High cpu usage with docksal (ticket 16817)

[Claytron]

I'm trying to debug very high cpu usage while using docksal, a docker based tool built on virtual box. I started a support ticket here: ticket #16817 and they recommended I come here.

I'm now getting CPU usage as high as 200%.

In the ticket the support developer suggests

Second, if VirtualBox (or VBoxHeadless) is using the CPU, that most probably means that the guest is using the CPU. Have you checked your guest? 'top' I guess?

Third, have you tried to run the guest "normally", from within VirtualBox Manager? What about that behavior?

I'm not sure what the suggestions are here, what is the "guest"?

[socratis]

what is the "guest"?

You sound like a fairly new user to VirtualBox. Since you are expected to know some basic terms before we engage in a meaningful discussion, I would suggest to start by reading three small chapters from the User Manual:

• 1.2. Some terminology,
• 1.7. Creating your first virtual machine and
• 1.8. Running your virtual machine.

You forgot the first part of that advice:

do you get that behavior with a standalone version of VirtualBox? Otherwise I'm afraid you have too many layers of "builds upon" which makes troubleshooting really, really hard, because you can't be sure which "layer" is responsible for what you're seeing.

So, the thing is, you're using program A that uses program B that uses program C (Docksal uses Docker, which uses VirtualBox). How do you know which one to blame? A, B, or C? You got to break the problem down. Standalone VirtualBox, then Docker using VirtualBox, then Docksal using Docker using VirtualBox.

Second point was if the CPU is used, look at your guest. What's eating the CPU in your guest? I don't even know what the guest is, but if it's Linux try "top".

Third point was to try to run the guest as a standalone VirtualBox VM and observe if the CPU is high or not, a reiteration pretty much of the first point.

Remember that we only support standalone VirtualBox here. Docker is a program that relies on VirtualBox but modifies its configuration files in unknown ways to us. It is not supported on these VirtualBox user forums, they have their own support channels. I don't even know about Docksal.