virtio-net no longer working on rhel5 32-bit

[sej7278]

virtualbox 5.2.6 on 64-bit debian host.

just fired up some old rhel5.11 32-bit guests with virtio network cards configured and i can't connect to them.

setting the nic to intel pro1000 mt server fixes things, but virtio-net previously worked and the module was loaded on the guest.

rhel 6.9 and 7.4 work with virtio-net but they're 64-bit, i've not got a newer 32-bit guest, so i can't say if its the 32-bit or old rhel version that's the problem.

5.2.6 regression?

[mpack]

It seems unlikely to me that this can be a VirtualBox problem. If it was then it'd have to be a problem in the Virtio-Net API on the host, and all guests would be affected. If only one guest is affected then it has to be guest drivers or guest config, neither of which is provided by VirtualBox.

What was the host that this guest previously worked on? I'm wondering if the problem is something else, e.g. change to IPv6 on host, some gateway change, who knows.

[sej7278]

i'm afraid i don't agree with any of your points. nothing has changed on the guests (5 of them!) only thing that has changed is virtualbox version on the host. i suspect vbox has deprecated 32-bit or rhel5 support for the virtio-net interface.

edit 1: different host running 5.2.4 has the same problem with the same guests.

edit 2: user manual now says it requires 2.6.25 https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch06.html and of course rhel5 is 2.6.18, doesn't explain why it worked previously for years.

[socratis]

edit 2: user manual now says it requires 2.6.25 https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch06.html and of course rhel5 is 2.6.18, doesn't explain why it worked previously for years.

I went back to VirtualBox 3.1.8 (2010-05-10) and the requirements for the 2.6.25 kernel are there, just as you read them, untouched. 3.1.x was the first VirtualBox to introduce virtio-net.