# Virtualbox killing network

## Hyper_Eye

Recently I've had an issue from time to time where I find my network completely inaccessible from any device. When this happens I find the status lights on my switches blinking rapidly in sync for all connected ports. Pinging the router fails. I've known that my Gentoo desktop is where the problem originates. When this problem occurs the system is unresponsive. I can't wake the monitors up, I can't switch to a virtual console, and I can't ssh in (unsurprising considering the state of the network.) So I reach down and push the reset button on the front of my case. The instant I push it my network springs back to life. My other systems reestablish their connections, the switches go back to normal behavior, the router becomes pingable. So something is going on with my Gentoo machine that is causing this to happen. It never happens when I'm using the machine. It will always be while I'm sleeping or at work so it seems to trigger after being idle for a while.

Recently I realized that this only seems to happen when I leave VirtualBox running with a Windows XP guest. I use this vbox installation to do some development and porting on Windows. I don't use it for any other purpose so browsing with it is very limited, I don't download much to it, and I have Microsoft Security Essentials installed and updated. I am pretty certain that there are no viruses or malware on it. Some of the development that I do requires interaction with other devices on the network and that does not work when the guest OS is behind NAT. So I have vbox configured to run the guest with a "Bridged Adapter" network configuration. This triggers the guest to obtain an IP address directly from the router through the Gentoo systems ethernet adapter. The guest appears to be a normal system connected to the network and works with the other devices in this configuration. I believe this may be part of what is causing the issue. When this feature is enabled vbox will trigger the ethernet adapter to switch to promiscuous mode:

```
Mar  4 22:14:38 dmwoodlx kernel: [527651.165338] device eno1 entered promiscuous mode
```

The last thing I usually see in /var/log/messages before the reset is a couple instances of this line:

```
Mar 10 07:16:12 dmwoodlx kernel: [387300.642236] hwdev DMA mask = 0x000000007fffffff, dev_addr = 0x00000000d0669000

Mar 10 07:16:12 dmwoodlx kernel: [387300.642312] hwdev DMA mask = 0x000000007fffffff, dev_addr = 0x00000000d069d000

Mar 10 07:16:12 dmwoodlx kernel: [387300.642339] hwdev DMA mask = 0x000000007fffffff, dev_addr = 0x00000000d06bd000
```

This does not seem to occur if I shutdown the guest OS before leaving the machine idle. Sometimes I'll be in the middle of a development task when I get up and I want to leave everything as it is. I also have not verified with certainty that this problem will not occur with vbox configured to use a NAT network configuration. I intend to leave the guest running with this configuration to see.

Any assistance is appreciated. Here is some relevant info:

```
dmwoodlx ~ # emerge --info

Portage 2.2.8-r1 (default/linux/amd64/13.0/desktop/kde, gcc-4.8.2, glibc-2.19, 3.13.5-gentoo x86_64)

=================================================================

System uname: Linux-3.13.5-gentoo-x86_64-Intel-R-_Core-TM-_i7-3770_CPU_@_3.40GHz-with-gentoo-2.2

KiB Mem:    16394632 total,   7733812 free

KiB Swap:    4194296 total,   4194296 free

Timestamp of tree: Mon, 03 Mar 2014 14:15:01 +0000

ld GNU ld (GNU Binutils) 2.24

app-shells/bash:          4.2_p45-r1

dev-java/java-config:     2.2.0

dev-lang/python:          2.7.6, 3.2.5-r3, 3.3.4

dev-util/cmake:           2.8.12.2-r1::kde

dev-util/pkgconfig:       0.28

sys-apps/baselayout:      2.2

sys-apps/openrc:          0.12.4

sys-apps/sandbox:         2.6-r1

sys-devel/autoconf:       2.13, 2.69

sys-devel/automake:       1.4_p6-r1, 1.10.3, 1.11.6, 1.12.6, 1.13.4, 1.14.1

sys-devel/binutils:       2.24-r2

sys-devel/gcc:            4.7.3-r1, 4.8.2

sys-devel/gcc-config:     1.8

sys-devel/libtool:        2.4.2

sys-devel/make:           4.0-r1

sys-kernel/linux-headers: 3.13 (virtual/os-headers)

sys-libs/glibc:           2.19

Repositories: gentoo dmwoodlx2_local kde vincent gamerlay sunrise roslin steam-overlay anders-larsson

ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="amd64 ~amd64"

ACCEPT_LICENSE="* -@EULA"

CBUILD="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"

CFLAGS="-march=native -O2 -pipe"

CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"

CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/share/config /usr/share/gnupg/qualified.txt /usr/share/maven-bin-3.1/conf /usr/share/polkit-1/actions /usr/share/themes/oxygen-gtk/gtk-3.0 /var/lib/hsqldb"

CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/ca-certificates.conf /etc/dconf /etc/env.d /etc/fonts/fonts.conf /etc/gconf /etc/gentoo-release /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/sandbox.d /etc/splash /etc/terminfo /etc/texmf/language.dat.d /etc/texmf/language.def.d /etc/texmf/updmap.d /etc/texmf/web2c"

CXXFLAGS="-march=native -O2 -pipe"

DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"

FCFLAGS="-O2 -pipe"

FEATURES="assume-digests binpkg-logs config-protect-if-modified distlocks ebuild-locks fixlafiles merge-sync news parallel-fetch preserve-libs protect-owned sandbox sfperms strict unknown-features-warn unmerge-logs unmerge-orphans userfetch userpriv usersandbox usersync"

FFLAGS="-O2 -pipe"

GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://distfiles.gentoo.org"

LANG="en_US.utf8"

LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1 -Wl,--as-needed"

MAKEOPTS="-j8"

PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"

PORTAGE_CONFIGROOT="/"

PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --omit-dir-times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --stats --human-readable --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages"

PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"

PORTDIR="/usr/portage"

PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage /var/lib/layman/kde /var/lib/layman/vincent /var/lib/layman/gamerlay /var/lib/layman/sunrise /var/lib/layman/roslin /var/lib/layman/steam /var/lib/layman/anders-larsson"

SYNC="rsync://rsync.us.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"

USE="X a52 aac aacs acl acpi alsa alstream amd64 berkdb bindist bluetooth bluray branding bzip2 cairo cdda cddb cdr cli cmake consolekit cracklib crypt cuda cups cxx dbus declarative dri dts dvd dvdr emboss encode exif fakevim fam fbcondecor ffmpeg firefox flac fortran ftp gdbm gif git gpm gtk hddtemp iconv imagemagick ipv6 java javascript joystick jpeg kde kipi lame lastfm lcms ldap libnotify lirc lm_sensors mad md5sum mercurial midi minizip mmx mng modules mp3 mp4 mpeg multilib ncurses network nls nptl nsplugin ogg openal opengl openmp pam pango pcre pdf perl phonon plasma png policykit portmidi ppds python qt3support qt4 readline s3 samba sdl semantic-desktop session spell sqlite sse sse2 sse3 ssl startup-notification subversion svg tcpd threads tiff timidity truetype udev udisks unicode upower usb valgrind vdpau vim-syntax vorbis wxwidgets x264 xcb xcomposite xinerama xml xpm xscreensaver xv xvid zlib" ABI_X86="64" ALSA_CARDS="ali5451 als4000 atiixp atiixp-modem bt87x ca0106 cmipci emu10k1x ens1370 ens1371 es1938 es1968 fm801 hda-intel intel8x0 intel8x0m maestro3 trident usb-audio via82xx via82xx-modem ymfpci" APACHE2_MODULES="authn_core authz_core socache_shmcb unixd actions alias auth_basic authn_alias authn_anon authn_dbm authn_default authn_file authz_dbm authz_default authz_groupfile authz_host authz_owner authz_user autoindex cache cgi cgid dav dav_fs dav_lock deflate dir disk_cache env expires ext_filter file_cache filter headers include info log_config logio mem_cache mime mime_magic negotiation rewrite setenvif speling status unique_id userdir usertrack vhost_alias" CALLIGRA_FEATURES="kexi words flow plan sheets stage tables krita karbon braindump author" CAMERAS="ptp2" COLLECTD_PLUGINS="df interface irq load memory rrdtool swap syslog" ELIBC="glibc" GPSD_PROTOCOLS="ashtech aivdm earthmate evermore fv18 garmin garmintxt gpsclock itrax mtk3301 nmea ntrip navcom oceanserver oldstyle oncore rtcm104v2 rtcm104v3 sirf superstar2 timing tsip tripmate tnt ublox ubx" GRUB_PLATFORMS="efi-64" INPUT_DEVICES="keyboard mouse joystick" KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb ncurses text" LIBREOFFICE_EXTENSIONS="presenter-console presenter-minimizer" LINGUAS="en" LIRC_DEVICES="sb0540" NETBEANS_MODULES="*" OFFICE_IMPLEMENTATION="libreoffice" PHP_TARGETS="php5-5" PYTHON_SINGLE_TARGET="python2_7" PYTHON_TARGETS="python2_7 python3_3" RUBY_TARGETS="ruby19 ruby18" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="nvidia" XTABLES_ADDONS="quota2 psd pknock lscan length2 ipv4options ipset ipp2p iface geoip fuzzy condition tee tarpit sysrq steal rawnat logmark ipmark dhcpmac delude chaos account"

Unset:  CPPFLAGS, CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, INSTALL_MASK, LC_ALL, PORTAGE_BUNZIP2_COMMAND, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS, USE_PYTHON
```

```
dmwoodlx ~ # eix virtualbox

[I] app-emulation/virtualbox-bin

     Available versions:  4.2.22^m (~)4.3.6^m (~)4.3.8^m {+additions +chm debug headless python rdesktop-vrdp sdk vboxwebsrv}

     Installed versions:  4.3.8^m(03:56:40 PM 02/26/2014)(additions chm python -debug -headless -rdesktop-vrdp -sdk -vboxwebsrv)

     Homepage:            http://www.virtualbox.org/

     Description:         Family of powerful x86 virtualization products for enterprise as well as home use

[I] app-emulation/virtualbox-modules

     Available versions:  4.2.22 (~)4.3.6 (~)4.3.8 {pax_kernel KERNEL="linux"}

     Installed versions:  4.3.8(07:21:47 PM 02/26/2014)(-pax_kernel KERNEL="linux")

     Homepage:            http://www.virtualbox.org/

     Description:         Kernel Modules for Virtualbox

```

----------

## Hyper_Eye

I have left the XP guest running since making this thread and the issue has not occurred since. So it does seem that the issue is related to using the "Bridged Adapter" network configuration.

----------

## Hyper_Eye

This happened again this morning and the guest was not configured for "Bridged Adapter". It was configured for "NAT". At this point I have no idea what is causing this to occur but it is a serious problem.

----------

## chaseguard

I routinely run 9 instances of Windows in Vbox.  All are set the same way in the network: Bridged Adaptor with Promiscuous Mode set to Deny.  Never have any problems with the network.  

I did however give each Vbox a reserved address in the router because on restart of a SAVED machine, the SAVED machine holds its previous IP address which sometimes collides because the router reassigned the address to something else in the meantime.

----------

