VM running headless "disappears" from RDP and control panel after some time.

[dimitris]

Both host and guest are Ubuntu 9.04/i386

I've had a machine running as:

VBoxHeadless -startvm squeezecenter -vrdpaddress localhost

for a few days now. I had connected to the RDP port using KRDC several times, and I had also seen the machine as "Running" on the VB control panel UI several times.

As of this morning, the machine shows up as "Powered Off" on the VB control panel. When I try to connect to the RDP port, I see this on the VM's log:

70:34:05.744 VRDP: New connection:
70:34:05.778 VRDP: Flags 0x00000003
70:34:05.778 VRDP: Channel: [cliprdr] [1004]. Accepted.
70:34:05.778 VRDP: Channel: [rdpsnd] [1005]. Accepted.
70:34:05.778 VRDP: Channel: [snddbg] [1006]. Not supported.
70:34:05.785 VRDP: Client seems to be rdesktop.
70:34:05.785 VRDP: Logon: greebo (127.0.0.1) build 2600. User: [] Domain: [] Screen: 0
70:34:05.786 VRDP: Connection closed:
70:34:05.786 VRDP: Logoff: greebo (127.0.0.1) build 2600. User: [] Domain: [] Reason 0x0001.

The machine is very much running, I can ssh to it and the music server on it is happily working. I tried rebooting it (over SSH), and after the reboot it's still in "stealth" mode.

I did recently make some changes to both the host's and guest's iptables settings. I completely removed the guest's iptables settings before I rebooted it but it didn't make a difference. Are there any ports that need to be open on the host, other than the RDP port itself, in order for RDP and/or the control UI to work properly?

[dimitris]

VBox.log of "gone stealth" headless VM.

[dimitris]

Predictably, after I halt the VM over SSH and restart it (again headless, same command line), everything is back to normal - RDP works and control panel shows it as Running.

[dimitris]

(Sorry for the spam, should have combined this with previous update) Adding the guest's firewall back doesn't create any problems.

Just in case that does matter after some time, I'll attach the guest's firewall here.

[dimitris]

Guest's iptables firewall script

[Frank Mehnert]

In such cases please check if the VBoxSVC daemon is still running. If it crashed for some reason (which should not happen of course), that could lead to a similar behavior.

[Frank Mehnert]

Please reopen if still relevant with VBox 4.1.6.