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Contribs.org Forums => General Discussion => Topic started by: Drifting on January 15, 2011, 01:24:27 AM

Title: Virtual box and SME as a guest.
Post by: Drifting on January 15, 2011, 01:24:27 AM: I have a strange problem that is driving me nuts. I have been running VMware server 2 for quite a while, and it has always worked quite well. However with the announcement that it was dropping the server 2 product thought I should try virtualbox.

This has become apparent on two different machines, and I am not sure if it's virtualbox or something in SME. The two host machines are Ubuntu 64 Workstation, one is 10.4LTS the other 10.10. The 10.4 is running 3.34 of Virtualbox, the 10.10 is running version 4.

The problem, two identical SME installs, both in gateway mode, and both it seems work ok. However I cannot login to the console, as soon as I attempt to enter a password it sort of tries an enter and goes back to login? I know it sounds odd, but that is what it is doing on two different machines and 4 installs of SME 7.5

Anyone came across this oddity ?

Paul
Title: Re: Virtual box and SME as a guest.
Post by: cactus on January 15, 2011, 10:26:48 AM: Are you able to access server manager and have a view at the log files? Any messages in /var/log/messages regarding the failed login perhaps?
Title: Re: Virtual box and SME as a guest.
Post by: Drifting on January 15, 2011, 11:03:18 AM: Nothing in there apart from the expected, authentication failure to login, which is true !

Paul
Title: Re: Virtual box and SME as a guest.
Post by: cactus on January 15, 2011, 02:25:04 PM: Quote from: Drifting on January 15, 2011, 11:03:18 AM
Nothing in there apart from the expected, authentication failure to login, which is true !
Do you have special characters in you password?
Title: Re: Virtual box and SME as a guest.
Post by: Stefano on January 15, 2011, 03:21:54 PM: in my experience it's a time drifting problem in the vm.. time goes too fast and you get a timeout before entering password.
solved with a parameter in grub, but unfortunately now I can't remember (and I'm not in front of my laptop)
search google for "vmware time drifting linux"

HTH
Title: Re: Virtual box and SME as a guest.
Post by: mmccarn on January 16, 2011, 03:32:38 PM: The changes I describe in this forum post (http://forums.contribs.org/index.php/topic,32139.msg139191.html#msg139191) have kept my SME7 VM heppy for some time now...
Title: Re: Virtual box and SME as a guest.
Post by: Drifting on January 16, 2011, 04:29:08 PM: Thanks for the posts guys. My problem seems a little more basic, it's not just the cloak that is running fast, it seems the whole VM is, that is why it times out and jumps back to login as you do not get a chance to enter the password.

Perhaps it is the same issue, but no one has mentioned a few days drift, only hours or mins, mine is at the end of the month already! Think I shall just bite the bullet and re install VMware, at least it has worked without issue on there. Shame as I really quite liked the idea of running virtualbox as it was easier to update and install.

Paul.
Title: Re: Virtual box and SME as a guest.
Post by: Stefano on January 17, 2011, 03:10:10 PM: I solved the problem adding

Code: [Select]
clock=pmtmr
to grub.. i.e., this is an entry in my /boot/grub/menu.lst file:

Code: [Select]
title SME Server (2.6.9-78.0.8.EL) root (hd0,0) kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.9-78.0.8.EL ro root=/dev/main/root clock=pmtmr initrd /initrd-2.6.9-78.0.8.EL.img
HTH
Title: Re: Virtual box and SME as a guest.
Post by: mmccarn on January 17, 2011, 03:54:17 PM: Quote from: Drifting on January 16, 2011, 04:29:08 PM
no one has mentioned a few days drift, only hours or mins, mine is at the end of the month already!
I seem to remember that before changing my clock settings my VM would drift several hours in a few minutes - my sense is that I saw a drift of 3 hours or more within about 10 minutes. It would only take 3 - 4 hours at that rate for your drift to reach a value of a few days.
Title: Re: Virtual box and SME as a guest.
Post by: Drifting on January 19, 2011, 12:21:04 PM: I am so sorry, slaps wrist, I should have listened to you, but assumed that mine was days not mins, it was something else. Anyway followed your advice and change the boot menu and lo and behold it is working fine.

Thank you all

Paul