virtualbox.org

Hi,
I've just gone live with a couple of VM'd Windows guests, an SBS 2011 standard server and a 2008 r2 (sbs 2011 premium) box, on the same physical host (CentOS 6.2) with the most current Virtualbox (4.1., the phsical box has a current generation Xeon CPU and 32GB of RAM. It's an Intel MB.

Both installs are working well except for their network performance, which is dismal (and disasterous!)

VBOxManage list --long for the two VM's is below, I used the virtio network drivers for both guests (which are both 64 bit)

Can anyone see what may be causing these to be so slow and what I can do to speed them up?


[synstrat@mule VirtualBox VMs]$ VBoxManage list vms --long
Name: synstrat01-2011
Guest OS: Windows 2008 (64 bit)
UUID: 2968cbe7-2596-430a-829d-be408d7ac50f
Config file: /home/synstrat/VirtualBox VMs/synstrat01-2011/synstrat01-2011.vbox
Snapshot folder: /home/synstrat/VirtualBox VMs/synstrat01-2011/Snapshots
Log folder: /home/synstrat/VirtualBox VMs/synstrat01-2011/Logs
Hardware UUID: 2968cbe7-2596-430a-829d-be408d7ac50f
Memory size: 12132MB
Page Fusion: off
VRAM size: 16MB
CPU exec cap: 100%
HPET: off
Chipset: ich9
Firmware: BIOS
Number of CPUs: 6
Synthetic Cpu: off
CPUID overrides: None
Boot menu mode: message and menu
Boot Device (1): DVD
Boot Device (2): HardDisk
Boot Device (3): Not Assigned
Boot Device (4): Not Assigned
ACPI: on
IOAPIC: on
PAE: on
Time offset: 0 ms
RTC: local time
Hardw. virt.ext: on
Hardw. virt.ext exclusive: on
Nested Paging: on
Large Pages: off
VT-x VPID: on
State: running (since 2012-02-04T04:51:46.909000000)
Monitor count: 1
3D Acceleration: off
2D Video Acceleration: off
Teleporter Enabled: off
Teleporter Port: 0
Teleporter Address:
Teleporter Password:
Storage Controller Name (0): SATA Controller
Storage Controller Type (0): IntelAhci
Storage Controller Instance Number (0): 0
Storage Controller Max Port Count (0): 30
Storage Controller Port Count (0): 2
Storage Controller Bootable (0): on
Storage Controller Name (1): SATA Controller 2
Storage Controller Type (1): IntelAhci
Storage Controller Instance Number (1): 1
Storage Controller Max Port Count (1): 30
Storage Controller Port Count (1): 1
Storage Controller Bootable (1): off
SATA Controller (0, 0): /home/synstrat/VirtualBox VMs/synstrat01-2011/Snapshots/{bba50130-0044-4f09-91cf-853a562edc6e}.vdi (UUID: bba50130-0044-4f09-91cf-853a562edc6e)
SATA Controller (1, 0): Empty
SATA Controller 2 (0, 0): /mnt/raid1/synstrat/SYNSTRAT01-20120203transfer.VHD (UUID: 518b7eb4-2be7-4186-ac3a-30b8559c569e)
NIC 1: MAC: 08002753C514, Attachment: Bridged Interface 'eth1', Cable connected: on, Trace: off (file: none), Type: virtio, Reported speed: 0 Mbps, Boot priority: 0, Promisc Policy: allow-all
NIC 2: disabled
NIC 3: disabled
NIC 4: disabled
NIC 5: disabled
NIC 6: disabled
NIC 7: disabled
NIC 8: disabled
Pointing Device: USB Tablet
Keyboard Device: PS/2 Keyboard
UART 1: disabled
UART 2: disabled
Audio: enabled (Driver: PulseAudio, Controller: HDA)
Clipboard Mode: Bidirectional
VRDE: enabled (Address 0.0.0.0, Ports 3389, MultiConn: off, ReuseSingleConn: off, Authentication type: null)
Video redirection: disabled
VRDE property: TCP/Ports = "3389"
VRDE property: TCP/Address = <not set>
VRDE property: VideoChannel/Enabled = <not set>
VRDE property: VideoChannel/Quality = <not set>
VRDE property: VideoChannel/DownscaleProtection = <not set>
VRDE property: Client/DisableDisplay = <not set>
VRDE property: Client/DisableInput = <not set>
VRDE property: Client/DisableAudio = <not set>
VRDE property: Client/DisableUSB = <not set>
VRDE property: Client/DisableClipboard = <not set>
VRDE property: Client/DisableUpstreamAudio = <not set>
VRDE property: H3DRedirect/Enabled = <not set>
VRDE property: Security/Method = <not set>
VRDE property: Security/ServerCertificate = <not set>
VRDE property: Security/ServerPrivateKey = <not set>
VRDE property: Security/CACertificate = <not set>
USB: enabled

USB Device Filters:

<none>

Shared folders: <none>

Guest:

Configured memory balloon size: 0 MB

Snapshots:

Name: Snapshot 1 (UUID: 4ba00440-a42b-47b0-a55a-8d952c37358f)
Name: Snapshot 2 (UUID: 8d244b4b-76e6-4bcf-b6cd-bff26ceb78d3) *




Name: synstrat02
Guest OS: Windows 8 (64 bit)
UUID: 63a4bf9c-9e31-4432-9df3-505dee93ad20
Config file: /home/synstrat/VirtualBox VMs/synstrat02/synstrat02.vbox
Snapshot folder: /home/synstrat/VirtualBox VMs/synstrat02/Snapshots
Log folder: /home/synstrat/VirtualBox VMs/synstrat02/Logs
Hardware UUID: 63a4bf9c-9e31-4432-9df3-505dee93ad20
Memory size: 8192MB
Page Fusion: off
VRAM size: 16MB
CPU exec cap: 100%
HPET: off
Chipset: ich9
Firmware: BIOS
Number of CPUs: 2
Synthetic Cpu: off
CPUID overrides: None
Boot menu mode: message and menu
Boot Device (1): DVD
Boot Device (2): HardDisk
Boot Device (3): Not Assigned
Boot Device (4): Not Assigned
ACPI: on
IOAPIC: on
PAE: off
Time offset: 0 ms
RTC: local time
Hardw. virt.ext: on
Hardw. virt.ext exclusive: on
Nested Paging: on
Large Pages: off
VT-x VPID: on
State: running (since 2012-02-05T07:18:17.479000000)
Monitor count: 1
3D Acceleration: off
2D Video Acceleration: off
Teleporter Enabled: off
Teleporter Port: 0
Teleporter Address:
Teleporter Password:
Storage Controller Name (0): IDE Controller
Storage Controller Type (0): PIIX4
Storage Controller Instance Number (0): 0
Storage Controller Max Port Count (0): 2
Storage Controller Port Count (0): 2
Storage Controller Bootable (0): on
Storage Controller Name (1): SATA Controller
Storage Controller Type (1): IntelAhci
Storage Controller Instance Number (1): 0
Storage Controller Max Port Count (1): 30
Storage Controller Port Count (1): 1
Storage Controller Bootable (1): on
IDE Controller (1, 0): Empty
SATA Controller (0, 0): /mnt/raid1/synstrat/synstrat02/synstrat02.vdi (UUID: ee926182-9995-4954-9925-bcec011951a7)
NIC 1: MAC: 080027F680CA, Attachment: Bridged Interface 'eth1', Cable connected: on, Trace: off (file: none), Type: virtio, Reported speed: 0 Mbps, Boot priority: 0, Promisc Policy: allow-all
NIC 2: disabled
NIC 3: disabled
NIC 4: disabled
NIC 5: disabled
NIC 6: disabled
NIC 7: disabled
NIC 8: disabled
Pointing Device: USB Tablet
Keyboard Device: PS/2 Keyboard
UART 1: disabled
UART 2: disabled
Audio: enabled (Driver: PulseAudio, Controller: HDA)
Clipboard Mode: Bidirectional
VRDE: disabled
USB: enabled

USB Device Filters:

<none>

Shared folders: <none>

Guest:

Configured memory balloon size: 0 MB


[synstrat@mule VirtualBox VMs]$

further to this, the VirtIO drivers are the most recent Redhat ones :
Red Hat Inc. 10/08/2011 60.62.102.2000

The odd thing on first inspection is that they're in c:\windows\system32? Isn't that a 32 bit directory? I don't know where Bill Gates hides everything.

I tried installing the Oracle VM paravirtualisation drivers, I ran the setup and it said it installed them (the second time, the first time there was a couple of errors, but "Repair" seemed to behave) but I don't see the driver anywhere?

Can anyone belt me with a cluestick? I'm kinda stuck as to why this is running so slowly!

FWIW, I swapped out the paravirtual ethernet device on both and am now running the Intel MT ethernet interface, and all seems MUCH happier. Doesn't seem right, but my exchange migration is now getting ~3gb/h instead of 100mb/h