[Pkg-virtualbox-devel] Bug#583919: virtualbox-ose: Network packet loss between host and guest

[Roland Mas]

Package: virtualbox-ose
Version: 3.2.0-dfsg-1
Severity: normal

My VirtualBox instances have recently started losing incoming packets
from the host after about 2 MB transmitted.  I'm using dput to upload
packages from the Sid host to a Lenny guest, so several files are
uploaded in succession through SCP.  Small files get transmitted almost
instantaneously, as expected, but larger ones seem to get the first 2 MB
transmitted in an initial burst, then the rest goes very slowly (typical
transfer speeds around 30 kB/s).  I've tried running the following:

,----
| watch "netstat -s | grep 'retransmit\|los'"
`----

  On the host, I get large (and fast-growing) numbers for "segments
retransmited", "times recovered from packet loss by selective
acknowledgements", "TCP data loss events", "fast retransmits" and
"retransmits in slow start".  The same statistics are very small on the
guest, and not moving.

  An SCP from a different box on the same network to the guest doesn't
exhibit packet loss.  Neither does SCPing from the guest to the host.

  I'm using bridged networking, with a DHCP server on the LAN, no
firewalling on either host or guest.  It might be relevant to note that
I don't have hardware virtualization support in my fairly old Athlon
CPU.

  Downgrading virtualbox-ose and virtualbox-ose-dkms (and
virtualbox-ose-qt, for completeness's sake) to 3.1.8-dfsg-1 fixes the
problem.

  Please tell me if I can help debugging in any way.

Roland.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: squeeze/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.32-5-686 (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=fr_FR.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages virtualbox-ose depends on:
ii  adduser                 3.112            add and remove users and groups
ii  libc6                   2.11.1-1         Embedded GNU C Library: Shared lib
ii  libcurl3                7.20.1-2         Multi-protocol file transfer libra
ii  libgcc1                 1:4.4.4-3        GCC support library
ii  libpng12-0              1.2.43-1         PNG library - runtime
ii  libsdl1.2debian         1.2.14-6         Simple DirectMedia Layer
ii  libssl0.9.8             0.9.8n-1         SSL shared libraries
ii  libstdc++6              4.4.4-3          The GNU Standard C++ Library v3
ii  libvncserver0           0.9.7-2          API to write one's own vnc server
ii  libx11-6                2:1.3.3-3        X11 client-side library
ii  libxcursor1             1:1.1.10-2       X cursor management library
ii  libxext6                2:1.1.1-3        X11 miscellaneous extension librar
ii  libxml2                 2.7.7.dfsg-2     GNOME XML library
ii  libxmu6                 2:1.0.5-1        X11 miscellaneous utility library
ii  libxt6                  1:1.0.7-1        X11 toolkit intrinsics library
ii  python                  2.5.4-9          An interactive high-level object-o
ii  python-central          0.6.16           register and build utility for Pyt
ii  python2.5               2.5.5-6          An interactive high-level object-o
ii  zlib1g                  1:1.2.3.4.dfsg-3 compression library - runtime

Versions of packages virtualbox-ose recommends:
ii  libgl1-mesa-glx [libgl1]    7.7.1-2      A free implementation of the OpenG
ii  libqt4-opengl               4:4.6.2-5    Qt 4 OpenGL module
ii  libqtcore4                  4:4.6.2-5    Qt 4 core module
ii  libqtgui4                   4:4.6.2-5    Qt 4 GUI module
ii  virtualbox-ose-dkms         3.2.0-dfsg-1 x86 virtualization solution - kern
ii  virtualbox-ose-qt           3.2.0-dfsg-1 x86 virtualization solution - Qt b

Versions of packages virtualbox-ose suggests:
ii  libasound2                    1.0.22-2   shared library for ALSA applicatio
ii  libpulse0                     0.9.21-1.2 PulseAudio client libraries
pn  vde2                          <none>     (no description available)
pn  virtualbox-guest-additions    <none>     (no description available)

-- no debconf information

-- 
Roland Mas

Why did the elephant cross the road?
Because it was the chicken's day off.