Triple Fault

Discussions about using Windows guests in VirtualBox.
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Radonk
Posts: 2
Joined: 22. Sep 2022, 15:45

Triple Fault

Post by Radonk »

I have been plagued with this issue for the last three days and I'm out of guesses. I have an Ubuntu host where in I am running a Windows guest. I should note, the Ubuntu host is virtualized in VMWare Fusion Pro. I've done this dozens of times without any issue with the ultimate goal of running Cuckoo. The Windows host will be a malware detonation VM.

Every time I go to do anything with the Windows VM, I get a triple fault error. I've tried installing from a new ISO. I've tried installing the same ISO in Fusion, exporting it, and then importing it into VirtualBox. Each time, I get the same error. The ISO installs properly when using Fusion. I have VT-x/EPT enabled in Fusion. I have it enabled in VirtualBox as well, although I don't think it's necessary there. The only way I've found to be able to run the VM is to disable nested paging in the settings/acceleration tab. When I do that, however, the VM is insanely slow and completely unusable. Any ideas?
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scottgus1
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Joined: 30. Dec 2009, 20:14
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
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Re: Triple Fault

Post by scottgus1 »

Radonk wrote:I have an Ubuntu host where in I am running a Windows guest. I should note, the Ubuntu host is virtualized in VMWare Fusion Pro.
So this is really Nested Virtualization. VMware > Ubuntu > Virtualbox > Windows. You're running official Virtualbox, not the Ubuntu fork, which is good. Nested Virtualization is best supported when the same hypervisor is on both levels. But the fact that this was working in its present setup is interesting.

The log showed the VM's guru meditating as soon as the Windows 7 started booting. Less than 2MB were read from the VM's disk, so I'd guess it may have not even got through the boot loader yet.

I would suspect something having changed in Ubuntu or VMware. Any updates done outside of Virtualbox? Do you happen to have a backup of the whole Ubuntu VM containing Virtualbox and the W7 VM that you could import into VMware again?
Radonk
Posts: 2
Joined: 22. Sep 2022, 15:45

Re: Triple Fault

Post by Radonk »

scottgus1 wrote:
Radonk wrote:I have an Ubuntu host where in I am running a Windows guest. I should note, the Ubuntu host is virtualized in VMWare Fusion Pro.
So this is really Nested Virtualization. VMware > Ubuntu > Virtualbox > Windows. You're running official Virtualbox, not the Ubuntu fork, which is good. Nested Virtualization is best supported when the same hypervisor is on both levels. But the fact that this was working in its present setup is interesting.
Unfortunately, I don't have the original VM as it was on a work machine and this is my personal. It is VERY likely that versions have changed over time as this was about a year ago.

I'm fairly certain I'm hitting a new limitation of MacOS, but I can't seem to determine where exactly that is to attempt to find a solution.
fth0
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Re: Triple Fault

Post by fth0 »

I'd suspect and verify the disk geometry of the virtual hard disk in this case. If VirtualBox interprets the disk geometry wrong, it loads the wrong disk sectors into memory and the execution will eventually lead to such a triple fault.
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