On 08/11/11 23:54, Steve Kleene wrote: > I've been happily running a virtualbox Windows XP machine (VM) on a Wheezy > host for eight months. However, the VM just became pathologically slow. For > example, if I boot the VM, call Photoshop 6, and open a small JPG, it all > works but takes several minutes. During much of this time the XP Task > Manager pins at 100% CPU usage,
What process? > and the host's cooling fans are revving hard. > If I then ask to print the JPG, Photoshop (eventually) declares "There is not > enough memory for this operation". When the VM is idle, it shows about 5% > CPU usage and I see no unexpected memory hogs running. The Debian host runs > fine. > > This disease roughly coincides with my upgrade from virtualbox 4.1.2 to > 4.1.4, including the guest additions and extension pack. So I uninstalled > 4.1.4 and put back 4.1.2 from snapshot.debian.org, together with its guest > additions and extension pack. I also put back a copy of the VM (xpvm.vdi) > and home vbox directories that I had saved on June 18th when everything was > fine. (I saved these as Linux files, not as a snapshot. I have successfully > started from them before). Next time consider:- $ VBoxManage clonevm > Finally I rebooted the host too. None of this > solved the problem. > > The host is a Pentium 4 3.0 GHz with 2 GB of memory. The VM has the > recommended 192 MB of memory. This all worked fine until I ran apt-get > upgrade (including virtualbox) four days ago. I have a newer Wheezy machine > (i5 3.2 GHz + 4 GB) that is running about the same VM (also 192 MB) under > virtualbox 4.1.4 with no problem. > > Any ideas how to identify the source of this slowness? Thanks. > > Debian/VirtualBox - check dmesg[*1] and VirtualBox log for relevant messages. The VirtualBox log is accessible via the GUI Manager => Machine => Show Log. You don't say what sort of VirtualBox disk system you use. Windoof - how much free space does your virtual drive have, when did you last defrag, what filesystem, how big is the Windoof swap, have you put a sniffer on the virtual NIC, what does Windoof show as chewing the most resources? I run a number of Windoof XP Pro SP3+ VirtualBox machines with NTFS using fixed size vmdk virtualdrives. 128MB video, 960MB RAM, PAE/NX, non-free (Oracle) VirtualBox, Squeeze hosts. I regularly degrag their drives, and delete the Windoof swap files every month[*2]. They run quickly - *but are rarely allowed access to the internet*. One suggestion is to export (as an appliance) one of the slow VirtualMachines from your slow host and import it into your faster host - then compare apples with apples. I'd also suggest you temporarily disable the virtual NIC to rule out Windoof network activity as the problem. [*1] you can ignore:- warning: `VirtualBox' uses 32-bit capabilities (legacy support in use) [*2] otherwise they grow until upgrading seems like a good idea Cheers -- Iceweasel/Firefox extensions for finding answers to Debian questions:- https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/collections/Scott_Ferguson/debian/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4ebb0b26.1050...@gmail.com
