Mavericks 10.9.2; Bridged Network drops out

[frumbert]

I have a mac air mid 2011 running mavericks 10.9.2 with virtualbox 4.3.10-93012. I use its built in wifi to connect to a 5ghz router. No issues.

I have a windows 2003 server r2 virtual machine which receives a fixed ip address via dhcp from the router.

Networking is set to bridged, attached to "en0: wi-fi (airport)" on my mac.

it's "promiscuous mode" is set to allow all, and it has cable connected, of course.

it runs for up to about 8 hours, then the network will suddenly disconnect. Rebooting the server does not let it re-connect to the bridge. Rebooting the host mac also does not fix the problem.

My only known fix is to connect my mac's wifi to a different SSID (typically my phone's hotspot), then reboot the virtual machine (or release its IP and rebind it), then re-connect to my standard wifi connection. This fixes the bridge problem and I can then continue to work for another 8 hours or so.

Mac forums seem to claim that Mavericks' implementation of SMB2 is faulty and causes connection issues to windows boxes.

Is there a known issue with Bridged mode network in this version of VirtualBox and Mavericks? Is there a way around it - host or virtual?

[loukingjr]

Mac forums seem to claim that Mavericks' implementation of SMB2 is faulty and causes connection issues to windows boxes.

Is there a known issue with Bridged mode network in this version of VirtualBox and Mavericks? Is there a way around it - host or virtual?

I don't know if the claims in the forums are true but if it's a problem with physical machines it certainly would be true of a virtual one.

In general there seems to be an issue with various versions of OSX and guests using bridged mode. Most problems seem to be related to Apple laptops, I have 3 iMacs with differing versions of OSX and I have no problem running guests in bridged mode. Most of the problems seem to have been getting a guest to connect using bridged at all, so the fact yours runs for 8 hours before there is a problem is new.

Perhaps someone else has more info.

I should add it's very odd yours will run for 8 hours or so without a problem. One would think if there was some SMB2 problem it would happen consistently. Perhaps your Air is getting too warm after 8 hours? I just think running for 8 hours then stopping is very odd.

[mpack]

Running for some time and then having a problem can be the host running out of memory, or sometimes it's a screen/power saver mode kicking in in the guest.

[loukingjr]

I didn't think about memory filling up. Good point. Mavericks keeps as much in memory as it can in case an application is relaunched. It's supposed to release memory as needed but I'm not sure how well it does that. I have 32GBs but have managed to get it down to only having less than 100 MBs.


edited because once again I worded things poorly.

[rpmurray]

Mac forums seem to claim that Mavericks' implementation of SMB2 is faulty and causes connection issues to windows boxes.

I wouldn't think that the OS X implementation of SMB would have anything to do with your Windows Server VM which would be using it's own implementation of SMB. Are you getting any messages in the Event Log of the Windows Server?

[frumbert]

nothing out of the ordinary shows up in the windows log. I'm pretty sure that it's not power management or memory related either, since I'm generally working on both machines at the time. I have Caffeine app on the mac to prevent it sleeping, and power management on the vm disabled (because it's a server, and a vm server at that) but switch to it and do things relatively frequently too. Could be heat I guess - that's a funny one with an Air and Mavericks has certainly caused the fans to kick in more frequently. I've recently done the various bios resets that Macs can do in order to see if that helps the fans run any more consistently (again, mac forums suggest odd fixes for things). I'll consider heat a factor and see if it leads anywhere.

[socratis]

I wouldn't limit it to your Mac host, because you might be looking in the wrong direction. Bridged with WiFi can be problematic. Do a search in these forums and you'll see all kinds of combinations for OS/hardware that sometimes does(n't) work. WiFi is not supposed to be shared with bridged. The fact that it works is a minor miracle...

[frumbert]

I've also noticed the problem when connected using the gigabit ethernet adaptor for my mac. I don't often get to use that because it connects over my thunderbolt port and I generally need that for other things - my monitor.