Panic with FreeBSD Guest in FreeBSD VirtualBox host

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

On 6/8/2010 3:14 PM, Hubert Tournier wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> I noticed that FreeBSD guests (either i386 or amd64, release 7.x or 8.x,
> even freshly installed from the install CD) running in VirtualBox (3.1.4 to
> 3.2.2) on FreeBSD hosts (only tested on 8.0pX amd64, but on 4 machines with
> different hardware) panic during the boot sequence, just after the "Starting
> cron" message, and enter an endless loop of reboots:
>
> http://old.nabble.com/file/p28823754/panic1.png
>
> The same VMs work fine on VirtualBox (any version) on a Windows XP guest,
> and used to work on VirtualBox 3.1.2 on a FreeBSD host.
>
> I can boot a blank VM with the FreeBSD install CD and proceed with
> installation, but the problem occurs during the first reboot of the
> installed system.
>
> I've no troubles with VM guests using Linuxes (CentOS, Ubuntu, Red Hat) or
> Windows (XP, 2008).
>

are these all 32 bit systems?

> With some additional debug messages, i've seen that the problem happens in
> /etc/rc.d/mixer:
>
> http://old.nabble.com/file/p28823754/panic2.png
>
> So, i put a mixer_enable="NO" in /etc/rc.conf and was able to complete the
> boot sequence.
>
> Unfortunately, a few commands later, even doing a simple "ls", the VM panics
> again.
>
> I tried with a generic kernel instead of a custom one, and an unmodified
> VirtualBox port, but got the same results.
>
> Any idea? Are there other people encountering this?
>
> Best regards,
>
> Hubert
>
> PS: if needed, i can provide root access to an Internet server where the
> problem happens, to the vbox team.
> PPS: i haven't filed a PR for this, but can do if wanted.

I have FreeBSD 5.5-RELEASE guest running under VirtualBox 3.1.6-OSE on 
FreeBSD 8.0-STABLE i386 32 bit (built from the April 27th cvs) on a dual 
Xeon 2.0Ghz  (total of 4 cores in the system) running on an Intel
Server motherboard.  This uses a dual set of Seagate 250GB PATA disks
running on a FreeBSD ata software RAID.  The 5.5 guest runs a billing
software called billmax.

Besides Vbox this server runs apache2, mysql5, mod perl, mod ssl, vnc 
server, xrdp, the latest X, python, php4, icradius, HaCi and netdot,
plus a couple hundred other dependent programs that support all of
that.  And I'm even looking to load more crap on it.

Never had a single problem with it.  I love it, it's my favorite server.

And I even have a copy of rogue running on it.

Ted