before 2.6.24-rc6 may panic on boot with the
            following message:
          </para>

<screen>Kernel panic - not syncing: IO-APIC + timer doesn't work!  Boot with
apic=debug and send a report.  Then try booting with the 'noapic' option</screen>

          <para>
            If you see this message, either disable hardware
            virtualization or the I/O APIC as described in
            <xref
            linkend="settings-system" />, or upgrade
            the guest to a newer kernel.

            <footnote>

              <para>
                See
                <ulink
                url="http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg30813.html">http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg30813.html</ulink>
                for details about the kernel fix.
              </para>

            </footnote>
          </para>
        </listitem>

      </itemizedlist>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="ts_linux-guest-x11-services">

      <title>Shared Clipboard, Auto-Resizing, and Seamless Desktop in X11 Guests</title>

      <para>
        Guest desktop services in guests running the X11 window system
        such as Solaris and Linux, are provided by a guest service
        called <computeroutput>VBoxClient</computeroutput>, which runs
        under the ID of the user who started the desktop session and is
        automatically started using the following command lines when
        your X11 user session is started if you are using a common
        desktop environment (Gnome, KDE and others).
      </para>

<screen>VBoxClient --clipboard
VBoxClient --display
VBoxClient --seamless</screen>

      <para>
        If a particular desktop service is not working correctly, it is
        worth checking whether the process which should provide it is
        running.
      </para>

      <para>
        The <computeroutput>VBoxClient</computeroutput> processes create
        files in the user's home directory with names of the form
        <computeroutput>.vboxclient-*.pid</computeroutput> when they are
        running in order to prevent a given service from being started
        twice. It can happen due to misconfiguration that these files
        are created owned by root and not deleted when the services are
        stopped, which will prevent them from being started in future
        sessions. If the services cannot be started, you may wish to
        check whether these files still exist.
      </para>

    </sect2>

  </sect1>

  <sect1 id="ts_sol-guests">

    <title>Solaris Guests</title>

    <sect2 id="ts_solaris-10-guest-crash">

      <title>Older Solaris 10 Releases Crash in 64-bit Mode</title>

      <para>
        Solaris 10 releases up to and including Solaris 10 8/07
        ("S10U4") incorrectly detect newer Intel processors produced
        since 2007. This problem leads to the 64-bit Solaris kernel
        crashing, and usually causing a triple fault, almost immediately
        during startup, in both virtualized and physical environments.
      </para>

      <para>
        The recommended solution is upgrading to at least Solaris 10
        5/08 ("S10U5"). Alternative solutions include forcing Solaris to
        always boot the 32-bit kernel or applying a patch for bug
        6574102 while Solaris is using the 32-bit kernel.
      </para>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="ts_solaris-10-guest-slow-boot-smp">

      <title>Certain Solaris 10 Releases May Take a Long Time to Boot with SMP</title>

      <para>
        When using more than one CPU, Solaris 10 releases 5/08
        ("S10U5"), 10/08 ("S10U6"), and 5/09 ("S10U7") may take a long
        time to boot and may print warnings on the system console
        regarding failures to read from disk. This is a bug in Solaris
        10 which affects specific physical and virtual configurations.
        It is caused by trying to read microcode updates from the boot
        disk when the disk interrupt is reassigned to a not yet fully
        initialized secondary CPU. Disk reads will time out and fail,
        triggering delays of about 45 seconds and warnings.
      </para>

      <para>
        The recommended solution is upgrading to at least Solaris 10
        10/09 ("S10U8") which includes a fix for this problem.
        Alternative solutions include restricting the number of virtual
        CPUs to one or possibly using a different storage controller.
      </para>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="ts_solaris-8-guest-crash">

      <title>Solaris 8 5/01 and Earlier May Crash on Startup</title>

      <para>
        Solaris 2.6, 7 and 8 releases up to and including Solaris 8 4/01
        ("S8U4") incorrectly set up Machine Check Exception (MCE) MSRs
        on Pentium 4 and some later Intel CPUs. The problem leads to the
        Solaris kernel crashing, and usually causing a triple fault,
        almost immediately during startup, in both virtualized and
        physical environments. Solaris 9 and later releases are not
        affected by this problem, and neither is Solaris 2.5.1 and
        earlier.
      </para>

      <para>
        The recommended solution is upgrading to at least Solaris 8 7/01
        ("S8U5"). Alternative solutions include applying a patch for
        bugs 4408508 and 4414557 on an unaffected system.
      </para>

    </sect2>

  </sect1>

  <sect1 id="ts_fbsd-guests">

    <title>FreeBSD Guests</title>

    <sect2 id="ts_fbsd-guest-xhci">

      <title>FreeBSD 10.0 May Hang with xHCI</title>

      <para>
        If xHCI (USB 3.0) emulation is enabled for FreeBSD 10.0 guests,
        the guest OS will hang. This is caused by the guest OS
        incorrectly handling systems where Message Signaled Interrupts
        (MSIs) are not used with the xHCI device.
      </para>

      <para>
        The problem does not exist in earlier FreeBSD releases and was
        fixed in FreeBSD 10.1.
      </para>

    </sect2>

  </sect1>

  <sect1 id="ts_win-hosts">

    <title>Windows Hosts</title>

    <sect2 id="ts_win-host-com-server">

      <title>VBoxSVC Out-of-Process COM Server Issues</title>

      <para>
        VirtualBox makes use of the Microsoft Component Object Model
        (COM) for inter-process and intra-process communication. This
        allows VirtualBox to share a common configuration among
        different virtual machine processes and provide several user
        interface options based on a common architecture. All global
        status information and configuration is maintained by the
        process <computeroutput>VBoxSVC.exe</computeroutput>, which is
        an out-of-process COM server. Whenever a VirtualBox process is
        started, it requests access to the COM server and Windows
        automatically starts the process. Note that it should never be
        started by the end user.
      </para>

      <para>
        When the last process disconnects from the COM server, it will
        terminate itself after some seconds. The VirtualBox
        configuration (XML files) is maintained and owned by the COM
        server and the files are locked whenever the server runs.
      </para>

      <para>
        In some cases, such as when a virtual machine is terminated
        unexpectedly, the COM server will not notice that the client is
        disconnected and stay active for a longer period of 10 minutes
        or so, keeping the configuration files locked. In other rare
        cases the COM server might experience an internal error and
        subsequently other processes fail to initialize it. In these
        situations, it is recommended to use the Windows task manager to
        kill the process <computeroutput>VBoxSVC.exe</computeroutput>.
      </para>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="ts_win-host-cd-dvd-changes">

      <title>CD/DVD Changes Not Recognized</title>

      <para>
        In case you have assigned a physical CD/DVD drive to a guest and
        the guest does not notice when the medium changes, make sure
        that the Windows media change notification (MCN) feature is not
        turned off. This is represented by the following key in the
        Windows registry:

<screen><literal>HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdrom\Autorun</literal></screen>

        Certain applications may disable this key against Microsoft's
        advice. If it is set to 0, change it to 1 and reboot your
        system. VirtualBox relies on Windows notifying it of media
        changes.
      </para>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="ts_win-host-rdp-client">

      <title>Sluggish Response When Using Microsoft RDP Client</title>

      <para>
        If connecting to a Virtual Machine via the Microsoft RDP client,
        called a Remote Desktop Connection, there can be large delays
        between input such as moving the mouse over a menu and output.
        This is because this RDP client collects input for a certain
        time before sending it to the RDP server.
      </para>

      <para>
        The interval can be decreased by setting a Windows registry key
        to smaller values than the default of 100. The key does not
        exist initially and must be of type DWORD. The unit for its
        values is milliseconds. Values around 20 are suitable for
        low-bandwidth connections between the RDP client and server.
        Values around 4 can be used for a gigabit Ethernet connection.
        Generally values below 10 achieve a performance that is very
        close to that of the local input devices and screen of the host
        on which the Virtual Machine is running.
      </para>

      <para>
        Depending whether the setting should be changed for an
        individual user or for the system, set either of the following.
      </para>

<screen>HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Terminal Server Client\Min Send Interval</screen>

<screen>HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Terminal Server Client\Min Send Interval</screen>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="ts_win-host-iscsi">

      <title>Running an iSCSI Initiator and Target on a Single System</title>

      <para>
        Deadlocks can occur on a Windows host when attempting to access
        an iSCSI target running in a guest virtual machine with an iSCSI
        initiator, such as a Microsoft iSCSI Initiator, that is running
        on the host. This is caused by a flaw in the Windows cache
        manager component, and causes sluggish host system response for
        several minutes, followed by a "Delayed Write Failed" error
        message in the system tray or in a separate message window. The
        guest is blocked during that period and may show error messages
        or become unstable.
      </para>

      <para>
        Setting the environment variable
        <computeroutput>VBOX_DISABLE_HOST_DISK_CACHE</computeroutput> to
        1 will enable a workaround for this problem until Microsoft
        addresses the issue. For example, open a command prompt window
        and start VirtualBox like this:
      </para>

<screen>set VBOX_DISABLE_HOST_DISK_CACHE=1
VirtualBox</screen>

      <para>
        While this will decrease guest disk performance, especially
        writes, it does not affect the performance of other applications
        running on the host.
      </para>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="ts_win-host-bridged-network-adapters">

      <title>Bridged Networking Adapters Missing</title>

      <para>
        If no bridged adapters show up in the Networking section of the
        VM settings, this typically means that the bridged networking
        driver was not installed properly on your host. This could be
        due to the following reasons:
      </para>

      <itemizedlist>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            The maximum allowed filter count was reached on the host. In
            this case, the MSI log would mention the
            <computeroutput>0x8004a029</computeroutput> error code
            returned on NetFlt network component install:

<screen>VBoxNetCfgWinInstallComponent: Install failed, hr (0x8004a029)</screen>
          </para>

          <para>
            You can try to increase the maximum filter count in the
            Windows registry at the following key:

<screen>HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Network\MaxNumFilters</screen>

            The maximum number allowed is 14. After a reboot, try to
            reinstall VirtualBox.
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            The INF cache is corrupt. In this case, the install log
            (<computeroutput>%windir%\inf\setupapi.log</computeroutput>
            on XP or
            <computeroutput>%windir%\inf\setupapi.dev.log</computeroutput>
            on Vista or later) would typically mention the failure to
            find a suitable driver package for either the
            <computeroutput>sun_VBoxNetFlt</computeroutput> or
            <computeroutput>sun_VBoxNetFltmp</computeroutput>
            components. The solution then is to uninstall VirtualBox,
            remove the INF cache
            (<computeroutput>%windir%\inf\INFCACHE.1</computeroutput>),
            reboot and try to reinstall VirtualBox
          </para>
        </listitem>

      </itemizedlist>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="ts_win-host-host-only-network-adapters">

      <title>Host-only Networking Adapters Cannot be Created</title>

      <para>
        If host-only adapter cannot be created, either via the Manager
        or VBoxManage, then the INF cache is probably corrupt. In this
        case, the install log
        (<computeroutput>%windir%\inf\setupapi.log</computeroutput> on
        XP or
        <computeroutput>%windir%\inf\setupapi.dev.log</computeroutput>
        on Vista or later) would typically mention the failure to find a
        suitable driver package for the
        <computeroutput>sun_VBoxNetAdp</computeroutput> component.
        Again, as with the bridged networking problem described above,
        the solution is to uninstall VirtualBox, remove the INF cache
        (<computeroutput>%windir%\inf\INFCACHE.1</computeroutput>),
        reboot and try to reinstall VirtualBox.
      </para>

    </sect2>

  </sect1>

  <sect1 id="ts_lin-hosts">

    <title>Linux Hosts</title>

    <sect2 id="ts_linux-kernelmodule-fails-to-load">

      <title>Linux Kernel Module Refuses to Load</title>

      <para>
        If the VirtualBox kernel module,
        <computeroutput>vboxdrv</computeroutput>, refuses to load you
        may see an "Error inserting vboxdrv: Invalid argument" message.
        As root, check the output of the
        <computeroutput>dmesg</computeroutput> command to find out why
        the load failed. Most probably the kernel disagrees with the
        version of <computeroutput>gcc</computeroutput> used to compile
        the module. Make sure that you use the same compiler as used to
        build the kernel.
      </para>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="ts_linux-host-cd-dvd-not-found">

      <title>Linux Host CD/DVD Drive Not Found</title>

      <para>
        If you have configured a virtual machine to use the host's
        CD/DVD drive, but this does not appear to work, make sure that
        the current user has permission to access the corresponding
        Linux device file. This is
        <computeroutput>/dev/hdc</computeroutput>,
        <computeroutput>/dev/scd0</computeroutput>,
        <computeroutput>/dev/cdrom</computeroutput> or similar. On most
        distributions, the user must be added to a corresponding group,
        usually called <computeroutput>cdrom</computeroutput> or
        <computeroutput>cdrw</computeroutput>.
      </para>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="ts_linux-host-cd-dvd-not-found-legacy">

      <title>Linux Host CD/DVD Drive Not Found (Older Distributions)</title>

      <para>
        On older Linux distributions, if your CD/DVD device has a
        different name, VirtualBox may be unable to find it. On older
        Linux hosts, VirtualBox performs the following steps to locate
        your CD/DVD drives:
      </para>

      <orderedlist>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            VirtualBox checks if the environment variable
            <computeroutput>VBOX_CDROM</computeroutput> is defined. If
            so, VirtualBox omits all the following checks.
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            VirtualBox tests if
            <computeroutput>/dev/cdrom</computeroutput> works.
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            VirtualBox checks if any CD/DVD drives are currently mounted
            by checking <computeroutput>/etc/mtab</computeroutput>.
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            VirtualBox checks if any of the entries in
            <computeroutput>/etc/fstab</computeroutput> point to CD/DVD
            devices.
          </para>
        </listitem>

      </orderedlist>

      <para>
        You can set the VBOX_CDROM environment variable to contain a
        list of your CD/DVD devices, separated by colons. For example:
      </para>

<screen>export VBOX_CDROM='/dev/cdrom0:/dev/cdrom1'</screen>

      <para>
        On modern Linux distributions, VirtualBox uses the hardware
        abstraction layer (HAL) to locate CD and DVD hardware.
      </para>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="ts_linux-host-floppy-not-found">

      <title>Linux Host Floppy Not Found</title>

      <para>
        <xref linkend="ts_linux-host-cd-dvd-not-found-legacy"/> appplies
        also to floppy disks, except that on older distributions
        VirtualBox tests for <computeroutput>/dev/fd*</computeroutput>
        devices by default. This can be overridden with the
        <computeroutput>VBOX_FLOPPY</computeroutput> environment
        variable.
      </para>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="ts_linux-host-ide-messages">

      <title>Strange Guest IDE Error Messages When Writing to CD/DVD</title>

      <para>
        If the experimental CD/DVD writer support is enabled with an
        incorrect VirtualBox, host or guest configuration, it is
        possible that any attempt to access the CD/DVD writer fails and
        simply results in guest kernel error messages for Linux guests
        or application error messages for Windows guests. VirtualBox
        performs the usual consistency checks when a VM is powered up.
        In particular, it aborts with an error message if the device for
        the CD/DVD writer is not writable by the user starting the VM.
        But VirtualBox cannot detect all misconfigurations. The
        necessary host and guest OS configuration is not specific for
        VirtualBox, but a few frequent problems are listed here which
        occurred in connection with VirtualBox.
      </para>

      <para>
        Special care must be taken to use the correct device. The
        configured host CD/DVD device file name, in most cases
        <literal>/dev/cdrom</literal>, must point to the device that
        allows writing to the CD/DVD unit. For CD/DVD writer units
        connected to a SCSI controller or to a IDE controller that
        interfaces to the Linux SCSI subsystem (common for some SATA
        controllers), this must refer to the SCSI device node, such as
        <literal>/dev/scd0</literal>. Even for IDE CD/DVD writer units
        this must refer to the appropriate SCSI CD-ROM device node, such
        as <literal>/dev/scd0</literal>, if the
        <literal>ide-scsi</literal> kernel module is loaded. This module
        is required for CD/DVD writer support with all Linux 2.4 kernels
        and some early 2.6 kernels. Many Linux distributions load this
        module whenever a CD/DVD writer is detected in the system, even
        if the kernel would support CD/DVD writers without the module.
        VirtualBox supports the use of IDE device files, such as
        <literal>/dev/hdc</literal>, provided the kernel supports this
        and the <literal>ide-scsi</literal> module is not loaded.
      </para>

      <para>
        Similar rules, except that within the guest the CD/DVD writer is
        always an IDE device, apply to the guest configuration. Since
        this setup is very common, it is likely that the default
        configuration of the guest works as expected.
      </para>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="ts_linux-host-vboxsvc">

      <title>VBoxSVC IPC Issues</title>

      <para>
        On Linux, VirtualBox makes use of a custom version of Mozilla
        XPCOM (cross platform component object model) for inter-process
        and intra-process communication (IPC). The process
        <computeroutput>VBoxSVC</computeroutput> serves as a
        communication hub between different VirtualBox processes and
        maintains the global configuration, such as the XML database.
        When starting a VirtualBox component, the processes
        <computeroutput>VBoxSVC</computeroutput> and
        <computeroutput>VBoxXPCOMIPCD</computeroutput> are started
        automatically. They are only accessible from the user account
        they are running under. <computeroutput>VBoxSVC</computeroutput>
        owns the VirtualBox configuration database which normally
        resides in
        <computeroutput>~/.config/VirtualBox</computeroutput>, or the
        appropriate configuration directory for your operating system.
        While it is running, the configuration files are locked.
        Communication between the various VirtualBox components and
        <computeroutput>VBoxSVC</computeroutput> is performed through a
        local domain socket residing in
        <computeroutput>/tmp/.vbox-&lt;username&gt;-ipc</computeroutput>.
        In case there are communication problems, such as a VirtualBox
        application cannot communicate with
        <computeroutput>VBoxSVC</computeroutput>, terminate the daemons
        and remove the local domain socket directory.
      </para>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="ts_usb-linux">

      <title>USB Not Working</title>

      <para>
        If USB is not working on your Linux host, make sure that the
        current user is a member of the
        <computeroutput>vboxusers</computeroutput> group. Please keep in
        mind that group membership does not take effect immediately but
        rather at the next login. If available, the
        <computeroutput>newgrp</computeroutput> command may avoid the
        need for logout/login.
      </para>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="ts_linux-host-grsec">

      <title>PAX/grsec Kernels</title>

      <para>
        Linux kernels including the grsec patch, see
        <ulink
      url="http://www.grsecurity.net/">http://www.grsecurity.net/</ulink>,
        and derivates have to disable PAX_MPROTECT for the VBox binaries
        to be able to start a VM. The reason is that VBox has to create
        executable code on anonymous memory.
      </para>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="ts_linux-host-malloc">

      <title>Linux Kernel vmalloc Pool Exhausted</title>

      <para>
        When running a large number of VMs with a lot of RAM on a Linux
        system, say 20 VMs with 1 GB of RAM each, additional VMs might
        fail to start with a kernel error saying that the vmalloc pool
        is exhausted and should be extended. The error message also
        tells you to specify
        <computeroutput>vmalloc=256MB</computeroutput> in your kernel
        parameter list. If adding this parameter to your GRUB or LILO
        configuration makes the kernel fail to boot, with an error
        message such as "failed to mount the root partition", then you
        have probably run into a memory conflict of your kernel and
        initial RAM disk. This can be solved by adding the following
        parameter to your GRUB configuration:
      </para>

<screen>uppermem 524288</screen>

    </sect2>

  </sect1>

  <sect1 id="ts_sol-hosts">

    <title>Solaris Hosts</title>

    <sect2 id="ts_sol-host-zfs">

      <title>Cannot Start VM, Not Enough Contiguous Memory</title>

      <para>
        The ZFS file system is known to use nearly all available RAM as
        cache if the default system settings are not changed. This may
        lead to a heavy fragmentation of the host memory preventing
        VirtualBox VMs from being started. We recommend to limit the ZFS
        cache by adding the following line to /etc/system, where
        <computeroutput>xxxx</computeroutput> bytes is the amount of
        memory usable for the ZFS cache.
      </para>

<screen>set zfs:zfs_arc_max = xxxx</screen>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="ts_sol-host-swap-space">

      <title>VM Aborts With Out of Memory Errors on Solaris 10 Hosts</title>

      <para>
        32-bit Solaris 10 hosts (bug 1225025) require swap space equal
        to, or greater than the host's physical memory size. For
        example, 8 GB physical memory would require at least 8 GB swap.
        This can be configured during a Solaris 10 install by choosing a
        Custom Install and changing the default partitions.
      </para>

      <note>
        <para>
          This restriction applies only to 32-bit Solaris hosts, 64-bit
          hosts are not affected.
        </para>
      </note>

      <para>
        For existing Solaris 10 installs, an additional swap image needs
        to be mounted and used as swap. Hence if you have 1 GB swap and
        8 GB of physical memory, you require to add 7 GB more swap. This
        can be done as follows:
      </para>

      <para>
        For ZFS, run the following as root user:
      </para>

<screen>zfs create -V 8gb /_&lt;ZFS volume&gt;_/swap
swap -a /dev/zvol/dsk/_&lt;ZFS volume&gt;_/swap</screen>

      <para>
        To mount if after reboot, add the following line to /etc/vfstab:
      </para>

<screen>/dev/zvol/dsk/_&lt;ZFS volume&gt;_/swap - - swap - no -</screen>

      <para>
        Alternatively, you could grow the existing swap using:
      </para>

<screen>zfs set volsize=8G rpool/swap</screen>

      <para>
        And reboot the system for the changes to take effect.
      </para>

      <para>
        For UFS (as root user):
      </para>

<screen>mkfile 7g /path/to/swapfile.img
swap -a /path/to/swapfile.img</screen>

      <para>
        To mount it after reboot, add the following line to /etc/vfstab:
      </para>

<screen>/path/to/swap.img - - swap - no -</screen>

    </sect2>

  </sect1>

</chapter>