VirtualBox VM crash

[scotterdavid]

Hello,

We have installed VirtualBox on a very large memory (1 Tb) server running x8_64 RHELS 6.4 Linux, and we are attempting to create and use a x86_64 Centos VM (actually my colleague has been working on a Ubuntu VM, however came to the same conclusion in this instance). So I (or my colleague) create a VM allocating 150 GB RAM, and then start the VM. Once the VM is up and running I login and run the following commands:

python
>> a=bytearray(150*1024**3)

In other words, this is using python to grab more and more memory up to 150 GB. In another window I monitor the VM. When the memory usage of the VM reaches 130 Gb (Centos or Ubuntu) the VM freezes. I get a message like this in the log file:

00:03:12.704325 emR3Debug: rc=VERR_NO_MEMORY
00:03:13.705110 Changing the VM state from 'RUNNING' to 'GURU_MEDITATION'.

Odd since there is plenty of free memory on the server (it is not yet in service), and I understand that VMs can access up to 1 Tb of RAM. Does anyone understand what might be wrong here, please? I tried to switch on ballooning, however that didn't help and I didn't expect it to have any effect anyway. This large memory case is not typical of the applications we expect to run, however we are nevertheless interested to know how to work with large memory VMs.

Best regards,

David.

[mhanor]

Does the python command succeeds if you run it directly on the host?

[mpack]

Please post a VM log file. Right click VM in GUI, select "Show Log", save "VBox.log" (only) to a file, zip file and attach here. Make sure the VM is shut down before you collect the log of the session.

TBC: I only want to see one (relevant) log.

[scotterdavid]

Hello,

Thank you for your replies.

First of all, the python command works as expected when run on the hypervisor machine.

I've attached the compressed log file for your perusal.

[mhanor]

If you don't get an answer here, you should open a bug on the bugtracker. The VirtualBox developers might be interested in your setup.

[mpack]

Jeez... I never seen that amount of RAM declared in a log before. It's almost obscene!

I see you're using Vagrant. Bad news: we don't support forks here, only the official Oracle version is supported. You need to go to Vagrant for support, or switch to an Oracle release.

[noteirak]

00:00:24.965281 Guest Additions information report: Version 4.3.10 r93012 '4.3.10_Ubuntu'

Remove the ubuntu version of the guest additions, they might cause issues. If you need them, install the one coming with the VirtualBox install.

00:00:00.143503 VBoxInternal2/SharedFoldersEnableSymlinksCreate/vagrant="1"
00:00:03.153829 Host path '/home/dc405/bigbox_test', map name 'vagrant', writable, automount=false, create_symlinks=true, missing=false
00:03:12.697159 /VirtualBox/GuestInfo/OS/LoggedInUsersList: 'vagrant', 1432887912966608000 (TRANSIENT, TRANSRESET)
00:03:12.703210 Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS vagrant-ubuntu-trusty-64 tty1

As pointed out by mpack, you're using Vagrant. Please try again without using vagrant - create the VM yourself and run it directly from VirtualBox.