Networking problems with VBox 4.0 and recent virtio driver
Posted: 14. Jan 2011, 11:04
After migrating from VBox 3.2.12 to 4.0, my paravirtualized network interfaces (at least in Windows Guests) stopeed working reliably. Light network usage (like pinging a host) works, but as soon as I'm trying to do anything useful over the network like copying files from a Windows Guest, the network in the guest stops working (disconnect).
The problem only occurs in the following combination of settings:
The problem only occurs in the following combination of settings:
- The problem only occurs with VirtualBox 4.0.0. Switching back to VirtualBox 3.2.12 solves the problem.
- The problem only occurs when using a recent virtio network driver (either version following this Link). Using the older Qumranet virtio driver from here works fine.
- The problem only occurs with a bridged connection to the host's network. Changing the NIC's attachment from bridged to NAT "solves" the problem.
- The host is running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid) AMD64 running on a Core2 Quad Q9400 CPU
- The host is connected to a GBit ethernet with a Marvell 88E8001 Gigabit Ethernet Controller using the "skge" kernel module
- VirtualBox is Version 4.0.0 with the VirtualBox 4.0 Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack installed
- Windows guests experiencing the problem are fully patched Windows XP SP3 and Windows 7 (both 32bit)