virtualbox.org

Hi all

I'm struggling to get a 64-bit guest working on my 64-bit host. To the best of my knowledge, I've done everything I need to in the manual

1) I'm running a 64-bit kernel (Hardy Ubuntu 8.04 x86_64)
2) I've enabled Virtualisation in the bios (my CPU is Athlon 3000+)
3) I'm running VirtualBox 2.0.6 (apparently 64-bit guests only came in with v2)

Am I missing something?

Cheers
Jerry

Did you enable the VM settings ACPI, I/O APIC AMD-v/VT-x and PAE?

Sasquatch wrote:Did you enable the VM settings ACPI, I/O APIC AMD-v/VT-x and PAE?

Beware with IO APIC. The user manual section 1.6 "64-bit guests" recommends enabling IO APIC for 64-bit guests, especially 64-bit Windows, but I've found on all my DELL systems that IO APIC actually causes lots of problems when trying to run Debian Etch 64-bit guests. (Tickets #2288 and #2528.)

Other than that, you'll have to be more precise with your description of "I'm struggling to get a 64-bit guest working". What exactly is the problem?

Stéphane

Sorry - yes - the error I'm getting is that it requires an x86_64 kernel but has detected an i1586. The host OS's kernel is x86_64.

Sasquatch wrote:Did you enable the VM settings ACPI, I/O APIC AMD-v/VT-x and PAE?

Yes - all enabled - still getting i1586 kernel detected - even though the host kernel is x86_64

VMWare has a tool to check if you can run 64 bit guests. See if you can run that tool and if it says you can or can't. If that tools says you can't, then neither can VB. Other way around is the same of course.

I took a quick Google search for your processor. It seems that it's not AMD-v enabled. So, unless you have a processor that supports Virtualisation, you can't run 64 bit guests.

I'm getting the same problem and I do have a AMD-V enabled processor. I'm running on a AMD Phenome 9850 processor. Host is 64-bit UBUNTU server and when I try to install 64 bit guests I get an error saying it's only a i686 processor. I have checked and made sure all options enabled for AMD-v, IO APCI, and such still same problem. I'm also running the non-free Vbox2.0.6 not the vbox ose software.

I don't have this problem, so this is just a shot in the dark.

Bring up the log for the machine you are trying to boot. In the Sun VB GUI, click on Machine -> Show Log...

I have 2 examples here. Here is how my log starts for my 64-bit enabled system:

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108:18:25.071 VirtualBox 2.0.6 r39765 linux.amd64 (Nov 21 2008 20:04:44) release log
108:18:25.071 Log opened 2008-12-15T18:28:27.629957000Z
108:18:25.071 OS Product: Linux
108:18:25.071 OS Release: 2.6.27-9-generic
108:18:25.071 OS Version: #1 SMP Thu Nov 20 22:15:32 UTC 2008
108:18:25.071 Package type: LINUX_64BITS_UBUNTU_8_04

Here is a log from a 32-bit system:

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00:03:50.624 VirtualBox 2.0.6 r39765 linux.x86 (Nov 21 2008 19:55:19) release log
00:03:50.624 Log opened 2008-12-12T00:22:56.170550000Z
00:03:50.624 OS Product: Linux
00:03:50.624 OS Release: 2.6.27-9-generic
00:03:50.624 OS Version: #1 SMP Thu Nov 20 21:57:00 UTC 2008
00:03:50.624 Package type: LINUX_32BITS_UBUNTU_8_04

Note that this is just the _host_ information & package description. But for certain, if your log resembles the 2nd one, you cannot run 64-bit guests.

Now further down the log is a section called CPUID dump. You'll get a dump for every core on the system. Problem is, I don't know what magical values to look for in this section (if any!?) to determine whether or not your system is capable of running 64-bit guests.

Looking at my 2 systems (64bit versus 32bit), some of the obvious differences are:

Physical Address Extension == 0 for 32bit, 1 for 64bit
Supports MONITOR/MWAIT == 0 for 32bit, 1 for 64bit

I'm reluctant to post my entire log as I suspect it will serve little purpose.

Do either of you see any obvious error or warning being reported in your log file?

Stéphane

Corey, do you have Virtualisation enabled in your BIOS? Is your motherboard capable of the extention?

I did enable virtual extensions in the bios. I have to wait till tomorrow morning to check my logs.

Maybe disabling it works. Some people posted that as a fix, as somehow the value was inverted in the BIOS. You can also check the release notes of your mainboard BIOS releases and see if it mentions anything about AMD-v/VT-x. Perhaps there is an option, but not properly set or working.

grep svm /proc/cpuinfo

if it returns anything, then you have a hardware virtualisation capable cpu/mobo/bios; personally i didn't think the athlons had svm.

sej7278 wrote:grep svm /proc/cpuinfo

if it returns anything, then you have a hardware virtualisation capable cpu/mobo/bios; personally i didn't think the athlons had svm.

Are you certain about that? Is it supposed to be in the "flags" section? And is that specific to AMD?

In my case running that command returns nothing, and I have several 64bit guests running as we speak. (Debian Etch 4 64-bit and Ubuntu 8.10 64-bit.) My host is Ubuntu 8.10 64-bit.

/proc/cpuinfo on my host repeats the same information 4 times (quad-core), which basically says:

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vendor_id	: GenuineIntel
cpu family	: 6
model		: 15
model name	: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU           @ 2.40GHz
[...]
flags		: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl pni monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr lahf_lm

Stéphane

svm/proc/cpuinfo didn't return anything but when I was looking at kvm the command
egrep '(vmx|svm)' /proc/cpuinfo
that did return stuff. I'll try disabling virtual extensions in the bios but I have updated it to the newest and I would think they would of fixed it if the values were backwards.

These are the flags my CPU has. It's an Athlon based CPU (FX-60) and has no AMD-v. The CPU of Stephan does have virtualisation. It should be the vmx flag.

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flags	: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt lm 3dnowext 3dnow pni lahf_lm cmp_legacy

Anyway, what socket is your CPU? S939, AM2, AM2+, S940? Only AM2/AM2+ CPUs can have the AMD-v extension, but not all have it, especially the low end series.

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64-bit guest on 64-bit host

64-bit guest on 64-bit host