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spectVM
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Severe issues with Ubuntu 10.04 and higher on ESXi 4.1

For the past three days, I have been trying various installs of Ubuntu 10.04 LTS and 10.10 on ESXi 4.1.

Everytime the install would crash my ESXi box if I either installed the VMware tools or updated the Linux install.

I tested with VMware images from Turnkey, Jumbox, and others along with custom installs of Ubuntu.

All of them exhibit the same behavior.

In contrast, Ubuntu 7 and 8 work without issues.

The first thing to fail when it happens is the iSCSI connection to my iSCSI target.

After that, the server locks up.

It seems like other users are having similar issues: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1587444

Is there any open acknowlegdement of the issue?

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11 Replies
AndreTheGiant
Immortal
Immortal

The form to submit possibible bugs is:

http://www.vmware.com/support/support_feedback.html

ESXi is up-to-date with latest patches?

What do you mean with "updated the Linux install" ?

Andre

Andrew | http://about.me/amauro | http://vinfrastructure.it/ | @Andrea_Mauro
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spectVM
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Thanks for the reply.

I am running ESXi 4.1.0 build 260247.

How do I get the latest patches? [Edit: found the answer => http://communities.vmware.com/thread/299113?tstart=0]

By "updated the Linux install" I mean ran the Linux OS update (apt-get update).

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AndreTheGiant
Immortal
Immortal

How do I get the latest patches.

It depends if you have VUM or not (I suppose not).

http://blog.peacon.co.uk/how-to-patch-esxi-4-1/

By "updated the Linux install" I mean ran the Linux OS update (apt-get update).

This is really strange. How can a simple user process freeze the hypervisor?

Have you already make a physical RAM test, for example using memtest+ ?

Andre

Andrew | http://about.me/amauro | http://vinfrastructure.it/ | @Andrea_Mauro
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spectVM
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

1. I don't have VUM.

Thanks for the link.

2. The box is stable and has been as such for 4 years now. I have also been running ESXi 4.1 for about 4 months now and previously ESXi 4.0 for much longer.

I am running a dozen VMs (including a Ubuntu 8 VM) fully stable including now that I moved the offending VMs out of that box.

Interestingly, all those offending Ubuntu VMs are running fine under VMware Workstation 7.

I think the problem has to do with the Linux kernel level.

The tasks that I have outlined (installing the VMware tools or updating the Linux OS) are likely simple tasks that put some load on the VMs and causing the problem as posted.

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DSTAVERT
Immortal
Immortal

You are not on the latest patches for ESXi so I would do that as Andre suggested. Have you made sure that your hardware is on the Hardware Compatibility List. http://vmware.com/go/hcl

I would go through the vmware.log files in the VM directories looking for anything that might indicate a problem. I would download the ESXi host log files and go through those to see if anything in there might indicate the source of the problem.

-- David -- VMware Communities Moderator
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spectVM
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

1. I fully agree with getting up to date with the patches.

However, the two patches currently out have nothing to do with the problem I am having.

2. I have a white box. So, no it is not on the HCL. Nonetheless, it has been working flawlessly for 4 years as stated above and continues to be without the offending VMs.

3. I have already removed the offending VMs off my ESXi box, which is again back to being fully stable.

I do wish I had collected the logs to help in diagnosing the problem.

I was a little caught up with getting my system back to working as it is my home "production" system.

4. I am confident that the problem can easily be reproduced having tested with 5 different VMs. Also, see my first post with other users experiencing similar issues.

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DSTAVERT
Immortal
Immortal

Try downloading one of the Ubuntu Appliances from the VMware Appliance Marketplace

-- David -- VMware Communities Moderator
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spectVM
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I did.

These images (among others) were tested and have the reported issue:

http://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/711773

http://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/752043

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DSTAVERT
Immortal
Immortal

Have you looked through the vmware.log files for the VMs with issues? Without an examination of those logs any attempt to guess is useless.

-- David -- VMware Communities Moderator
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DSTAVERT
Immortal
Immortal

It seems like other users are having similar issues: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1587444

Is there any open acknowlegdement of the issue?

If you follow the link to https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/659422 you will see it is a Linux Kernel issue.

There was a fix of sorts somewhere in the ubuntuforums link.

-- David -- VMware Communities Moderator
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J1mbo
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

Although the box has been and continues to be (without these OS's) stable doesn't completely rule out a hardware problem.  For example a CPU issue affecting a very particular instruction order or a memory issue affecting particular patern could be the cause.  Anecdotally, I for one have a number of Ubuntu 10.10 VMs across several ESXi 4.1 hosts and haven't seen any stability issues.

As an aside though the network performance of 10.10 with the built-in network driver is poor and installing vmware tools and then updating the vmxnet driver can yield significant benefits - on my test box, samba share performance was increased from ~8 Mbps to around 50 Mbps as a result.

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