What could cause my virtio network adapters to stop working?

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ChrisMW
Posts: 30
Joined: 28. Sep 2016, 14:07

What could cause my virtio network adapters to stop working?

Post by ChrisMW »

For some reason after my last VB update, all my VM's with a paravirtualized network adapter are unable to connect.

The shared folders work, but the network adapter does not get an IP config, setting it manually also produces no connection. This happens on all my windows clients. I'd normally suspect the client, but as it has effected all of them at the same time, I am working on the idea that something host side has failed, or not installed correctly. I've also installed a couple of kernel updates. The odd thing is that I have done the same on a second laptop, but the virtio adapter works without problem on that machine.

Right now I've switched all the clients back to the Intel desktop NIC and that works without problem. I've tried reinstalling the RedHat driver 0.1.126, which is the current stable. I've tried reinstalling, moving the adaptor from slot to slot and reinstalling the client tools, all of which didn't work, further strengthening the idea it is the host. What would be good things to check / fix?
Perryg
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Primary OS: Linux other
VBox Version: OSE self-compiled
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Re: What could cause my virtio network adapters to stop working?

Post by Perryg »

Depends on what they host really is but I would start by looking at the hosts dmesg and the syslog for details about the pravirt adapter.
ChrisMW
Posts: 30
Joined: 28. Sep 2016, 14:07

Re: What could cause my virtio network adapters to stop working?

Post by ChrisMW »

I run LMDE-2, 64-bit, 16gb-ram with a MATE interface. I don't tweak it a lot, although there're a few backports installed (Wine, LibreOffice). I take the debian/jessie deb straight from the virtualbox site.

I checked dmesg and the syslog, but can't see much using paravirt, a few mentions of booting the paravirtualized kernel. I've tried to remove virtualbox and reinstalled, made no difference. From what I understand, the paravirt adapter in the client is to connected to the actual NIC in use by the host, so wouldn't it make more sense to dig for virtualbox messages?
The NIC is set to connect to NAT in VB and connects perfectly using the intel nic, but will not connect using the redhat virtio driver. 2 VB updates back, it did. But I really need the internet connection to be on those W7 clients, so simply switching back to intel solved the immediate worry. However, paravirtualization was working well before and still works well on my travel laptop. Yet the updates to the system and VB are done in parallel on these machines.
Perryg
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Re: What could cause my virtio network adapters to stop working?

Post by Perryg »

I only use ParaVirt. on all guests and do not have this issue so it stands that there must be an issue with the host side or maybe a slight chance of the guest but if it were VBox I would see it as well. Add to this that you say it works on another host puts the spotlight on the host even more. I would suspect a kernel update if I were troubleshooting this. Have you tried to revert to the previous kernel to see if it will work?
ChrisMW
Posts: 30
Joined: 28. Sep 2016, 14:07

Re: What could cause my virtio network adapters to stop working?

Post by ChrisMW »

I run 3.16, which has seen two patches, which I've applied to both hosts.... But didn't result in a different kernel being installed, perhaps I can regenerate the boot image, and try to reintegrate VB.... But I can't go back. I might be able to boot a 3.10 kernel..... Will try.....

The fact all windows clients suffered from a failing paravirt nic does indeed point the finger to the host....
ChrisMW
Posts: 30
Joined: 28. Sep 2016, 14:07

Re: What could cause my virtio network adapters to stop working?

Post by ChrisMW »

I have managed to get things going.

First I recomplied the VB modules, then I refreshed the boot image. There were no errors, so I tried again, didn't work. Then I decided to downgrade the driver version, the current stable was at 1.126 I think, I went back to 1.110. In the windows client you have to force the version by going through the device manager, browse my computer, then 'let me pick from a list' and then click 'have disk'. This installed the older driver and that did the trick.

I don't know if anyone as experienced the same, but I found that the Win 7 on the other host (that worked fine), was running an older version than the one that wasn't, so I decided to try that version, 1.110.

I don't know what's wrong with the newer drivers, but Windows 7 doesn't seem to like the newer ones.

So it turned out be the client driver version, and I was wrong for thinking that the latest stable would be the safer choice. Go figure
ChrisMW
Posts: 30
Joined: 28. Sep 2016, 14:07

Re: What could cause my virtio network adapters to stop working?

Post by ChrisMW »

O, and when I reactivated the paravirtualized adapter for the client, just to be sure, I generated a new MAC. Windows clients can get confused sometimes... Same procedure works fine for me on Windows 10 (32bit) as well, Windows 10 64 bit is still a little unstable for me under VB. So, this works for me for the Windows 7 clients (64 and 32bit) and Windows 10 (32 bit). RedHat virtio nic driver version 1.110 (you will have to get it from the archive, it is an older version).
Perryg
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Re: What could cause my virtio network adapters to stop working?

Post by Perryg »

That explains it. I use the " if it ain't broke, don't change it " philosophy and still use the ones that have worked for many years. I don't do a lot with Windows these days. Newest version I have for testing is Windows 7 because I don't like/want to use anything newer. They are inferior and want to pass way too much information home to et for my taste.
ChrisMW
Posts: 30
Joined: 28. Sep 2016, 14:07

Re: What could cause my virtio network adapters to stop working?

Post by ChrisMW »

I know, it is my compromise to allow me to take Linux into work, a VM with outlook, skype for business and some other proprietary protocol support. I shift as much as I can off those machines. Still it is very rare to see newer (stable) driver versions stop doing things the previous version could do.
joeman
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Joined: 22. Sep 2011, 14:42
Primary OS: Linux other
VBox Version: OSE other
Guest OSses: Windows 7, Oracle Enterprise Linux, Mint Linux, CentOS Linux

Re: What could cause my virtio network adapters to stop working?

Post by joeman »

I ran into this same problem with my Win7 Guest VM.

Originally I used the latest "stable" version of virtio-win (0.1.126 currently) figuring it would be the best choice. My guest VM was able to detect the interfaces fine and didn't give me any errors whatsoever, however the interfaces couldn't seem to get an IPv4 address via DHCP no matter what I tried.

As an earlier post suggested I tried an older version (0.1.110) and it worked like a charm. It also seems to work fine with the "latest/non-stable" release 0.1.30 (https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/vi ... 0.1.130-1/) so I went with that version for now. Time will tell how stable it actually is.
PeterP1908
Posts: 1
Joined: 20. Mar 2017, 12:51

Re: What could cause my virtio network adapters to stop working?

Post by PeterP1908 »

Have just migrated a Windows 10 VM (on a macOS host) from Parallels to VirtualBox. Was successfully running virtue-net network interfaces in Parallels, but they wouldn't work in VirtualBox. Have actually had this problem in the past but couldn't find a solution.

This thread provided the correct solution. It looks like the stable release version of the drivers (v1.126) doesn't work with VirtualBox. Upgraded the drivers to the "latest" release version (v1.133-2 at the time of writing) and now have network connectivity.

Thank you to whomever identified this fix.
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