On Wed, 2008-02-27 at 13:02 -0500, Pablo Sanchez wrote:
> A few more random thoughts:

Finally getting a chance to take a stab at this again.

> o From <http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/User_FAQ>
> 
>    Tickless Linux timer: VirtualBox currently does not work well on
>    Linux kernels with tickless timer support (CONFIG_NO_HZ
>    enabled). We are investigating the problem but in the meantime you
>    should disable the tickless timer by disabling that config option
>    or by adding nohz=off to the Linux kernel command line. 

Unfortunately, that does not seem to have helped.  :-(

> o Have you tried the PUEL version of VirtualBox?

I am currently using the 1.5.6 PUEL version.  I wonder what the Ubuntu
1.5.4 OSE will do with this.  I think I can try that somewhat easily
enough.

> o You can always `strace' the running process to see what it's doing.

Yeah.  My experience with strace since 2.6 came on to the scene is that
with anything more complicated than a simple application (i.e. a cli
utility like mv, rm, etc.) strace doesn't like to disconnect from the
process it's tracing without hanging it(self and the process) up.

Here is a representative extract of what it's doing while the guest is
"idle" (for whatever value of idle you want use for WinXP while there is
no user interaction with it):

[pid 10246] gettimeofday({1204624509, 661101}, NULL) = 0
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 1121
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 1135
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 2621
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 1410
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 1135
[pid 10246] select(48, [47], [], [], {0, 0}) = 0 (Timeout)
[pid 10246] gettimeofday({1204624509, 664183}, NULL) = 0
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 1135
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240 <unfinished ...>
[pid 10249] <... rt_sigtimedwait resumed> {si_signo=SIGALRM, si_code=0x80, 
si_pid=0, si_uid=0, si_value={int=0, ptr=0}}, 0, 8) = 14
[pid 10246] <... ioctl resumed> , 0)    = 1121
[pid 10249] rt_sigtimedwait([ALRM],  <unfinished ...>
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 1135
[pid 10246] select(48, [47], [], [], {0, 0}) = 0 (Timeout)
[pid 10246] gettimeofday({1204624509, 666970}, NULL) = 0
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 1135
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 2621
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 1410
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 1121
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 1135
[pid 10246] select(48, [47], [], [], {0, 0}) = 0 (Timeout)
[pid 10246] gettimeofday({1204624509, 670106}, NULL) = 0
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 1121
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 1135
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 2621
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 1410
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 1135
[pid 10246] select(48, [47], [], [], {0, 0}) = 0 (Timeout)
[pid 10246] gettimeofday({1204624509, 673189}, NULL) = 0
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 1121
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 1121
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240 <unfinished ...>
[pid 10239] <... select resumed> )      = 0 (Timeout)
[pid 10246] <... ioctl resumed> , 0)    = 1121
[pid 10239] gettimeofday({1204624509, 674773}, NULL) = 0
[pid 10239] ioctl(17, FIONREAD, [0])    = 0
[pid 10239] gettimeofday({1204624509, 674861}, NULL) = 0
[pid 10239] select(25, [17 18 19 24], [], [], {0, 48721} <unfinished ...>
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 1135
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 1135
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 2621
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 1410
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 1135
[pid 10246] select(48, [47], [], [], {0, 0}) = 0 (Timeout)
[pid 10246] gettimeofday({1204624509, 676271}, NULL) = 0
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240 <unfinished ...>
[pid 10249] <... rt_sigtimedwait resumed> {si_signo=SIGALRM, si_code=0x80, 
si_pid=0, si_uid=0, si_value={int=0, ptr=0}}, 0, 8) = 14
[pid 10246] <... ioctl resumed> , 0)    = 1121
[pid 10249] rt_sigtimedwait([ALRM],  <unfinished ...>
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 1121
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 1121
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 1135
[pid 10246] select(48, [47], [], [], {0, 0}) = 0 (Timeout)
[pid 10246] gettimeofday({1204624509, 679062}, NULL) = 0
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 2621
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 1410
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 1135
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 1121
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 1135
[pid 10246] select(48, [47], [], [], {0, 0}) = 0 (Timeout)
[pid 10246] gettimeofday({1204624509, 682171}, NULL) = 0
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 1121
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 2621
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 1410
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 1135
[pid 10246] select(48, [47], [], [], {0, 0}) = 0 (Timeout)
[pid 10246] gettimeofday({1204624509, 685085}, NULL) = 0
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240 <unfinished ...>
[pid 10249] <... rt_sigtimedwait resumed> {si_signo=SIGALRM, si_code=0x80, 
si_pid=0, si_uid=0, si_value={int=0, ptr=0}}, 0, 8) = 14
[pid 10246] <... ioctl resumed> , 0)    = 1121
[pid 10249] rt_sigtimedwait([ALRM],  <unfinished ...>
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 1135
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 2621
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 1410
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 1121
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 1135
[pid 10246] select(48, [47], [], [], {0, 0}) = 0 (Timeout)
[pid 10246] gettimeofday({1204624509, 688148}, NULL) = 0
[pid 10246] ioctl(3, 0xc0002240, 0)     = 1121
[pid 10246

Looks like a whole lot of activity over and over again.

But here is what is interesting... file descriptor 3 is:

COMMAND     PID  USER   FD   TYPE     DEVICE    SIZE    NODE NAME
VirtualBo 10239 brian    3u   CHR      10,62           19195 /dev/vboxdrv

So the VirtualBox process is doing a whole lot of communicating with the
vboxdrv module.  It's probably worth noting at this point that even
though the guest claims is supports mouse integration, and the mouse
icon on the vbox application window has the two little green arrows
showing that it auto-captures, when I try to use the mouse in the guest,
it doesn't work.  I have to Disable the mouse integration and explicitly
click in the guest window to get the mouse input realized.

So, I wonder what all of this interaction with the vboxdrv driver could
be.  Anyone know?

b.



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