[SOLVED] Can't get LINUX DEBIAN 7.5 WHEEZY to use more than 1 core on a 8 core (hyperthreading) MAC

[PALYGAP]

Hi,

I have a LINUX DEBIAN 7.5 WHEEZY (32 bits) running in a VirtualBOX (Version 5.1.12 r112440) with the guest Additions installed. I have configured the VM to use 4 cores of the Mac host but the 4 cores never get used just one. Tested it with Qt5.4 compilation. The Windows 10 (32bits) VM I have can use 4 cores find.

Is there a way to run a Debian (32bits) VM on 4 cores, or could there be a configuration issue that stops my Debian VM to use 4 cores ?

Thanks in advance for the help.

[socratis]

could there be a configuration issue

Well, let us see. Open up Terminal and post the output of the following command:

• VBoxManage showvminfo "Your_Virtual_Machine_Name"

Copy from the Terminal, paste and enclose it inside the <Code> tag please...

[PALYGAP]

Well, here it is socratis.

Code: Select all

Name:            Genuine WIN10 32bits
Groups:          /
Guest OS:        Windows 10 (64-bit)
UUID:            1de1dd21-aa3f-49c3-aff3-68bd51f6da27
Config file:     /Volumes/HDD/VirtualBox VMs/Genuine WIN10 32bits/Genuine WIN10 32bits.vbox
Snapshot folder: /Volumes/HDD/VirtualBox VMs/Genuine WIN10 32bits/Snapshots
Log folder:      /Volumes/HDD/VirtualBox VMs/Genuine WIN10 32bits/Logs
Hardware UUID:   1de1dd21-aa3f-49c3-aff3-68bd51f6da27
Memory size:     8186MB
Page Fusion:     off
VRAM size:       128MB
CPU exec cap:    100%
HPET:            off
Chipset:         piix3
Firmware:        BIOS
Number of CPUs:  4
PAE:             off
Long Mode:       on
Triple Fault Reset: off
APIC:            on
X2APIC:          off
CPUID Portability Level: 0
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
BIOS APIC mode:  APIC
Time offset:     0ms
RTC:             local time
Hardw. virt.ext: on
Nested Paging:   on
Large Pages:     on
VT-x VPID:       on
VT-x unr. exec.: on
Paravirt. Provider: Legacy
Effective Paravirt. Provider: None
State:           powered off (since 2017-01-19T05:12:38.202000000)
Monitor count:   1
3D Acceleration: on
2D Video Acceleration: on
Teleporter Enabled: off
Teleporter Port: 0
Teleporter Address: 
Teleporter Password: 
Tracing Enabled: off
Allow Tracing to Access VM: off
Tracing Configuration: 
Autostart Enabled: off
Autostart Delay: 0
Default Frontend: 
Storage Controller Name (0):            Contrôleur IDE
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
Storage Controller Type (1):            IntelAhci
Storage Controller Instance Number (1): 0
Storage Controller Max Port Count (1):  30
Storage Controller Port Count (1):      2
Storage Controller Bootable (1):        on
Contrôleur IDE (1, 0): /Volumes/HDD/VirtualBox VMs/VBoxGuestAdditions_5.1.12.iso (UUID: 537b9b45-eb06-4298-8d6b-695ebff13cb8)
SATA (1, 0): /Users/myname/VirtualBox VMs/WIN7 32bits.hdd (UUID: 8b94b4a5-082e-4d1d-a4f1-61c94dd8f120)
NIC 1:           MAC: 080027B68F84, Attachment: NAT, Cable connected: on, Trace: off (file: none), Type: 82540EM, Reported speed: 0 Mbps, Boot priority: 0, Promisc Policy: deny, Bandwidth group: none
NIC 1 Settings:  MTU: 0, Socket (send: 64, receive: 64), TCP Window (send:64, receive: 64)
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
UART 3:          disabled
UART 4:          disabled
LPT 1:           disabled
LPT 2:           disabled
Audio:           enabled (Driver: CoreAudio, Controller: HDA, Codec: STAC9221)
Clipboard Mode:  Bidirectional
Drag and drop Mode: disabled
VRDE:            disabled
USB:             enabled
EHCI:            enabled
XHCI:            disabled

USB Device Filters:

Index:            0
Active:           yes
Name:             Silicon Labs CP2102 USB to UART Bridge Controller [0100]
VendorId:         10c4
ProductId:        ea60
Revision:         0100
Manufacturer:     Silicon Labs
Product:          CP2102 USB to UART Bridge Controller
Remote:           0
Serial Number:    0001


Bandwidth groups:  <none>

Shared folders:  

Name: 'Downloads', Host path: '/Users/myname/Downloads' (machine mapping), writable
Name: 'VirtualBox_VMs', Host path: '/Volumes/HDD/VirtualBox VMs' (machine mapping), writable

Video capturing:    not active
Capture screens:    0
Capture file:       /Volumes/HDD/VirtualBox VMs/Genuine WIN10 32bits/Genuine WIN10 32bits.webm
Capture dimensions: 1024x768
Capture rate:       512 kbps
Capture FPS:        25

Guest:

Configured memory balloon size:      0 MB

[socratis]

That's the information for your Windows 10 VM, which works fine as you said. I'd like to see the information for the Debian one, the one with the problem.

And, since you're at it: Run the Debian VM. Login. Shut it down completely (not paused or saved). Right-click on the VirtualBox Manager and select "Show Log". Save the "VBox.log" (just the first one), zip it and attach it in your response (see the "Upload attachment" tab below the reply form).

[PALYGAP]

Sorry, I provided the info of the other VM. Might not have been fully awake

Here is the info for the Debian VM :

Code: Select all

Name:            DEBIAN32
Groups:          /
Guest OS:        Debian (32-bit)
UUID:            266f6050-65e8-4703-9178-838cda4c687e
Config file:     /Volumes/HDD/VirtualBox VMs/DEBIAN32/DEBIAN32.vbox
Snapshot folder: /Volumes/HDD/VirtualBox VMs/DEBIAN32/Snapshots
Log folder:      /Volumes/HDD/VirtualBox VMs/DEBIAN32/Logs
Hardware UUID:   266f6050-65e8-4703-9178-838cda4c687e
Memory size:     8192MB
Page Fusion:     off
VRAM size:       126MB
CPU exec cap:    100%
HPET:            off
Chipset:         piix3
Firmware:        BIOS
Number of CPUs:  4
PAE:             on
Long Mode:       off
Triple Fault Reset: off
APIC:            on
X2APIC:          off
CPUID Portability Level: 0
CPUID overrides: None
Boot menu mode:  message and menu
Boot Device (1): Floppy
Boot Device (2): DVD
Boot Device (3): HardDisk
Boot Device (4): Not Assigned
ACPI:            on
IOAPIC:          on
BIOS APIC mode:  APIC
Time offset:     0ms
RTC:             UTC
Hardw. virt.ext: on
Nested Paging:   on
Large Pages:     on
VT-x VPID:       on
VT-x unr. exec.: on
Paravirt. Provider: Legacy
Effective Paravirt. Provider: None
State:           powered off (since 2017-01-19T09:42:02.000000000)
Monitor count:   1
3D Acceleration: on
2D Video Acceleration: off
Teleporter Enabled: off
Teleporter Port: 0
Teleporter Address: 
Teleporter Password: 
Tracing Enabled: off
Allow Tracing to Access VM: off
Tracing Configuration: 
Autostart Enabled: off
Autostart Delay: 0
Default Frontend: 
Storage Controller Name (0):            IDE
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
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 (1, 0): /Volumes/HDD/VirtualBox VMs/VBoxGuestAdditions_5.1.12.iso (UUID: 537b9b45-eb06-4298-8d6b-695ebff13cb8)
SATA (0, 0): /Users/myname/VirtualBox VMs/Virtual Disks/DEBIAN 2.vdi (UUID: d7cada1f-f02f-4663-8f3e-3b2d5b6dc2b5)
NIC 1:           MAC: 080027CAE74C, Attachment: NAT, Cable connected: on, Trace: off (file: none), Type: 82540EM, Reported speed: 0 Mbps, Boot priority: 0, Promisc Policy: deny, Bandwidth group: none
NIC 1 Settings:  MTU: 0, Socket (send: 64, receive: 64), TCP Window (send:64, receive: 64)
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
UART 3:          disabled
UART 4:          disabled
LPT 1:           disabled
LPT 2:           disabled
Audio:           enabled (Driver: CoreAudio, Controller: AC97, Codec: STAC9700)
Clipboard Mode:  Bidirectional
Drag and drop Mode: disabled
VRDE:            disabled
USB:             enabled
EHCI:            disabled
XHCI:            disabled

USB Device Filters:

Index:            0
Active:           yes
Name:             BEHRINGER BCF2000 [0100]
VendorId:         1397
ProductId:        00bc
Revision:         0100
Manufacturer:     BEHRINGER
Product:          BCF2000
Remote:           0
Serial Number:    


Bandwidth groups:  <none>

Shared folders:  

Name: 'Downloads', Host path: '/Users/myname/Downloads' (machine mapping), writable
Name: 'Google_Drive', Host path: '/Users/myname/Google Drive' (machine mapping), writable
Name: 'QtProg', Host path: '/Users/myname/Google Drive/LeafONICs/PROGRAMMING/QtProg' (machine mapping), writable

Video capturing:    not active
Capture screens:    0
Capture file:       /Volumes/HDD/VirtualBox VMs/DEBIAN32/DEBIAN32.webm
Capture dimensions: 1024x768
Capture rate:       512 kbps
Capture FPS:        25

Guest:

Configured memory balloon size:      0 MB

The zipped log file is attached to the reply.

[socratis]

00:00:02.603393 Host RAM: 16384MB (16.0GB) total, 5966MB (5.8GB) available
00:00:02.791787   RamSize           <integer> = 0x0000000200000000 (8 589 934 592, 8 192 MB, 8 GB)

You are assigning memory to your guest, that you do not have available. Either close some applications on the host, buy more RAM for the host, or reduce the amount of RAM assigned to the guest.

00:00:02.791783   NumCPUs           <integer> = 0x0000000000000004 (4)
00:00:03.073103 CPUM: Logical host processors: 8 present, 8 max, 8 online, online mask: 00000000000000ff
00:00:03.073106 CPUM: Physical host cores: 4

You have assigned all your CPUs to the VM. The host is going to run low on resources, since VirtualBox cares about physical processors, not logical ones. See: CPU Cores versus threads.

Also:

• Install the Extenstion Pack and enable USB2 if not USB3 in your VM settings.
• Remove the GA installation CD from the Virtual CD/DVD.

Other than that, I can't see why you'd think that Debian is not using all assigned CPUs. Can you post the output from the Debian terminal of the command:

• cat /proc/cpuinfo

[PALYGAP]

Thanks for all the tips.

I have reduced the allocated memory to 4 Gb and set the number of allocated processor to 2. The Extension Pack was already installed. I have activated USB2.

Not sure what you mean when you say "Remove the GA installation CD from the Virtual CD/DVD." What is GA ?

On my WIN10 VirtualBox, 8Gb and 4 cores are allocated and it works fine.

I tests if the multi-core is on by compiling/making (with Qt5) with -j4 (or -j2) option that enables compilation/making on multicore. I then check on the MAC activity monitor how much CPU the "Virtual Box VM" process use. With the WIN10 box usage is around 400% with DEBIAN box it is around 100%.

Here is the output of "cat /proc/cpuinfo" :

Code: Select all

processor	: 0
vendor_id	: GenuineIntel
cpu family	: 6
model		: 42
model name	: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2600 CPU @ 3.40GHz
stepping	: 7
cpu MHz		: 3399.996
cache size	: 8192 KB
fdiv_bug	: no
hlt_bug		: no
f00f_bug	: no
coma_bug	: no
fpu		: yes
fpu_exception	: yes
cpuid level	: 13
wp		: yes
flags		: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht nx rdtscp constant_tsc nonstop_tsc pni pclmulqdq ssse3 cx16 sse4_1 sse4_2 popcnt aes xsave avx lahf_lm
bogomips	: 6799.99
clflush size	: 64
cache_alignment	: 64
address sizes	: 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

Just to express some positive, I am very impressed how well VIrtualBox works. I am developing a MIDI project targeted at RPi3 and I am very glad that I can do most of the dev in a virtual DEBIAN box on my MAC and not have to work directly on the RPi3 (which is not blazing fast). The USB integration is very good and allows me to hotplug USB MIDI controller. It is a dream come true

[socratis]

• GAs = Guest Additions. It's good practice to remove the GA CD once you're done with the installation.
• Mea culpa, the ExtPack was installed, the USB2 support wasn't there.
• There's nothing wrong with the setup, but you do have 1 CPU only on your guest. Weird...
• Maybe that specific guest wasn't setup as a multi-processor VM? Maybe you change the #CPUs after the installation? Something that I'm not seeing?
• Since this is turning in a "Linux Guests" problem, I'm moving it there from "OSX Hosts". More Linux eyes there...

[PALYGAP]

Thanks for the infos and diagnostic.

Not sure if I set-up or not the DEBIAN guest to have only 1 CPU. I can't remember doing any specific action. I could try doing a fresh install to see if I can specify 1 or more CPU. AFAIR, I changed the number of CPU (on the VirtualBox Config) after the installation of DEBIAN.

Ok for moving the thread to Linux Guests subjects.

[Perryg]

uname -a in the guest terminal should tell you if you are using an SMP kernel or not.

[PALYGAP]

Thanks Perryg, the result is :

Code: Select all

Linux debian2 3.2.0-4-486 #1 Debian 3.2.57-3+deb7u2 i686 GNU/Linux

there is no SMP in the output. Does that means it is single core only ? that would explain a lot of things

[Perryg]

You should be able to fix this by installing an SMP kernel if Debian has it available for i686. They should.

[PALYGAP]

Ok, I'll try and let you know.

[PALYGAP]

I've installed a Debian 64bits with debian-8.7.1-amd64-netinst.iso.

unama -a now says :

Code: Select all

 Linux debian64SMP 3.16.0-4-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.16.39-1 (2016-12-30) x86_64 GNU/Linux

Which seems to be fine for SMP config. I have not tested "muti-cor" the Qt compilation with -j4 but the GNOME IHM is much faster so it seems OK.

The previous install I did was 32bits, so maybe it just boils down to 32bits LINUX not being able to be configures in SMP in VIrtualBox ?

[PALYGAP]

Checked with the Qt compilation and the SMP config (with 4 cores) works. Compilation 4 time faster