Strobing console on Virtualbox VM/best VM solution for older processors

[Dieter Toews]

hi all,

I'm trying to setup a vm to be my domain controller for my little network. Like many home gamers here on the forum - I'd like to reduce the number of whining computers and my electricity bill. I am hoping to use zentyal - it supposed to be a drop in replacement for SBS2011. I know freenas has samba baked in but i'd like to have the nice GUI goodness of zentyal as i am, as stated above, a home gamer.

I've read in multiple places that bhyve is the new black and is going to be amazing in FN10. unfortunately i have a x7 supermicro system and the processors (L5408s) don't support extended page tables (ept) with the 9.10 docs say is required.

To verify that an Intel processor has the required features, use Shell to run grep VT-x /var/run/dmesg.boot. If the EPT and UG features are shown, this processor can be used with bhyve and iohyve.​

(other than that it is a pretty high spec older system (64gb ram) )

so, I've turned back to the virtualbox template... Unlike others on the forum here phpvirtual box seems to be semi-functioning. I can connect to the virtual machines using VNC and I can install zental 5.0 (ubuntu 16.04 LTS based) zentyal 4.2 (ubuntu 14.x LTS based) and vanilla 16.04 LTS. i find ubuntu a bit icky, why can't it be debian, but oh well... All installer can complete to 1st reboot but when they do none of them can seem to launch into graphic/x11 environments. Instead the console login strobes over and over again on the screen. In the case of vanilla 16.04 LTS i the strobing stopped after about 20 minutes and i was able to log in but could not startx, even after i did apt-get install gnome and other stuff.

After that i created a VM of zentyal 5.0 on virtualbox on my desktop. I was able to log in to the desktop of the VM without issue and imported it into phpvirutalbox... and got the same issue console only and strobing ...

a couple different of next setups occur to me and are here listed in order of the amount of work i think they would take:

1. Ask what might be wrong my phpvritualbox / what i am doing and try to fix it.
2. setup my own jail with an up-to-date version of Virtualbox and use remotebox (this would have the added benefit of allowing the use of ssl). Guess i would use the old virtualbox setup guide, combining that with the virtualbox and remotebox manuals and , probably, more questions on this forum.
3. get another loud, hot, powerhungry, box; put zen, kvm, or vmware on it; install zentyal and maybe some other stuff (maybe a separate DNS vm etc etc); and then use iscsi and other black magic to make it all work.

RE: phpvirtualbox: i did just notice that there is a checkbox i should try setting "Use host I/O cache"... i will try that tonight... but the problems people seem to describe when this isn't set correctly don't match mine well...

 

[Dieter Toews]

so, enabling "Use host I/O cache" did absolutely nothing as i expected but i did have a negative kind of success with my desktop machine's vritualbox... i took a zentyal 5.0 virtual machine and installed the virtualbox guest tools on it - on reboot it has started to do the same thing - flashing console.

are the guest tools for 4.3.12 not compatible with later ubuntu servers? are the guest tools installed auto-magically?

i created a movie of the problem but the forum wont allow .webm files...

 

[dlavigne]

Were you able to resolve this?

 

[Dieter Toews]

no i tried again with plain ubuntu but it ends up in the same place :-(

i was able to work around it: i created a vitualbox vm on my desktop, made sure ssh/x11 forwarding/zentyal-web-admin all worked, exported an ova from the desktop version, imported the ova into the phpvirutalbox instance, DID NOT enable vnc/display, and the os launched properly... so i mean its kinda just like a headless setup... not my super comfort zone but i can probably live with it...

I was able to setup an active directory domain and join Freenas, a Linux client, and a windows client, to it... still kicking the tires... I'd like to / I'm going to try again with ubuntu server 16.04 LTS because, like others, i want an updated crash-plan client running on the machine...

should i create a bug report or is this something known?
in general am i barking up the wrong tree? Should i be setting up a separate VMware box? (I know this preferred but i'd really like to aviod another box)

 

[Dieter Toews]

Were you able to resolve this?

sadly, even more emphatically no. after running for a few days my vm is giving the same screen flashing / looping behaviours at its non headless counterparts did...

 

[Dieter Toews]

***update***

Yes, Did get it going eventually. sorry for not updating this sooner. The answer is that boots or reboots need to happen just after a freenas reboot. If you get a machine started it will run happily for an indefinite amount of time. (well the longest up-time I've had was 20days but that is because i keep changing things.)

rereading:
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...il-no-longer-starting-vms-since-update.46381/

and
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/unable-to-update-virtualbox-template.24401/

i see that the only hope to get many of the issues i'm facing resolved is to get the kernel drivers updated which was nixed by jh:
https://bugs.freenas.org/issues/12056
if that were to happen i could try my hand at building up a new jail template...

maybe i'll get myself an account on the bug forum so that i can plead the case for folks on older hardware who will never be able to run freenas 10 or byhve...