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Chuckaluphagus
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Bit by Meltdown patch? - VirtualBox hard crashes computer

Wed Jan 10, 2018 10:20 am

To preface, I run Ubuntu 16.04 on my computers, and for Windows work software have VMs for 2000, 7 and 10.

This morning the expected kernel update was waiting to be installed, for the 4.13.0-26 kernel. I figure it has the patches for Meltdown, so I let it install and the restart.

After the restart, things seem to be working fine except for VirtualBox. Attempting to load any of my VMs will hard-crash the computer, requiring a manual reset. Appears to not be just me. This is ... less than helpful. After confirming that the crash is reproducible, with any VM loaded from different hard drives, I've rebooted into the previous kernel (4.10.0-42) and all is fine.

Anyone else having similar trouble?
 
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Re: Bit by Meltdown patch? - VirtualBox hard crashes computer

Wed Jan 10, 2018 10:33 am

Have you checked to see if any virtual box kernel modules can be updated as well?
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chuckula
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Re: Bit by Meltdown patch? - VirtualBox hard crashes computer

Wed Jan 10, 2018 10:36 am

Thanks for scaring me! I've updated for Meltdown except for the system that uses Virtualbox to run Windows over Linux.

I would definitely make sure that the kernel modules for Virtualbox have been updated properly as a first step.
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Re: Bit by Meltdown patch? - VirtualBox hard crashes computer

Wed Jan 10, 2018 10:56 am

Doing an "/etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup" may also help.
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Chuckaluphagus
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Re: Bit by Meltdown patch? - VirtualBox hard crashes computer

Wed Jan 10, 2018 1:31 pm

When my deadlines have been met at 5 PM, I will reboot into the new kernel and give this a shot. Thank you all.
 
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Re: Bit by Meltdown patch? - VirtualBox hard crashes computer

Wed Jan 10, 2018 7:28 pm

At least your system boots. Other people weren't so lucky: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... ug/1742323

Edit: Per that thread, it looks like they have already pushed out another new kernel. If you aren't on the .109 variant you need to update again.

Edit 2: Oh, wait, if you're on the 4.10.x or 4.13.x series kernel the thread I linked may not apply to you, that one is talking about 4.4.x
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Re: Bit by Meltdown patch? - VirtualBox hard crashes computer

Wed Jan 10, 2018 8:05 pm

So I just updated my home desktop, and noted that it had grabbed the problematic .108 kernel mentioned in that Launchpad thread I linked. Forced an intra-day update of my local mirror and updated again; got the .109 kernel. Will be rebooting in a minute or two once it finishes regenerating the initrd.

Then I will test whether VirtualBox still works...
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Re: Bit by Meltdown patch? - VirtualBox hard crashes computer

Wed Jan 10, 2018 8:23 pm

System booted successfully, everything seems normal. VirtualBox seems to be working too (just tried booting a couple of my VMs to check).

Edit: Should note that this is a 14.04 box, since OP is running 16.04. Never got around to upgrading to 16.04; I may end up skipping it and going straight to 18.04.
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Chuckaluphagus
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Re: Bit by Meltdown patch? - VirtualBox hard crashes computer

Wed Jan 10, 2018 9:21 pm

So far, nothing has worked. I ran "apt purge virtualbox-dkms" and then reinstalled it, it threw up no errors and looked fine but made no difference.

In the process, I found that /etc/init.d/vboxdrv does not exist on my system. I am confused, especially as (at least on older kernels) VirtualBox is still working just fine. But as such, I am unable to run "/etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup".

Oh, if it makes any difference, I am running VirtualBox from the Ubuntu repositories, 5.0.40_Ubuntu r115130. Are any of you running the same?
 
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Re: Bit by Meltdown patch? - VirtualBox hard crashes computer

Wed Jan 10, 2018 10:22 pm

Try "service vboxdrv setup" instead.

I am running one of the Oracle downloads instead of the version out of the repo, but you may need to install it via dpkg instead of apt/aptitude/GUI if you want to avoid possible X Windows issues, as I described here.

I am running 5.0.28... haven't updated it in a while.
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chuckula
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Re: Bit by Meltdown patch? - VirtualBox hard crashes computer

Mon Jan 15, 2018 5:09 pm

OK, I'm on Arch Linux but I just upgraded to 4.9.76 on the host machine and and Virtualbox 5.2.4 booted up my Windows 10 guest VM fine.

I have confirmed that KPTI is turned on so I'm Meltdown-protected, although I have not loaded the newest microcode for Spectre just yet due to complaints about it causing reboots.
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Chuckaluphagus
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Re: Bit by Meltdown patch? - VirtualBox hard crashes computer

Mon Jan 15, 2018 11:44 pm

So far, nothing has worked for me on the 4.13.0-26 kernel. I'm seeing more reports of this, and the current solutions are either to wait on the older kernel or update to Virtualbox 5.2 from the PPA. I'm going to go with option 2, and get around to it sometime this week, workload permitting. Thanks to everyone here offering advice, I appreciate the help.
 
FlamingSpaceJunk
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Re: Bit by Meltdown patch? - VirtualBox hard crashes computer

Thu Jan 18, 2018 10:46 pm

Why not KVM and Virt-manager?

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