Fed up of dying Solaris guests

Post by **rasta** » 22. Jun 2009, 15:44

There never has been any doubt that Solaris 10 guests can be upgraded to more recent release versions. Doing so is straightforward.

There is also no question that bug #2258 has been fixed. It has NOT. Especially since 2.2.4, there appears to be no problem running 64-bit Solaris guests on 64-bit hosts. The problem, as stated in 2.2.4 (and earlier) Known Issues, is that 64-bit Solaris guests are completely unstable on 32-bit hosts.

javaboyuk · Post by **javaboyuk** » 26. Jun 2009, 17:02

So what we are saying is Solaris 64 bit mode does not work in VB 2.2.4

So as my disks are 2TB so MUST run 64 bit version of solaris I can run
it as a guest reliably to zfs manage my 5 2TB drives.

Is anyone from VirtualBox/opensolaris looking into this?

Shame I like solaris, maybe FreeBSD 7 will be ok?

(Iam runing windows Xp 32BIT, must use Solaris 64BIT)

Post by **rasta** » 26. Jun 2009, 18:35

"(Iam runing windows Xp 32BIT, must use Solaris 64BIT)"

If that is the case, I would wait for a subsequent release of VirtualBox wherein the bug has been fixed. I hope Vbox 3.0 (beta 2 available) fixes the problem regarding 64-bit Solaris guests on 32-bit Windows hosts.

Post by **sej7278** » 26. Jun 2009, 23:51

its a bit of a stretch to expect that issue to be fixed - buy a 64-bit cpu and run a 64-bit host os if you want to run a 64-bit guest os, its the easiest option.

javaboyuk · Post by **javaboyuk** » 27. Jun 2009, 23:36

Well my opensolaris 2008.6 solaris 64bit hosts has hung a few times, with 100% cPU, and I can't
kill it even from windows XP (32bit) manager. Even rebootinh my windows box seems to hang!

So tried 32bit opensolaris 2009.6, and at reboot from CDROM install hung with a 100% cpu.

so I am downloading VB3.0 betat 2, see if it impoves things

javaboyuk · Post by **javaboyuk** » 30. Jun 2009, 12:49

Gave up moved to VB 3.0 Beta 2

Appart from the fact that NATed networking is broken, my solaris guest has run wonderfully so far (fingers crossed)
(ps, use bridged rather than NAT seems ok)

(been running the guest flat out for 3 days now as a storage server ZFS on a RAW attached array with host only network
for smb share back to wondows!!) moved 3TB over it.

Post by **rasta** » 30. Jun 2009, 23:24

java,

Is that a 64-bit Solaris guest on a 32-bit host with Vbox 3.0.0?

Post by **rasta** » 1. Jul 2009, 16:57

The problem with 64-bit guests on 32-bit hosts has not been fixed in 3.0.0.

In addition, I experienced unstable behavior in attempting to identify more than one processor using VT-x in 32-bit mode. It appears that the only way to configure a Solaris (or other?) guest with regard to Vbox settings (# processors, PAE/NX, VT-x is through frustrating trial and error. There is no helpful documentation in this regard.

Given a 32-bit WinXP host with dual quad-core E5345 Xeon processors (VT-x), what is the recommended optimal Solaris 10 guest configuration for maximal guest speed and stability? Should I specify more than one processor? PAE/NX? Some tests have indicated that VT-x should be disabled (and thus only one processor used) to get a stable 32-bit Solaris guest.

Post by **sej7278** » 1. Jul 2009, 17:13

rasta wrote:The problem with 64-bit guests on 32-bit hosts has not been fixed in 3.0.0.

In addition, I experienced unstable behavior in attempting to identify more than one processor using VT-x in 32-bit mode. It appears that the only way to configure a Solaris (or other?) guest with regard to Vbox settings (# processors, PAE/NX, VT-x is through frustrating trial and error. There is no helpful documentation in this regard.

Given a 32-bit WinXP host with dual quad-core E5345 Xeon processors (VT-x), what is the recommended optimal Solaris 10 guest configuration for maximal guest speed and stability? Should I specify more than one processor? PAE/NX? Some tests have indicated that VT-x should be disabled (and thus only one processor used) to get a stable 32-bit Solaris guest.

on a 64-bit host, if you enable vt-x you get a 64-bit guest, otherwise you get a 32-bit, so i guess the same goes for a 64-bit host cpu running a 32-bit host os (god knows why you'd do that!)

in 3.0.0 final, smp on 64-bit guest+host is stable enough - well, guest additions seem to install better in uni-processor mode. i enabled vt-x, io-apic, pae/nx and my core2quad doesn't have nested paging.

oh and don't try to minimize/maximize your guest window more than once, that STILL totally kills gnome!

Post by **rasta** » 2. Jul 2009, 20:42

Solaris guest hanging occurs with equal frequency on a 32-bit WinXP host whether the guest is in 32- or 64-bit mode if VT-x is enabled. If VT-x is disabled, the 32-bit guest may not hang, but it is so slow that it is not worth dealing with. With VT-x enabled, both 32- and 64-bit guests are nice and fast, but very unstable.

Post by **sej7278** » 2. Jul 2009, 21:41

rasta wrote:Solaris guest hanging occurs with equal frequency on a 32-bit WinXP host whether the guest is in 32- or 64-bit mode if VT-x is enabled. If VT-x is disabled, the 32-bit guest may not hang, but it is so slow that it is not worth dealing with. With VT-x enabled, both 32- and 64-bit guests are nice and fast, but very unstable.

on a 32-bit host.

64-bit host os+vtx works satisfactorily (kinda) with 64-bit guests.....

gotta agree though, solaris seems the worst tested of all the os'es, bit odd being sun and all.... windoze gets the most testing, then linux i guess.

javaboyuk · Post by **javaboyuk** » 3. Jul 2009, 08:27

Sorry for late answer:

I am running WIndows XP 32bit, with 64bit Solaris 2009.6 install.

I "upgraded" from 3.0.0b2 to 3.0.0 2 days ago, all seems ok still
moved another 2 TB accross. However I see the internal network is
now ONLY rated at 100mb, was 1gb in 3.0.0b2 it may make no
real performance difference... I don't know but I keep maxing it out
on windows monitoring

Post by **rasta** » 3. Jul 2009, 16:07

Java,

Check out the thread I started about network connectivity on a Solaris guest with 3.0.0. Do you use NAT networking?

jerrycan · Post by **jerrycan** » 6. Jul 2009, 14:22

I did not have any Solaris guests hang until I manually configured the xntpd client service in a few of my Sol10 guests.

Not managed to fully reproduce the issue yet, but just wondered if anyone else had noticed this?

Post by **rasta** » 8. Jul 2009, 20:28

I have been running the Sol 10 u7 32-bit guest with VT-x/PAE-NX/IO APIC/ACPI enabled (WinXP 32-bit host), and am getting excellent speed, with no hanging yesterday. Using Vbox 2.2.4. My fingers are crossed that there will be no hangs as I leave the guest running all day. Trying desperately to avoid upgrading my host to 64-bit.

virtualbox.org

Fed up of dying Solaris guests

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