[OpenIndiana-discuss] What advantages of KVM over Vbox

[Geoff Nordli]

On Mon, Dec 12, 2011 at 5:19 AM, Nikola M <minikola at gmail.com> wrote:
> Geoff Nordli wrote:
>> Vbox has a new crossbow network stack, but it only works on Solaris 11
>> builds >= 159. I am not sure what it would take to make it work
>> properly with OI, but that would be nice. Geoff
> Do you know on what release Virtualbox introduced this changes and/or
> incompatibility with Illumos? (OI)
> When it started happening?
>
> This is important, since Virtualbox should continue to support Illumos
> based distributions like Openindiana, but that is up to Virtualbox
> developers and there is not many developers not paid by oracle that do
> develop Virtualbox.
> Perhaps just a minor effort is needed for Illumos/OS to be supported for
> virtualbox and maybe people at Virtualbox are already doing it but I am
> not sure.
>
> At least Virtualbox works on Openindiana , with KVM module removed
> and/or  "export VBOX_HWVIRTEX_IGNORE_SVM_IN_USE=true" used prior invocation
> and SFE repository workaround for GCC/Virtualbox working On Openindiana
> 151a: (look for virtualbox)
> http://wiki.openindiana.org/oi/Spec+Files+Extra+Repository
> https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/1840
>

I am currently using vbox 4.1 on an OpenIndiana host and it is working
OK, though the virtio network
interface seems flakey so I swtiched to an intel version. I am not
sure what it is, but sometimes the VMs network dies.

Here is some information on the new crossbow network filter that
replaces the old streams based version in 4.1:
http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch09.html#vboxbowsolaris11.  The
streams version still works but you have to manually configure your
vnics.

Here is the conversation had with them:
http://www.mail-archive.com/vbox-dev@virtualbox.org/msg04639.html.
There was no answer when I asked them about the amount of effort to
get it working on OI/Illumos.

thanks,

Geoff