Host freeze with GSX 30, 31, Workstation 4.5, 4.5.1, 4.5.2

[Bolle]

Hi @ all,

I have a tricky problem with my vmware. My host runs SUSE Linux 9.1 Professional. The box is a Poweredge 1600SC Dual Xeon.

If my virtual machine runs into persistent heavy I/O load the whole box goes down. I tried a lot with different versions of vmware but I can reproduce the error under every version of vmware. From the beginning to the end the time window is between 60 and 240 minutes.
If I don't make high I/O indside of the machine it runs completly stable. As an example from last week Monday until today. If I would start a backup now it would go down again. Including the host !!!

The system freeze. I can ping the host but not log-in or use installed services. The only thing I can do is to reset the system manually.

The guest runs SUSE 8.1 Professional.

I tried different kernels on host and guest.
If I start applications inside the virtual machine which cause short heavy load ( 1,5 GB RAM, high I/O), I am unable to ping the virtual machine as long as the heavy application starts. It is not accessible from the graphical user interface, all I see is the green disk led. After the application is finished consuming a lot of ressources the machine works fine again.


Can anybody help me please?

[wandan]

Hello.

Would be great, if you could write in german, because this is a german speaking forum.

You can find an english help forum here:
http://www.vmware.com/community/index.jspa

The problem you described is very strange. Vmware is running on very many linux systems all over the world. If you have a support contract it would be great, to open a support call for this special issue.
If you have strange hardware (scsi, S-ata) in your system.. your linux driver could be the problem.

Thanks for your understanding.

Greetings
Alex

[Bolle]

Hi,

oh oh es war mir nicht wirklich bewusst das ich 2mal den gleichen Eintrag in beide Foren vorgenommen habe. Mein Thread ist auch noch im offiziellen Forum bei Vmware.com eingetragen.

Hmm. Vielleicht sollte ich das tun. Kostete der Support Geld oder reicht der Erwerb der Lizenz aus ?

Hi,

sorry for writing in german. This thread is a cross posting from the official VMware site.

Probably I should contact the VMware support team. Can somebody inform me about the amount of money I have to spend if I create a support case ?
Maybe the support is included if I have bought a VMware licence ?

Thanxx @ all !

[Bolle]

Hi @ all,

If I reduce the virtual machine memory to 256 MB it runs stable. I could not believe it. The virtual machine swaps as hell but it seems to run stable.
The host has actually 1 GB of RAM. 900 MB free before startup of VMware. Is somebody out there who can explain me why I can't assign more then 256 MB to the guest ???

The logfile says after startup of the heavy application Ethernet skipped for 3 times and Disk IDE0:0 timed out for 450 secounds. But only if I assign more than 256 MB to the virtual machine. Remeber, host RAM and the raid controller are fine.

Strange behaviour isnt it ?
---

Hallo Leute,

wenn ich der virtuellen Maschine nur 256 MB Speicher zuweise läuft Sie stabil. Der Hammer oder ? Swapt wie verrückt aber läuft stabil.
Der Host hat 1GB von dem 900 MB frei sind wenn ich VMware starte.
Hat jemand eine Idee woran sowas liegen könnte ? RAM und Raidcontroller arbeiten einwandfrei. vgl. http://www.vmware.com/community/thread. ... 901&#59901

Wenn ich mit mehr als 256MB starte zeigt das debugging log einen Disk timeout beim start der Applikation in der Machine Disk0:0 timed out für 450 Sek. und Ethernet skipped drei mal oder ähnlich.

Jetzt ist guter Rat teuer ;-(

Thanxxx @ all !