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Date:      Thu, 30 Sep 2004 20:11:28 -0400
From:      bsdfsse <bsdfsse@optonline.net>
Cc:        freebsd-emulation@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Are there step-by-step VMWare instructions?
Message-ID:  <415CA0B0.1080203@optonline.net>
In-Reply-To: <20040930205052.GC679@einstein.lab>
References:  <415B40E0.5030708@optonline.net> <415BC408.8070200@optonline.net> <20040930205052.GC679@einstein.lab>

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I did a fresh install, and followed the detailed instructions in 
Christrian's vmware-setup.txt file, and Phusion's instructions at:
    http://www.packetwatch.net/freebsd.php
In addition to their instructions, I disabled ACPI.  I did not do my 
CVSUP ritual, I used everything off the Beta6 CD.  It was faster to not 
update.

When I power up my virtual machine, it begins to activate it's HD and CD 
lights (in the lower right hand corner of the Virtual Machine's window), 
then my FreeBSD machine apparently loses access to it's hardrive, and I 
get the follow errors on my console (CTRL-ALT-F1) screen:

    ad0: WARNING - WRITE_DMA no interrupt but good status
    ad0: TIMEOUT - WRITE_DMA retrying (2 retries left) LBA=123095148
    ad0: WARNING - WRITE_DMA no interrupt but good status
    ad0: TIMEOUT - WRITE_DMA retrying (2 retries left) LBA=123095148
    ad0: WARNING - WRITE_DMA no interrupt but good status
    ad0: TIMEOUT - WRITE_DMA retrying (2 retries left) LBA=123095148
    <etc>

At this point, I can slowly do things on my FreeBSD machine, unless they 
require disk access, at which point whatever I am doing stops working. 
Eventually the whole thing dies.  I have to run fsck almost everytime I 
reboot.

I was curious about the config of the VM's networking.  Christian 
modifies these two lines in /usr/local/etc/vmware/config to be:

	vmnet1.Bridged = "YES"
	vmnet1.BridgeInterface = "xl0"

On Phusions instructions, the only gotchas I hit where installing 
linux_base and the rtc program.  I skipped the linux_base, since it was 
installed during the original system install (and it had yelled at me 
during a prvious attempt).  Tonight rtc yelled at me.  When I did the 
"make install", it said something about rtc and borked.  I deinstalled 
rtc, and vmware3's make install worked.  But then I had to go back and 
install rtc again.

I'm doing this on my "dekstop" machine.  My "Server" machine was then I 
was able to get it working on last night (without any networking 
installed).  My server later croaked too, but it never got these DMA 
Read/Write errors.  My server is the machine with an Adaptec 1200 RAID 
card in, I wonder if my desktop machine would work better if I put a 
RAID card on it?

I put the RAID card in my server long before I had tried to install 
Vmware, I was getting weird disk I/O errors that persisted until I put 
the RAID card in.  I suspected that FreeBSD 5.3+ had ATA problems, and I 
read where other people were having the similar errors.

ANy suggestions on the HD lockup?

thx!


Marco Trentini wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 30, 2004 at 04:30:00AM -0400, bsdfsse wrote:
> 
>>I tried some more things I read about online, but it still locks up:
>>
>>I rebuilt my kernel with "HZ=1200", and that got rid of the "rtc: 
>>100>kern.hz" messages.
>>
>>My /boot/loader.conf needed this:
>>   hw.ata.ata_dma="0"
>>which changed this message:
>>   ad0: WARNING - WRITE_DMA no interrupt but good status
>>to become this message:
>>   ad0: WARNING - WRITE_MUL no interrupt but good status
>>The machine still hangs when I start the virtual machine.
>>
>>As soon as I hit the "Power on" button, FreeBSD nearly freezes.  I can 
>>do a few things, but even after I "kill -9" vmware, the machine is still 
>>hosed.
>>
>>I really need to get VMWare to work, or else I have to reload Linux (or 
>>Windows).  I own VMware 3.2 and 4.5 for both Windows and Linux.
>>
>>Each time my machine locks up, it starts running "fsck" in the background.
>>
>>Any suggestions?
> 
> 
> Just one.
> 
> Do you have ACPI turn on? In this case try turn off it.
> 
> Read pkg-message of the vmware3 port for more details.
> 
> 



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