VBox.log diffences between 6.0.x and 6.1.0

Postings relating to old VirtualBox pre-releases
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socratis
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VBox Version: PUEL
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VBox.log diffences between 6.0.x and 6.1.0

Post by socratis »

Every release, brings a bunch of changes in the VBox.log ... logging. I was doing some comparison between a 6.0.14 run and a 6.1.0rc1 and I thought I'd document what I found.

Host: OSX 10.9.5
Guest: OSX 10.11.6 (EFI booting)
Guest: Win10-64 (BIOS booting)
[color=#0000BF]6.1.0rc1[/color] wrote:
00:00:08.978988 Shared Clipboard: Service running in normal mode
New entry. "Normal mode", as opposed to running a VM with VBoxHeadless and VRDP enabled.
[color=#0000BF]6.1.0rc1[/color] wrote:
00:00:08.988795 [/Devices/ahci/0/LUN#0/Config/VDConfig/] (level 6)
00:00:08.988797   AllocationBlockSize <string>  = "1048576" (cb=8)
New entry.
[color=#0000BF]6.1.0rc1[/color] wrote:
00:00:08.988966 [/Devices/efi/0/Config/] (level 4)
...
00:00:08.988984   NvramFile            <string>  = "/Users/Shared/VirtualBox/Machines/Mac OS X 10.11/Mac OS X 10.11.nvram" (cb=70)
...
00:00:08.988988   UuidLe               <integer> = 0x0000000000000000 (0)
New entry. EFI now supports NVRAM settings being persistent across reboots. This is where the settings are stored. Binary, tough to decode. Anyone up for the challenge?

No clue about the "UuidLe" new entry at a first glance, but it might be related to the following entry in the 6.1.0 RC1 Changelog:
  • SMBIOS: Store system UUID in little endian format which is the default for new VMs, while existing VMs stick to the old VirtualBox behavior of storing them in big endian format for backwards compatibility to avoid breaking the activation status of Windows VMs
For the background story on this, see "Windows 10 loses activation". I haven't seen any way to modify this.
[color=#0000BF]6.1.0rc1[/color] wrote:
00:00:11.126521 [/Devices/efi/0/LUN#0/] (level 4)
00:00:11.126523   Driver <string>  = "NvramStorage" (cb=13)
00:00:11.126524 
00:00:11.126525 [/Devices/efi/0/LUN#0/Config/] (level 5)
00:00:11.126526   Object <integer> = 0x00007fa8da160380 (140 363 190 109 056)
00:00:11.126528
Gone.
[color=#0000BF]6.1.0rc1[/color] wrote:
00:00:11.126882 VM: fHMEnabled=true  (configured) fRecompileUser=true  fRecompileSupervisor=true 
00:00:11.126902 VM: fRawRing1Enabled=false CSAM=false PATM=false
Gone is the recompiler mode for Linux/Win Hosts, OSX had that "privilege" for the longest time. From the 6.1.0 Beta2 Changelog:
  • Virtualization core: Drop recompiler, i.e. running VMs now needs a CPU supporting hardware virtualization
[color=#0000BF]6.1.0rc1[/color] wrote:
00:00:09.536768 HM: Using VT-x implementation 3.0
Used to be 2.0, no clue what the improvements are...

If I find some time, I'll do a log comparison between a BIOS booting VM...
Done, nothing different. And that's to be expected, just the EFI part got updated...
Do NOT send me Personal Messages (PMs) for troubleshooting, they are simply deleted.
Do NOT reply with the "QUOTE" button, please use the "POST REPLY", at the bottom of the form.
If you obfuscate any information requested, I will obfuscate my response. These are virtual UUIDs, not real ones.
Ramshankar
Oracle Corporation
Posts: 793
Joined: 7. Jan 2008, 16:17

Re: VBox.log diffences between 6.0.x and 6.1.0

Post by Ramshankar »

socratis wrote:
[color=#0000BF]6.1.0rc1[/color] wrote:
00:00:09.536768 HM: Using VT-x implementation 3.0
Used to be 2.0, no clue what the improvements are...
Nested Virtualization changes are so invasive and not restricted to just the nested-virtualization feature. We had to re-do and refactor a lot of common code include core logic in things like event injection, VM-exit handling etc. It involves quite a huge refactor of VT-x (++) and hence the bump in implementation version.
Oracle Corp.
socratis
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Posts: 27330
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Primary OS: Mac OS X other
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Location: Greece

Re: VBox.log diffences between 6.0.x and 6.1.0

Post by socratis »

I see, it's an internal thing not a public specification somewhere...
Thanks for clarifying that.
Do NOT send me Personal Messages (PMs) for troubleshooting, they are simply deleted.
Do NOT reply with the "QUOTE" button, please use the "POST REPLY", at the bottom of the form.
If you obfuscate any information requested, I will obfuscate my response. These are virtual UUIDs, not real ones.
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