spectre / retbleed message on bootup screen VB 7.04

Discussions about using Linux guests in VirtualBox.
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Pein
Posts: 16
Joined: 24. Nov 2022, 01:16

spectre / retbleed message on bootup screen VB 7.04

Post by Pein »

Hi,

I got 3 linux vm's and they all give the following error message:

Something about spectre/2 and retbleed possible data leaks. It boots too quickly to read the whole message.

This looks like my processor hasn't been patched, but my windows vm doesn't give this error message on bootup.

I got a Windows 11 host with VirtualBox 7.04 and my Linux vm's are running the guest additions of 7.04 as well.

My windows 11 guest is running guest additions 6.1.40 because version 7.04 causes freezes.

I got a dell inspiron 3580 core i7 ssd laptop. Must I run the heartbleed and spectre patches on the host? A while ago I reloaded my windows host and I also did a bios factory reset.

Must I attach the logs for all my vm's?

Thanks

H.F.
scottgus1
Site Moderator
Posts: 20965
Joined: 30. Dec 2009, 20:14
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows, Linux

Re: spectre / retbleed message on bootup screen VB 7.04

Post by scottgus1 »

I'm not certain about retbleed/spectre fixes, but I am certain about this:
Pein wrote:I got 3 linux vm's and they all give the following error message:
...
but my windows vm doesn't give this error message on bootup.
The message is coming from the Linux OS's inside the VM, not from Virtualbox. Thus Linux warns but Windows does not, since Windows is not programmed to display such a message. (Not to say that something might not be in the Windows Event Viewer...)

If you are concerned about retbleed/spectre, you should set up your host OS to handle these. Virtualbox has a spectre command here:

VBoxManage modifyvm "VM name" --spec-ctrl on|off:
Enables and disables the exposure of speculation control interfaces to the guest, provided they are available on the host.
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