Reset/reboot of the VM doesn't reset VirtualBox' host memory allocation

[Artem S. Tashkinov]

Tentatively when the VM is being reset/rebooted its resources must be destroyed, including allocated memory.

It's not the case with VirtualBox (tested using 5.0RC3).

[Frank Mehnert]

I don't think this is a bug. On reset all devices are re-initialized but their device state is not reallocated. Same for the memory. I guess on a real host the memory is not detached from the mainboard and re-attached to the mainboard during reset, correct?

[Artem S. Tashkinov]

Replying to frank:

I don't think this is a bug. On reset all devices are re-initialized but their device state is not reallocated. Same for the memory. I guess on a real host the memory is not detached from the mainboard and re-attached to the mainboard during reset, correct?

VirtualBox is an application, not a HW platform. Last time I checked VirtualBox usage doesn't imply adding memory modules to the host PC, so your argument is invalid.

Also mind that competing desktop hypervisors indeed free the memory.

[Frank Mehnert]

Sorry, I still see no reason to free the allocated memory during reset. And it's not only a minor implementation detail, the effort would be much higher than you might think.

[Frank Mehnert]

Oh, and regarding your argument with memory modules: When a VM starts, it gets some physical memory assigned. From the point of the guest this is the same as from the point of a bare-metal machine which has physical memory modules attached.