On Sep 12, 2010, at 11:05 AM, Warren Strange wrote:
> I posted the following to the VirtualBox forum. I would be interested in
> finding out if anyone else has ever seen zpool corruption with VirtualBox as
> a host on OpenSolaris:
>
> -----------------------------------------
> I am running OpenSolaris b134 as a VirtualBox host, with a Linux guest.
>
> I have experienced 6-7 instances of my zpool getting corrupted. I am
> wondering if anyone else has ever seen this before.
>
> This is on a mirrored zpool - using drives from two different manufacturers
> (i.e. it is very unlikely both drives would fail at the same time, with the
> same blocks going bad). I initially thought I might have a memory problem -
> which could explain the simultaneous disk failures. After running memory
> diagnostics for 24 hours with no errors reported, I am beginning to suspect
> it might be something else.
So we are clear, you are running VirtualBox on ZFS, rather than ZFS on
VirtualBox?
> I am using shared folders from the guest - mounted at guest boot up time.
>
> Is it possible that the Solaris vboxsf shared folder kernel driver is causing
> corruption? Being in the kernel, would it allow bypassing of the normal zfs
> integrity mechanisms? Or is it possible there is some locking issue or race
> condition that triggers the corruption?
>
> Anecdotally, when I see the corruption the sequence of events seems to be:
>
> - dmesg reports various vbox drivers being loaded (normal - just loading the
> drivers)
> - Guest boots - gets just pass grub boot screen to the initial redhat boot
> screen.
> - The Guest hangs and never boots.
> - zpool status -v reports corrupted files. The files are on the zpool
> containing the shared folders and the VirtualBox images
>
>
> Thoughts?
Bad power supply, HBA, cables, or other common cause.
To help you determine the sort of corruption, for mirrored pools FMA will record
the nature of the discrepancies.
fmdump -eV
will show a checksum error and the associated bitmap comparisons.
-- richard
--
OpenStorage Summit, October 25-27, Palo Alto, CA
http://nexenta-summit2010.eventbrite.com
ZFS and performance consulting
http://www.RichardElling.com
_______________________________________________
zfs-discuss mailing list
zfs-discuss@opensolaris.org
http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
