OpenSuse 11 freezes on VMWARE ESXi Server

Hi!

I installed OpenSuSE 11.0 x86_64 into a virtual machine of a VMWare ESXi Server (3.5.0, with all Servicepacks, also the Servicepacks fixing the 12th Aug. Bug)

Installation (Textmode, Minimalinstallation, sendmail + ssh)runs fine, I’vs installed all updates.
But after some minutes of working the maschine freezes completely.

The VMWare Infrastructur Client shows me, that the maschine is using nearly 100% cpu load. And I can not login via console or ssh, also pinging the machine doesn’t work.

The only thing I can do is pressing the “reset” button on VM.

The virtual machine has 2 processors and 2GB RAM. The “real” machine (IBM x3650 Server) has 4GB RAM and a Intel QuadCore processor. There is only one other guest (same configuration, Ubuntu Linux with no load). The Ubuntu Linux has no problems in this enviroment.

Do you have any suggestions?

rainer

If you switch to 1 virtual CPU does it run OK? If so it’s a VMWare problem.

Also, what if you use the 32bit version?

Andrew C Taubman
Novell Support Forums Volunteer SysOp
http://forums.novell.com/
(Sorry, support is not provided via e-mail)

Opinions expressed above are not
necessarily those of Novell Inc.

I haven’t tried 32Bit OpenSuse yet.

I think maybe it’s a time problem. Yesterday everything worked fine, today ‘date’ shows me the year 2228. Does SuSE use a different way to keep the internal time?

On Fri, 15 Aug 2008 07:46:03 GMT
MACH5 <MACH5@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:

>
> I haven’t tried 32Bit OpenSuse yet.
>
> I think maybe it’s a time problem. Yesterday everything worked fine,
> today ‘date’ shows me the year 2228. Does SuSE use a different way to
> keep the internal time?
>
>

Unless you paid a WHOLE LOT of money to VMWare… I imagine your license is
going to expire sometime prior to 2228.

Yeah… it might be a time problem. {Grin}

Time? Suse keeps time just like anyone else… although you might have found
a bug, or need to adjust a setting to make the clock ticks a little bit
more stable and regular. Seems to be running just a teensy bit fast.

Loni


L R Nix
lornix@lornix.com

On Fri, 15 Aug 2008 10:30:22 GMT
L R Nix <lornix@lornix.com> wrote:

> On Fri, 15 Aug 2008 07:46:03 GMT
> MACH5 <MACH5@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:
>
> >
> > I haven’t tried 32Bit OpenSuse yet.
> >
> > I think maybe it’s a time problem. Yesterday everything worked fine,
> > today ‘date’ shows me the year 2228. Does SuSE use a different way to
> > keep the internal time?
> >
> >
>
> Unless you paid a WHOLE LOT of money to VMWare… I imagine your license
> is going to expire sometime prior to 2228.
>
> Yeah… it might be a time problem. {Grin}
>
> Time? Suse keeps time just like anyone else… although you might have
> found a bug, or need to adjust a setting to make the clock ticks a little
> bit more stable and regular. Seems to be running just a teensy bit fast.
>
> Loni
>

Once again, I neglect to finish a thought… sorry.

The bug would be in VMWare… or it’s an option in VMWare to tweak the
clock. Sounds like VMWare is feeding the virtual machine(s) too many clock
pulses.


L R Nix
lornix@lornix.com

I tried to install OpenSuSE 11.0 x86_64 into a VMWare ESXi Server 3.5.0 and the system freezes completely after five minutes.I tried to change the amount of the virtual memory from 4096 MB to 512MB but the system freezes again while the IC showed CPU load 100%. I switched to 1 virtual CPU, returned the virtual memory to 4096 MB and the system became a stable. Also I tried 32 bit version on the same virtual machine which has been working with 4 virtual CPU’s without any problem.The date command returns a coorect value.

The real machine PowerEdge 2950 III has 8GB RAM and two Intel Quadcore Xeon CPU’s.


pavel

I had also the symptoms Pavel described.

But I think, I found the fix: I added ‘notsc’ to the grub configuration. Now the machine is running proper for abaout 2 days.
Timing in virtual maschines is in fact a really complex theme an different between 2.4, 2.6 32/64Bit Kernels and Windows.

You’ll find further informations on VMware Knowledge Base - View Document

and read especially the vmware_timekeeping.pdf