[Fixed] VBoxClient: Failed to get kernel name (#18428)

Discussions about using Solaris guests in VirtualBox.
stes
Posts: 154
Joined: 28. Apr 2018, 11:07

Re: VBoxClient: Failed to get kernel name

Post by stes »

Anyway if I understand correctly you are happy with VboxVGA (so I am ) and not really asking for VMSVGA displays.

So I think you could report a bug report on the virtualbox website for the VBoxClient -x11-vmsvga notify.

It does not seem a big issue, presumably the code is trying to see which "kernel name" (or version) it is running to then decide that it does not have to do anything or so.

There is in the installation files of VirtualBox a lot of code to try to determine all sorts the version of number of the kernel, although that this is most likely just to see whether the vmware display drivers are present ...
rf28723
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Guest OSses: Oracle Solaris, Oracle Linux
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Re: VBoxClient: Failed to get kernel name

Post by rf28723 »

For our readers:
- lock(ed) screen only redraws clock canvas area. rest of screen remains visible
- when prompted for password, only password entry canvas gets redrawn
- when unlocked , clock canvas from lockscreen and password entry canvas remain on screen
- resizing window does not auto-resize screen
2019-01-14 15_24_27-Clipboard.jpg
2019-01-14 15_24_27-Clipboard.jpg (67.83 KiB) Viewed 63828 times
It's a mess. Well, is was a learning experience, thanks for assisting.
For now, I'll revert back to VBoxVGA.
Thanks for your time,
René
stes
Posts: 154
Joined: 28. Apr 2018, 11:07

Re: VBoxClient: Failed to get kernel name

Post by stes »

I don't have these redraw problems. For me setting VMSVGA works perfectly fine,
at least for the Solaris guests.

Also screen redraw, resizing, screen lock (of the screensaver) all perfectly fine...

I must add that for a Linux guest (or a few tests) I had worse results, so I did not do so much testing,
also I suppose this partly is a "guest" and partly a "host" issue.
stes
Posts: 154
Joined: 28. Apr 2018, 11:07

Re: VBoxClient: Failed to get kernel name

Post by stes »

The issue "VBoxClient: Failed to get kernel name" is still happening with version 6.0.2

Code: Select all

root@pluto:~# pkg list virtualbox/*
NAME (PUBLISHER)                                  VERSION                    IFO
virtualbox/guest/gnome (local)                    6.0.2-128162               i--
virtualbox/guest/vboxguest (local)                6.0.2-128162               i--
The VBoxClient -x11-vmsvga process seems to alert the user that "VBoxClient: Failed to get kernel name" but it does not seem to matter for further operation ... the guest and the guest additions seem to work fine.
michael
Oracle Corporation
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Re: VBoxClient: Failed to get kernel name

Post by michael »

Someone pointed me to this thread. I think this would have been a reasonable thing to open a bug report for, and then it might have got noticed faster. Done that now:

https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/18428

I haven't bothered to read through the whole thread, so excuse me if I a repeating something someone already said. VBoxClient --vmsvga-x11 is needed to have dynamic resizing with VMSVGA emulation. Unfortunately I assumed that uname(2) would return zero on success on Solaris like it does on Linux. I don't currently have a Solaris guest handy to test on, so anyone who feels like helping could try out the test build mentioned on the ticket.
socratis
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Re: VBoxClient: Failed to get kernel name (#18428)

Post by socratis »

And right after michael created the ticket, he posted some new development test build of the Guest Additions to try. See https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Testbuilds and go for rev. 128773 or higher.
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stes
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Re: VBoxClient: Failed to get kernel name (#18428)

Post by stes »

Thanks for having a look at this (minor) issue.

Also I must correct what I wrote before, namely that VMSVGA is not working "well" on Linux guests (on a Solaris 11.4) host, I've seen that if I install some Linux systems with VBoxVideo first and then change later the display to VMSVGA and boot the Linux guest again, I get good results i.e., the Linux guest works well with VMSVGA and the vmware video driver on the Solaris host.

As written before, the Solaris 11.4 host seems to support VMSVGA very well for Solaris guests, I've not had any issue, despite the fact that there was this "Failed to get kernel name" notification.

So the notification was not a serious issue, because all was working fine, and I must say that VirtualBox is excellent software and keep up the good work.

Anyway, I downloaded the development test build and the normal test build. The issue is not fixed in the normal test build, but in the development test build I get some different results.

On the Solaris guest I have:

Code: Select all

root@venus:~# pkg publisher
PUBLISHER                   TYPE     STATUS P LOCATION
solaris                     origin   online F http://192.168.0.1/
local                       origin   online F http://192.168.0.1/
where the local repo provides the VirtualBox guest additions:

Code: Select all

root@venus:~# pkg list -af virtualbox/guest/vboxguest
NAME (PUBLISHER)                                  VERSION                    IFO

virtualbox/guest/vboxguest (local)                6.0.97-128834              ---
virtualbox/guest/vboxguest (local)                6.0.5-128870               ---
virtualbox/guest/vboxguest (local)                6.0.4-128413               ---
virtualbox/guest/vboxguest (local)                6.0.2-128162               ---
virtualbox/guest/vboxguest (local)                6.0.0-127566               ---
virtualbox/guest/vboxguest (local)                6.0.0-127566               ---
virtualbox/guest/vboxguest (local)                6.0.0-127378               ---
virtualbox/guest/vboxguest (local)                6.0.0-3.127054             ---
I then installed the development test build:

Code: Select all

root@venus:~# pkg install -v virtualbox/guest/*

Creating Plan (Download 
Creating Plan (Checking for conflicting actions): -
           Packages to instal:        3
            Services to change:        1
     Estimated space available:  3.60 GB
Estimated space to be consumed: 77.92 MB
       Create boot environment:       No
Create backup boot environment:       No
          Rebuild boot archive:       No

Changed packages:
local
  virtualbox/guest/gnome
    None -> 6.0.97-128834
  virtualbox/guest/opengl
    None -> 6.0.97-128834
  virtualbox/guest/vboxguest
    None -> 6.0.97-128834

Services:
  restart_fmri:
    svc:/system/manifest-import:default

DOWNLOAD                                PKGS         FILES    XFER (MB)   SPEED
Completed                                3/3         81/81      7.7/7.7  6.2M/s

PHASE                                          ITEMS
Installing new actions                       120/120
Updating package state database                 Done 
Updating package cache                           0/0 
Updating image state                            Done 
Creating fast lookup database                   Done 
Updating package cache                           2/2 
root@venus:~# pkg info virtualbox/guest/vboxguest
             Name: virtualbox/guest/vboxguest
          Summary: Oracle VM VirtualBox Guest Additions
      Description: Oracle VM VirtualBox Guest Additions for Solaris guests
            State: Installed
        Publisher: local
          Version: 6.0.97
           Branch: 128834
   Packaging Date: February 15, 2019 at  6:07:16 PM
Last Install Time: February 15, 2019 at  6:28:07 PM
             Size: 24.95 MB
             FMRI: pkg://local/virtualbox/guest/vboxguest@6.0.97-128834:20190215T180716Z
Then later after installing these new guest additions, I observe that if I use VBoxVideo as display for the guest, then there is no message of "failed to get kernel name" and in fact the VBoxClient --vmsvga-x11 process is absent, it is started but it seems to silently exit as if it detected that the video is vboxvideo and there is no need to have this process.

If I set the display to VMSVGA for the guest, then the situation that I have now is that there is (sometimes) a new notify message namely:
VBoxClient: x11SendHints failed to set resolution
However this notification is not always appearing, sometimes it seems to just work.

In fact as said before the entire global impression is that both VBoxVideo and VMSVGA are working fine for me on Solaris ... (with Solaris and Linux guests).
michael
Oracle Corporation
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Re: VBoxClient: Failed to get kernel name (#18428)

Post by michael »

Does the "failed to set resolution" notification appear early after starting the desktop, or at a random time? Does restarting "VBoxClient --vmsvga-x11" help? And yes, it detects when vboxvideo is in use and exits.
stes
Posts: 154
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Re: VBoxClient: Failed to get kernel name (#18428)

Post by stes »

The "failed to get kernel name" issue seems fixed in the 6.0.97 build.

In the VBoxVideo case, there is no VBoxClient --vmsvga-x11 process (as it succesfully silently exits).

In the VMSVGA case, I sometimes (not always) just after login (when the desktop starts) get the "failed to set resolution" message.

When I restart the VBoxClient --vmsvga-x11 there is no notification (no error). In fact sometimes when I login, it also seems to succeed (1 time out of 4, I'd say) .

Code: Select all

root@venus:~# ps -ef | grep vmsvga
    stes  1506     1   0 18:42:09 ?           0:00 /usr/bin/VBoxClient --vmsvga-x11
    stes  1524  1506   0 18:42:15 ?           0:00 /usr/bin/VBoxClient --vmsvga-x11
Restarting as root works and no notification:

Code: Select all

root@venus:~# kill 1506
root@venus:~# ps -ef | grep vmsvga
    stes  1524     1   0 18:42:15 ?           0:00 /usr/bin/VBoxClient --vmsvga-x11
root@venus:~# kill 1524
root@venus:~# /usr/bin/VBoxClient --vmsvga-x11
root@venus:~# ps -ef | grep vmsvga
    root  1543  1542   0 18:43:14 ?           0:00 /usr/bin/VBoxClient --vmsvga-x11
    root  1542     1   0 18:43:14 ?           0:00 /usr/bin/VBoxClient --vmsvga-x11
root@venus:~# kill 1542 1543
root@venus:~# exit
But also restarting as user stes also works without notification:

Code: Select all

stes@venus:~$ ps -ef | grep vmsvga
stes@venus:~$ /usr/bin/VBoxClient --vmsvga-x11
stes@venus:~$ ps -ef | grep vmsvga
    stes  1553  1552   0 18:44:18 ?           0:00 /usr/bin/VBoxClient --vmsvga-x11
    stes  1552     1   0 18:44:18 ?           0:00 /usr/bin/VBoxClient --vmsvga-x11
stes
Posts: 154
Joined: 28. Apr 2018, 11:07

Re: VBoxClient: Failed to get kernel name (#18428)

Post by stes »

When I boot the VMSVGA solaris guest, and login into the desktop the first time, I get the notification:
VBoxClient: x11SendHints failed to set resolution
but when I logout then, and login again (without rebooting the guest) on the next login there is no notification and the VBoxClient --vmsvga-x11 processes are there.

Either way, I'm not under the impression that these processes do a lot because the overall experience seems to be that the VMSVGA display works fine for me (I can use the guest, and I have no "ugly windows" or "redraw problems" as the other person (who originally raised the "Failed to get kernel name" issue) was reporting on a Windows host with Solaris guest). Whether I have those processes or not, it seems to work ok.
michael
Oracle Corporation
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Re: VBoxClient: Failed to get kernel name (#18428)

Post by michael »

Finally come back to looking at this. Unless I am wrong, Solaris does not support any acceleration using VMSVGA, so I see no reason to use it instead of VBoxVGA. Recent Solaris versions should support VBoxVGA out of the box better than they support VMSVGA. So I will not try to fix this any further, which would require me to do some serious Solaris debugging, which is somewhat outside of my beaten path.
socratis
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Re: [WontFix] VBoxClient: Failed to get kernel name (#18428)

Post by socratis »

Based on reply from 'michael' and the ticket resolution, marking this as [WontFix].
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stes
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Re: [WontFix] VBoxClient: Failed to get kernel name (#18428)

Post by stes »

That's fine by me, also the "failed to get kernel name" issue was fixed in the 6.0.97 test build. But I think "Wontfix" is referring here to the use of VMSVGA as opposed to VBoxVGA where I'm happy to use VBoxVGA, so no problem.
michael
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Re: [WontFix] VBoxClient: Failed to get kernel name (#18428)

Post by michael »

Yes, "won't fix" was for the follow-up issue. Technically different, but I wasn't feeling bugtracker-pedantic.
stes
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Re: [WontFix] VBoxClient: Failed to get kernel name (#18428)

Post by stes »

OK, I think you can mark the issue as FIXED. I consider it (= "failed to get kernel name") fixed. Thanks for the fix in any case.
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