[vbox-dev] Memory initialization

[Michal Necasek]

  Then it's extremely likely that Windows is bringing in the old memory 
contents. Windows 10 really likes to hibernate instead of booting from 
scratch. That probably explains the behavior you're seeing. I'm not 
entirely sure how that can be prevented on the Windows side.

     - Michal

On 7/31/2019 6:29 PM, b38911 Zxc wrote:
> Hello Michal.
> 
> yes, good point. I did some tests and I obtained some mixed results, but 
> at the end, the behavior looks like:
> - if I stop the boot at firmware and I dump the memory, no artefacts are 
> there
> - if I continue the boot, sometimes artefacts appears in memory. So it 
> looks like it's a kind of caching of the operating system at this point.
> 
> It is not the "fast boot" option, which I already checked, so it's 
> probably something else. I need to dig on this.
> Anyway, thanks for your help.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Il giorno mer 31 lug 2019 alle ore 16:01 Michal Necasek 
> <michal.necasek at oracle.com <mailto:michal.necasek at oracle.com>> ha scritto:
> 
> 
>       What does "shutdown the guest system/start again the guest system"
>     mean? Shut down the VM and start it again? Or reboot the guest OS
>     without terminating the VM?
> 
>       In either case, I'd recommend dumping the VM's memory right after
>     the VM is reset (when it's executing firmware). Are the artifacts
>     there at that point?
> 
>       Running with --dbg just shows the VM debugger UI, it does not
>     change the VM's behavior.
> 
>             - Michal
> 
>     ----- Original Message -----
>     From: b38911 at gmail.com <mailto:b38911 at gmail.com>
>     To: michal.necasek at oracle.com <mailto:michal.necasek at oracle.com>
>     Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2019 11:13:05 AM GMT +01:00 Amsterdam /
>     Berlin / Bern / Rome / Stockholm / Vienna
>     Subject: Re: [vbox-dev] Memory initialization
> 
>     Hi Michal.
> 
>     Sure, I'll try to explain better what I mean:
> 
>     - start virtualbox and start a Windows 10 guest system (allocating
>     let's say 4GB of RAM)
>     - start a specific software in the guest, which, after its exits,
>     leave some artefacts in RAM (like a specific portion of code in
>     unallocated memory). So far, so good, nothing strange.
>     - shutdown the guest system
>     - start again the guest system
>     - looking into the RAM (dumping it), I still see the same artefacts,
>     even if I didn't ran the same software as before. Like if the
>     allocated RAM (still 4GB) was not re-initialized to 0
> 
>     This make sense if the initial allocation does not set memory to 0
>     (or something else), since I'm not rebooting the host, so for sure
>     these artefacts are still in the host memory.
>     If you say that this is reset should be done, I'll try to re-run a
>     set of tests, may be I'm missing something. Consider that I'm
>     running the VM with --dbg option, not sure if this change something.
> 
>     Thanks and let me know if you need more details on this.
>     Thanks
>     c
> 
>     Il giorno mar 30 lug 2019 alle ore 10:11 Michal Necasek
>     <michal.necasek at oracle.com <mailto:michal.necasek at oracle.com>> ha
>     scritto:
> 
> 
>            Can you provide a simple reproduction scenario? What does one
>         have to
>         do to see this?
> 
>            A VM reset should clear memory. A caveat is that a given
>         guest OS may
>         not perform a full reset but only a soft reboot, which does not
>         clear
>         memory.
> 
>               - Michal
> 
>         On 7/28/2019 10:15 PM, b38911 wrote:
>          > Hello all.
>          >
>          > I was suggested to post my question here.
>          >
>          > Here my doubt:
>          >
>          > I noticed this behavior, which is probably expected: dumping
>         the RAM of
>          > a guest (with ".pgmphystofile" command) I saw that the memory
>         is not
>          > initialized between virtual powercycle, like if there was a real
>          > powerdown. Sometimes, between restarts of the guest (with a
>         shutdown and
>          > then a restart), I find some memory artifacts belonging to
>         processes
>          > that shouldn't be there.
>          > I assume this happens because I'm not restarting the host
>         system, so
>          > probably the RAM is just remapped, but not initialized. This
>         is a bit
>          > annoying in some case, especially if you are using the system
>         for
>          > testing purposes.
>          >
>          > Is there a way to force the guest to initialize the allocated
>         RAM to
>          > zero (or something else), in order to emulate a real
>         powerdown-powerup?
>          > Thanks for your help.
>          >
>          > cips
>          >
>          > _______________________________________________
>          > vbox-dev mailing list
>          > vbox-dev at virtualbox.org <mailto:vbox-dev at virtualbox.org>
>          > https://www.virtualbox.org/mailman/listinfo/vbox-dev
> 
>         _______________________________________________
>         vbox-dev mailing list
>         vbox-dev at virtualbox.org <mailto:vbox-dev at virtualbox.org>
>         https://www.virtualbox.org/mailman/listinfo/vbox-dev
>