Everything is a Freaking DNS problem - virtualbox

And then vagrant gave up ... for a while

Kris Buytaert — Mon, 02 May 2011 20:31:17 +0000

Don't you just love Ruby errors ... like the one below ?

Don't they almost make Java stack traces look readable ?
57 lines of jibberish ... where all I wanted to read was "VirtualBox in error state, check gui"

People like Randall Hanssen deserve much more visibility .. they do understand how to write a good error message and there are lots of projects that need improvement there.

Anywhow... vagrant had suddenly stopped working on me with the error below

Turned out that I had deleted some unused Virtualbox images , not from the VirtualBox gui and therefore Virtualbox didn't want to play nice ..

Upon starting the VirtualBox gui and cleaning up the images there , everything started working again ..

But the error wasn't really helpfull ..

vagrant up 
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/virtualbox-0.8.3/lib/virtualbox/com/implementer/ffi.rb:95:in `call_and_check': Error in API call to get_teleporter_enabled: 2147942405 (VirtualBox::Exceptions::FFIException)
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/virtualbox-0.8.3/lib/virtualbox/com/implementer/ffi.rb:69:in `call_vtbl_function'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/virtualbox-0.8.3/lib/virtualbox/com/implementer/ffi.rb:36:in `read_property'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/virtualbox-0.8.3/lib/virtualbox/com/abstract_interface.rb:122:in `read_property'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/virtualbox-0.8.3/lib/virtualbox/com/abstract_interface.rb:64:in `teleporter_enabled'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/virtualbox-0.8.3/lib/virtualbox/abstract_model/interface_attributes.rb:93:in `send'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/virtualbox-0.8.3/lib/virtualbox/abstract_model/interface_attributes.rb:93:in `spec_to_proc'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/virtualbox-0.8.3/lib/virtualbox/abstract_model/interface_attributes.rb:32:in `call'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/virtualbox-0.8.3/lib/virtualbox/abstract_model/interface_attributes.rb:32:in `load_interface_attribute'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/virtualbox-0.8.3/lib/virtualbox/abstract_model/interface_attributes.rb:13:in `load_interface_attributes'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/virtualbox-0.8.3/lib/virtualbox/abstract_model/interface_attributes.rb:12:in `each'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/virtualbox-0.8.3/lib/virtualbox/abstract_model/interface_attributes.rb:12:in `load_interface_attributes'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/virtualbox-0.8.3/lib/virtualbox/vm.rb:251:in `initialize_attributes'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/virtualbox-0.8.3/lib/virtualbox/vm.rb:246:in `initialize'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/virtualbox-0.8.3/lib/virtualbox/vm.rb:229:in `new'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/virtualbox-0.8.3/lib/virtualbox/vm.rb:229:in `populate_array_relationship'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/virtualbox-0.8.3/lib/virtualbox/vm.rb:228:in `each'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/virtualbox-0.8.3/lib/virtualbox/vm.rb:228:in `populate_array_relationship'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/virtualbox-0.8.3/lib/virtualbox/vm.rb:218:in `populate_relationship'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/virtualbox-0.8.3/lib/virtualbox/abstract_model/relatable.rb:242:in `populate_relationship'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/virtualbox-0.8.3/lib/virtualbox/abstract_model.rb:215:in `populate_relationship'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/virtualbox-0.8.3/lib/virtualbox/abstract_model/dirty.rb:129:in `ignore_dirty'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/virtualbox-0.8.3/lib/virtualbox/abstract_model.rb:215:in `populate_relationship'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/virtualbox-0.8.3/lib/virtualbox/global.rb:93:in `load_relationship'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/virtualbox-0.8.3/lib/virtualbox/abstract_model/relatable.rb:192:in `read_relationship'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/virtualbox-0.8.3/lib/virtualbox/abstract_model/relatable.rb:146:in `vms'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/virtualbox-0.8.3/lib/virtualbox/vm.rb:185:in `all'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/virtualbox-0.8.3/lib/virtualbox/vm.rb:193:in `find'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/vagrant-0.7.2/lib/vagrant/vm.rb:13:in `find'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/vagrant-0.7.2/lib/vagrant/environment.rb:378:in `load_vms!'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/vagrant-0.7.2/lib/vagrant/environment.rb:377:in `each'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/vagrant-0.7.2/lib/vagrant/environment.rb:377:in `load_vms!'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/vagrant-0.7.2/lib/vagrant/environment.rb:144:in `vms'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/vagrant-0.7.2/lib/vagrant/environment.rb:180:in `multivm?'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/vagrant-0.7.2/lib/vagrant/command/helpers.rb:19:in `target_vms'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/vagrant-0.7.2/lib/vagrant/command/up.rb:8:in `execute'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/thor-0.14.6/lib/thor/task.rb:22:in `send'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/thor-0.14.6/lib/thor/task.rb:22:in `run'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/thor-0.14.6/lib/thor/invocation.rb:118:in `invoke_task'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/thor-0.14.6/lib/thor/invocation.rb:124:in `invoke_all'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/vagrant-0.7.2/lib/vagrant/config.rb:115:in `map'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/thor-0.14.6/lib/thor/core_ext/ordered_hash.rb:73:in `each'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/thor-0.14.6/lib/thor/invocation.rb:124:in `map'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/thor-0.14.6/lib/thor/invocation.rb:124:in `invoke_all'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/thor-0.14.6/lib/thor/group.rb:226:in `dispatch'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/thor-0.14.6/lib/thor/invocation.rb:109:in `send'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/thor-0.14.6/lib/thor/invocation.rb:109:in `invoke'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/vagrant-0.7.2/lib/vagrant/cli.rb:45:in `up'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/thor-0.14.6/lib/thor/task.rb:22:in `send'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/thor-0.14.6/lib/thor/task.rb:22:in `run'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/thor-0.14.6/lib/thor/invocation.rb:118:in `invoke_task'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/thor-0.14.6/lib/thor.rb:263:in `dispatch'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/thor-0.14.6/lib/thor/base.rb:389:in `start'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/vagrant-0.7.2/bin/vagrant:15
	from /usr/bin/vagrant:19:in `load'
	from /usr/bin/vagrant:19

Converting KVM to VirtualBox

Kris Buytaert — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 22:01:57 +0000

I have had most of my test environment, aka puppetmasters, test mysql setups etc running in KVM for the past couple of years .. (yes I`m still using a lot of Xen in production environments, but we've also been using KVM for a while already .. it's a good mix) , Virtual box has always been the lesser loved Virtualization platform , however while playing more and more with Vagrant Up I realized I needed to convirt some boxen (e.g my PuppetMaster) to Virtualbox, and google was really no good help(most people seem to go the other way , or want to use some proprietary tools )

So I remembered VBoxManage and apparently I hade blogged about it myselve already ..
I just hate it when I search for stuff and google points right back to me

So I converted my puppetmaster's disks

VBoxManage convertdd Emtpy-clone.img  PuppetMasterroot.vdi
VBoxManage convertdd puppet-var.img  PuppetMastervar.vdi

Now when booting the VM in Virtualbox , obviously the kernel panicked .. as my KVM disks are recognised as as /dev/hda and and Virtualbox defaults to /dev/sda and LVM doesn't really like disks to be on another names
No commandline fu here to help me, but using the VirtualBox gui to move the disks to the IDE controller rather than the SATA controller.

Now all I need to do is wait for some smart guy who comments that you probably could use VBoxManage storagectl to achieve the same goal :)

And wait till Vagrant Up start supporting KVM , so I can move back :)

Building Virtual Appliances

Kris Buytaert — Thu, 27 May 2010 08:03:29 +0000

Johan from Sizing Servers asked me if I could talk about my experiences on building (virtual) appliances at their Advanced Virtualization and Hybrid Cloud seminar . Off course I said yes ..

Slides are below ... Enjoy ..

Building appliances

View more presentations from Kris Buytaert.

KVM vs Virtualbox

Kris Buytaert — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 19:33:17 +0000

So you need that old FC9 instance on your fresh F11 install.

Obviously I started a KVM instance on my desktop and installed FC9 in a Virtual Machine,
It took long to install, too long, so I looked if KVM was working correctly
Kvm was loaded but not in use ..
And then you remember why you had VirtualBox on that machine before it's upgrade . indeed, this machine was to old it was not a VT Capable machine . VirtualBox performs much better there ..

But you already have a working installed Qemu image.
What do you do ? Google tells you about vidtool but all you find are broken links ..

So you look further and you find that you can use VBoxManage for the same functionality

VBoxManage convertdd FC9.bin FC0.vdi

The Eclipse of Sun

Kris Buytaert — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 09:42:56 +0000

If you've been reading this blog for a while you'll know that
for the past decade I've had a love-hate relation ship with Sun.

Sun has done a lot of good things in their open source journey such as MySQL, openOffice , Virtualbox and opensourcing Java. But on the other hand they had troubles with creating really organic opensource.

I've always wondered why a company that bought StarDivision because it was cheaper than buying the MS Office license keeps wasting money on building it's own operating systems, albeit in a pretty open model, but with zero to no relevant community.

Yes I've ranted on their marketing boys and girls when they polluted forums I liked. But no I don't want this to happen. (Slicing up Sun)

However I`m in fear it actually might happen, the funny thing is that I already mentioned the same idea in offline conversations during the last couple of months.

My Advice to Sun. : Stop putting money in things you can co-create with other organisations, if there's only 2 features in your product that count for some people, contribute those 2 features to something bigger.
(That's D-Trace and ZFS and the Linux Kernel I`m talking about in case you didn't realise) Why keep throwing money down the drain ?

Also let Google, Percona and others contribute to MySQL, don't keep it as closed as it is today. As after al it's more Free software than it is Open Source, but it has a great community which I love to be part of .. and I hope for a long time to come..

I`m going to try to keep my mouth shut on this for a while.. as I think Jonathan is listening anyhow. If he was, he would have known that at some point in time when you step out of the shower and there is too much hair dropping from your skull every morning, it's time to cut off the ponytail.. , not opensource it. I did that years ago.. and it's growing much thicker again now.

My hair that is ..

Open Source Virtualization

Kris Buytaert — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 11:18:26 +0000

I've just placed the presentation I gave both yesterday at the Open Source Days in Copenhagen , and last week in Zurich at the Open Expo , about Open Source Virtualization online.
The presentation is based on a series of articles I wrote earlier this year for Virtualization.com

You can download it here

The presentation covers a fairly complete overview of what's around in Open Source Virtualization tools and and their Management frameworks.

I will be giving the same presentation again at the end of the month at T-Dose in Eindhoven, The Netherlands