NAT ping delay => Fixed in SVN

[johnjohn]

I installed VirtualBox 3.1.6 in the global zone of a Sun X4250 running OpenSolaris (SunOS 5.11 snv_111b i86pc i386 i86pc Solaris). The machine connects to several VLANs. One of the zones is of type shared IP that connects to e1000g10000 (VLAN 10). This zone has the following configuration:

me@server:~$ zonecfg -z winxp info
zonename: winxp
zonepath: /rpool/zones/winxp
brand: ipkg
autoboot: false
bootargs: 
pool: 
limitpriv: 
scheduling-class: 
ip-type: shared
hostid: 
inherit-pkg-dir:
	dir: /lib
inherit-pkg-dir:
	dir: /platform
inherit-pkg-dir:
	dir: /sbin
inherit-pkg-dir:
	dir: /usr
inherit-pkg-dir:
	dir: /opt
net:
	address: 10.0.0.8/16
	physical: e1000g10000
	defrouter not specified
device:
	match: /dev/vboxdrv

Inside the zone winxp I run VBoxHeadless to have Windows XP available. The configuration of this machines looks as follows:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<VirtualBox xmlns="http://www.innotek.de/VirtualBox-settings" version="1.9-solaris">
  <Machine uuid="{27ec6f00-c2eb-4311-8bdd-d6a8b1668611}" name="WinXP" OSType="WindowsXP" lastStateChange="2010-03-26T02:34:57Z">
    <Hardware version="2">
      <CPU count="1">
        <HardwareVirtEx enabled="true" exclusive="true"/>
        <HardwareVirtExNestedPaging enabled="true"/>
        <HardwareVirtExVPID enabled="true"/>
        <PAE enabled="true"/>
      </CPU>
      <Memory RAMSize="1024"/>
      <Boot>
        <Order position="1" device="DVD"/>
        <Order position="2" device="DVD"/>
        <Order position="3" device="HardDisk"/>
        <Order position="4" device="None"/>
      </Boot>
      <Display VRAMSize="8" monitorCount="1" accelerate3D="false" accelerate2DVideo="false"/>
      <RemoteDisplay enabled="true" port="3389" authType="Null" authTimeout="5000" allowMultiConnection="true"/>
      <BIOS>
        <ACPI enabled="true"/>
        <IOAPIC enabled="true"/>
        <Logo fadeIn="true" fadeOut="true" displayTime="0"/>
        <BootMenu mode="MessageAndMenu"/>
        <TimeOffset value="0"/>
        <PXEDebug enabled="false"/>
      </BIOS>
      <USBController enabled="false" enabledEhci="false"/>
      <Network>
        <Adapter slot="0" enabled="true" MACAddress="0800277B53DA" cable="true" speed="0" type="82543GC">
          <NAT network="192.168.57/24"/>
        </Adapter>
        <Adapter slot="1" enabled="false" MACAddress="080027C50371" cable="true" speed="0" type="Am79C973"/>
        <Adapter slot="2" enabled="false" MACAddress="080027B52C38" cable="true" speed="0" type="Am79C973"/>
        <Adapter slot="3" enabled="false" MACAddress="080027E02A0F" cable="true" speed="0" type="Am79C973"/>
        <Adapter slot="4" enabled="false" MACAddress="0800270DD5FF" cable="true" speed="0" type="Am79C973"/>
        <Adapter slot="5" enabled="false" MACAddress="080027564DFD" cable="true" speed="0" type="Am79C973"/>
        <Adapter slot="6" enabled="false" MACAddress="080027CED079" cable="true" speed="0" type="Am79C973"/>
        <Adapter slot="7" enabled="false" MACAddress="08002791F57A" cable="true" speed="0" type="Am79C973"/>
      </Network>
      <UART>
        <Port slot="0" enabled="false" IOBase="0x3f8" IRQ="4" hostMode="Disconnected"/>
        <Port slot="1" enabled="false" IOBase="0x3f8" IRQ="4" hostMode="Disconnected"/>
      </UART>
      <LPT>
        <Port slot="0" enabled="false" IOBase="0x378" IRQ="4"/>
        <Port slot="1" enabled="false" IOBase="0x378" IRQ="4"/>
      </LPT>
      <AudioAdapter controller="AC97" driver="SolAudio" enabled="false"/>
      <SharedFolders/>
      <Clipboard mode="Bidirectional"/>
      <Guest memoryBalloonSize="0" statisticsUpdateInterval="0"/>
      <GuestProperties/>
    </Hardware>
    <StorageControllers>
      <StorageController name="IDE Controller" type="PIIX4" PortCount="2">
        <AttachedDevice type="HardDisk" port="0" device="0">
          <Image uuid="{1c0a1611-d787-45e9-a982-e09891c9891a}"/>
        </AttachedDevice>
        <AttachedDevice passthrough="false" type="DVD" port="1" device="0">
          <Image uuid="{95bb68ac-9d47-4afd-b45e-7e43fa062959}"/>
        </AttachedDevice>
      </StorageController>
    </StorageControllers>
  </Machine>
</VirtualBox>

Since VirtualBox uses also the network 10.0/16 I had to change the NAT/DHCP settings to <NAT network="192.168.57/24"/>. That works pretty well. I can ping 192.168.57.2 (the default gateway) with no delay. However, when I try to ping other machines in the network, Windows XP behaves totally weird. When I run ping -t 10.0.0.8 there are delays around 1000 ms. When I ping 10.0.0.9, I experience delays ranging from 1 ms to 500 ms. The roundtrip delay flips between 1 ms and 500 ms. Sometimes, I even lose every second ICMP reply.

To nail down the problem, I installed VirtualBox 3.1.4 too. But that didn't help either. Furthermore, I tried Knoppix (ADRIANE-KNOPPIX_V6.2.1CD-2010-01-31-EN.iso). However, no luck too. Knoppix had delays around 1000 ms (without flipping to 1 ms).

Furthermore, within Windows XP I was unable to download data from 10.0.0.9 via tftp -i get 10.0.0.9 example.zip).

Is there any help available?

[johnjohn]

VBox.log

[Frank Mehnert]

Bigger delays with ping over NAT is a known issue and not a real problem. Other traffic (e.g. http) should work fine.

[johnjohn]

Replying to frank: OK, but I cannot use tftp at all. Is this a known issue too?

[vasily Levchenko]

Replying to johnjohn:

Replying to frank: OK, but I cannot use tftp at all. Is this a known issue too?

Could you please create ticket for tftp problems? which client do you use and the pcap file from guest could be useful (please see ​http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Network_tips for details).

[johnjohn]

Replying to Hachiman:

Could you please create ticket for tftp problems? which client do you use and the pcap file from guest could be useful (please see ​http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Network_tips for details).

Alright! I'll send that in. I am using the Windows XP built in tftp client to access an OpenSolaris tftp server within the same local subnet. I'll send more details with the new ticket.

[johnjohn]

Replying to frank:

Bigger delays with ping over NAT is a known issue and not a real problem. Other traffic (e.g. http) should work fine.

One more question: We would like to run PRTG in the aforementioned zone. Since PRTG (​http://www.paessler.com/prtg) is a Windows program, we need to run it in VirtualBox. Due to the ICMP Echo request delays, we experience strange monitoring results. Is there any chance that VIrtualBox will resolve the "ping problem" in one of its next releases?

[Frank Mehnert]

The ping delays up to 500ms should be fixed in the next maintenance release.

[Frank Mehnert]

You might want to test ​VirtualBox 3.2.0 Beta 1 which has the ping delay fix included.

[Frank Mehnert]

Fixed in 3.1.8