4 ms·

Basically: Oracle: We reported the bug a long time ago and still Apple released the update. Apple: ... Me: How the fuck am I going to work tomorrow? Maybe go

by igorgue 14y ago

Basically: Oracle: We reported the bug a long time ago and still Apple released the update. Apple: ... Me: How the fuck am I going to work tomorrow? Maybe going full Vagrant wasn't a good idea after all :(

webjprgm 14y ago
Is there a discussion with details on the issue? Parallels and VMWare release new versions all the time for compatibility issues, they just fix them before the update comes so their new version is ready. Should VirtualBox just fix the bug on their side, or is this really an Apple issue?
- igorgue 14y ago
  I'm not sure who to blame, these are the details everyone is posting so far: https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/10965 https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/10965 It seems like the VirtualBox community was talking about this problem for a long time already, since early september.
nettdata 14y ago
Just revert back to the backup you took right before you did the upgrade. You DID do a backup, didn't you? You HAVE tested that your backups are working, by doing a complete recovery with them, right? Right? ;) My personal philosophy is to be cutting edge on my personal/hobby gear (like the last gen MB Pro I keep for, ah, movies and such), but not to do ANY same-day updates on anything even remotely required for work. That shit stays behind the times but reliable for paying the bills. After I've seen the upgrades working in the wild for a week or two, and I have verified that all the stuff I need actually works like I need it to, THEN I'll do the upgrade on my work box. After backing it up, of course. Hell, I even have a text file with search phrases and forum URLs for the software I need to have working to make it easy and ensure I don't miss anything. Call me crazy, but I've learned that lesson the hard way.
- EchoAbstract 14y ago
  This seems to be based on an upgrade to the EFI firmware, in addition to the 10.8.2 update. While I've got verified backups for the OS, I'm not in the habit of regularly backing up the EFI firmware, nor do I know how I would restore it on my MBP. Anyone got advice for backing up firmware on laptops to allow for roll-backs on breaking changes?
  - nettdata 14y ago
    I'm not sure there is a way for an end-user to revert to a previous version once a firmware update has been successfully applied. If it wasn't successful, you could use the firmware restore CD that came with the box, or create the CD to do that, but again, that only works for failed upgrade attempts. I've had to do this once in the past, and the easiest way I could find was to just take it to the local Apple Support shop and get them to do it. They did it for me while I waited, and it didn't cost me anything but time. YMMV. But good point... I'm not in the habit of backing up firmware.
    - scraplab 14y ago
      Just to confirm, this is only caused by 10.8.2, not the EFI firmware update. So you can rollback to a 10.8.1 backup and everything works fine.
mitchellh 14y ago
(Vagrant creator here) Ugh. This is a pretty bad situation. I took a look at the VirtualBox Darwin driver source code as well as the relevant method in the Darwin kernel (`host_vmxon`), and I can't see a workaround that I can meaningfully or confidently contribute. I'm hoping for a quick turnaround by Oracle or Apple on something here. :( For the future, I've been working on VMWare support for some time now, and it should be ready in the next few months. These sorts of problems will be mitigated then by saying "oh, well you can just use Vagrant with X instead for now" (where X is some other virtualization layer). For now, I'm sorry, I don't think there is anything I can do here.
- jherdman 14y ago
  Thanks for looking into this and working so hard on Vagrant. It's an awesome product.
- igorgue 14y ago
  It's not your fault, I shouldn't have upgraded :( Thanks for vagrant it's really awesome!
- misnome 14y ago
  I've used virtualbox for a while, but hadn't heard of Vagrant; it looks awesome. Luckily, this article popped up before I upgraded, so I'm sticking firmly to .1 now. But I'm definitely going to download and use vagrant now :)
- blairwadman 14y ago
  I've used VMWare for a while now, and it is indeed very fast. I've just started using Vagrant (thanks for creating it!) and love it, despite the slowness of Virtual Box. Good luck with VMWare support, I'm looking forward to that.
dchichkov 14y ago
You have Linux/Ubuntu development envinroment, right? Why do you use it in a VM on a Mac in the first place? Why not just using a fast desktop with a couple of monitors at your workplace? And ssh/xterm to it, if you need to work remotely?
- adrianhoward 14y ago
  Because being able to have a copy of the deployment environment - especially one that you can build, deploy and test automatically, is stupidly useful. It's not being able to have a linux machine. It's being able to have one that you can build, throw away, test different deploy strategies on, etc. etc. Suddenly you have all the developers dealing with deployment problems as soon as they occur - cutting that loooooong feedback loop to minutes saving everybody time, pain and money. TL;DR - coz it's a good thing :-)
  - vidarh 14y ago
    Linux supports about a dozen virtualization technologies, and modern distros, e.g. Ubuntu 12.04, makes it trivial. Here's what it takes to start a new Ubuntu based container (less isolated, but more than enough for a dev environment) on Ubuntu 12.04: lxc-create -n [some name] -t ubuntu Then: lxc-start -n [some name] to start it and get the console (or tack on "-d" to run it in the background) Ubuntu by default starts dnsmasq to serve up local dns results for vm's, so you can ssh to them, and setting up a tunnel for external access is easy. LXC also works fine on Debian, though the experience isn't quite as polished. Otherwise, you can use KVM, Qemu, Virtualbox, Vmware, Xen, OpenVz and more. In all cases, you can use the same deployment tools: Build .deb's and set up a local APT repo (just a directory you run dpkg-scanpackages over), or use Sprinkle or use Chef or Puppet or half a dozen other tools. Use buy into Ubuntu's orchestration tools (in particular Juju,which supports direct deployment onto LXC locally, OpenStack or EC2 for now) In other words, putting your environments on a Linux box doesn't remove the ability to have copies of the deployment environment or building, deploying or testing automatically - it adds a massive number of additional options for how to do it. In particular, it lets you do it in ways that translates directly to private or public Linux based cloud solutions.
nicholassmith 14y ago
I'd be interested in knowing whether this is genuinely a bug on Apple's side or whether it's something that VirtualBox should have been aware of. It sounds like a bug, but if there's an issue with virtualization surely VMWare and Parallels would also have broken functionality as well.
- m_eiman 14y ago
  https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?p=52266 https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?p=52266 The "VMX root mode" problem is known since at least 2008. On Linux hosts it's been possible to disable whatever puts the CPU into that mode, but that may be harder on OSX.
  - nicholassmith 14y ago
    Thanks. Well that certainly makes it look like a VB issue rather than Apple, doesn't have an impact for me but I can imagine there's some very stressed developers this morning.
    - m_eiman 14y ago
      There's more information here: http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch10.html http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch10.html , "Hardware vs. software virtualization" and forward. If I'm reading it right, it might be possible to run VB in software virtualization mode even with the new firmware.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

by igorgue 14y ago

webjprgm 14y ago

Is there a discussion with details on the issue? Parallels and VMWare release new versions all the time for compatibility issues, they just fix them before the update comes so their new version is ready. Should VirtualBox just fix the bug on their side, or is this really an Apple issue?

igorgue 14y ago
I'm not sure who to blame, these are the details everyone is posting so far: https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/10965 https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/10965 It seems like the VirtualBox community was talking about this problem for a long time already, since early september.

nettdata 14y ago

Just revert back to the backup you took right before you did the upgrade. You DID do a backup, didn't you? You HAVE tested that your backups are working, by doing a complete recovery with them, right? Right? ;) My personal philosophy is to be cutting edge on my personal/hobby gear (like the last gen MB Pro I keep for, ah, movies and such), but not to do ANY same-day updates on anything even remotely required for work. That shit stays behind the times but reliable for paying the bills. After I've seen the upgrades working in the wild for a week or two, and I have verified that all the stuff I need actually works like I need it to, THEN I'll do the upgrade on my work box. After backing it up, of course. Hell, I even have a text file with search phrases and forum URLs for the software I need to have working to make it easy and ensure I don't miss anything. Call me crazy, but I've learned that lesson the hard way.

EchoAbstract 14y ago
This seems to be based on an upgrade to the EFI firmware, in addition to the 10.8.2 update. While I've got verified backups for the OS, I'm not in the habit of regularly backing up the EFI firmware, nor do I know how I would restore it on my MBP. Anyone got advice for backing up firmware on laptops to allow for roll-backs on breaking changes?
- nettdata 14y ago
  I'm not sure there is a way for an end-user to revert to a previous version once a firmware update has been successfully applied. If it wasn't successful, you could use the firmware restore CD that came with the box, or create the CD to do that, but again, that only works for failed upgrade attempts. I've had to do this once in the past, and the easiest way I could find was to just take it to the local Apple Support shop and get them to do it. They did it for me while I waited, and it didn't cost me anything but time. YMMV. But good point... I'm not in the habit of backing up firmware.
  - scraplab 14y ago
    Just to confirm, this is only caused by 10.8.2, not the EFI firmware update. So you can rollback to a 10.8.1 backup and everything works fine.

mitchellh 14y ago

(Vagrant creator here) Ugh. This is a pretty bad situation. I took a look at the VirtualBox Darwin driver source code as well as the relevant method in the Darwin kernel (`host_vmxon`), and I can't see a workaround that I can meaningfully or confidently contribute. I'm hoping for a quick turnaround by Oracle or Apple on something here. :( For the future, I've been working on VMWare support for some time now, and it should be ready in the next few months. These sorts of problems will be mitigated then by saying "oh, well you can just use Vagrant with X instead for now" (where X is some other virtualization layer). For now, I'm sorry, I don't think there is anything I can do here.

jherdman 14y ago
Thanks for looking into this and working so hard on Vagrant. It's an awesome product.
igorgue 14y ago
It's not your fault, I shouldn't have upgraded :( Thanks for vagrant it's really awesome!
misnome 14y ago
I've used virtualbox for a while, but hadn't heard of Vagrant; it looks awesome. Luckily, this article popped up before I upgraded, so I'm sticking firmly to .1 now. But I'm definitely going to download and use vagrant now :)
blairwadman 14y ago
I've used VMWare for a while now, and it is indeed very fast. I've just started using Vagrant (thanks for creating it!) and love it, despite the slowness of Virtual Box. Good luck with VMWare support, I'm looking forward to that.

dchichkov 14y ago

You have Linux/Ubuntu development envinroment, right? Why do you use it in a VM on a Mac in the first place? Why not just using a fast desktop with a couple of monitors at your workplace? And ssh/xterm to it, if you need to work remotely?

adrianhoward 14y ago
Because being able to have a copy of the deployment environment - especially one that you can build, deploy and test automatically, is stupidly useful. It's not being able to have a linux machine. It's being able to have one that you can build, throw away, test different deploy strategies on, etc. etc. Suddenly you have all the developers dealing with deployment problems as soon as they occur - cutting that loooooong feedback loop to minutes saving everybody time, pain and money. TL;DR - coz it's a good thing :-)
- vidarh 14y ago
  Linux supports about a dozen virtualization technologies, and modern distros, e.g. Ubuntu 12.04, makes it trivial. Here's what it takes to start a new Ubuntu based container (less isolated, but more than enough for a dev environment) on Ubuntu 12.04: lxc-create -n [some name] -t ubuntu Then: lxc-start -n [some name] to start it and get the console (or tack on "-d" to run it in the background) Ubuntu by default starts dnsmasq to serve up local dns results for vm's, so you can ssh to them, and setting up a tunnel for external access is easy. LXC also works fine on Debian, though the experience isn't quite as polished. Otherwise, you can use KVM, Qemu, Virtualbox, Vmware, Xen, OpenVz and more. In all cases, you can use the same deployment tools: Build .deb's and set up a local APT repo (just a directory you run dpkg-scanpackages over), or use Sprinkle or use Chef or Puppet or half a dozen other tools. Use buy into Ubuntu's orchestration tools (in particular Juju,which supports direct deployment onto LXC locally, OpenStack or EC2 for now) In other words, putting your environments on a Linux box doesn't remove the ability to have copies of the deployment environment or building, deploying or testing automatically - it adds a massive number of additional options for how to do it. In particular, it lets you do it in ways that translates directly to private or public Linux based cloud solutions.

nicholassmith 14y ago

I'd be interested in knowing whether this is genuinely a bug on Apple's side or whether it's something that VirtualBox should have been aware of. It sounds like a bug, but if there's an issue with virtualization surely VMWare and Parallels would also have broken functionality as well.

m_eiman 14y ago
https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?p=52266 https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?p=52266 The "VMX root mode" problem is known since at least 2008. On Linux hosts it's been possible to disable whatever puts the CPU into that mode, but that may be harder on OSX.
- nicholassmith 14y ago
  Thanks. Well that certainly makes it look like a VB issue rather than Apple, doesn't have an impact for me but I can imagine there's some very stressed developers this morning.
  - m_eiman 14y ago
    There's more information here: http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch10.html http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch10.html , "Hardware vs. software virtualization" and forward. If I'm reading it right, it might be possible to run VB in software virtualization mode even with the new firmware.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]