id summary reporter owner description type status component version resolution keywords cc guest host 15569 VBoxNetFlt: Failed to allocate packet buffer, dropping the packet. Hans-Peter Jansen "In a setup of a Win2k8 VM on a openSUSE 13.2 host with a 4.2.5 kernel, I encounter: {{{ Jun 27 23:48:05 server kernel: VBoxNetFlt: Failed to allocate packet buffer, dropping the packet. Jun 27 23:46:55 server kernel: Last message 'VBoxNetFlt: Failed t' repeated 3350 times, suppressed by syslog-ng Jun 27 23:48:35 server kernel: VBoxNetFlt: Failed to allocate packet buffer, dropping the packet. Jun 27 23:47:25 server kernel: Last message 'VBoxNetFlt: Failed t' repeated 1318 times, suppressed by syslog-ng Jun 27 23:49:05 server kernel: VBoxNetFlt: Failed to allocate packet buffer, dropping the packet. Jun 27 23:47:55 server kernel: Last message 'VBoxNetFlt: Failed t' repeated 589 times, suppressed by syslog-ng Jun 27 23:49:35 server kernel: VBoxNetFlt: Failed to allocate packet buffer, dropping the packet. Jun 27 23:48:02 server kernel: Last message 'VBoxNetFlt: Failed t' repeated 5 times, suppressed by syslog-ng Jun 27 23:49:41 server kernel: VBoxNetFlt: Failed to allocate packet buffer, dropping the packet. Jun 27 23:48:32 server kernel: Last message 'VBoxNetFlt: Failed t' repeated 622 times, suppressed by syslog-ng Jun 27 23:50:12 server kernel: VBoxNetFlt: Failed to allocate packet buffer, dropping the packet. Jun 27 23:48:39 server kernel: Last message 'VBoxNetFlt: Failed t' repeated 140 times, suppressed by syslog-ng Jun 27 23:50:18 server kernel: VBoxNetFlt: Failed to allocate packet buffer, dropping the packet. Jun 27 23:49:08 server kernel: Last message 'VBoxNetFlt: Failed t' repeated 377 times, suppressed by syslog-ng Jun 27 23:50:47 server kernel: VBoxNetFlt: Failed to allocate packet buffer, dropping the packet. Jun 27 23:49:38 server kernel: Last message 'VBoxNetFlt: Failed t' repeated 1291 times, suppressed by syslog-ng Jun 27 23:51:18 server kernel: VBoxNetFlt: Failed to allocate packet buffer, dropping the packet. Jun 27 23:50:08 server kernel: Last message 'VBoxNetFlt: Failed t' repeated 29 times, suppressed by syslog-ng Jun 27 23:51:49 server kernel: VBoxNetFlt: Failed to allocate packet buffer, dropping the packet. Jun 27 23:50:10 server kernel: Last message 'VBoxNetFlt: Failed t' repeated 5 times, suppressed by syslog-ng }}} flooding my syslog. Here, more than 6500 packets were dropped in about two minutes. Reading the source revealed, that this code path is only exercised, if VBOXNETFLT_SG_SUPPORT is not defined. Bears the questions, why does skb_copy fail this often and/or is VBoxNetFlt-linux.c able to deal with fragmented packets, which would avoid the copying (apart from making vbox VLAN support dysfunctional). This VM is a vSphere vServer instance, that has to run somewhere (preferably not on a vCenter host that it manages itself) in order to avoid ""chicken and egg"" problems). For that reason, it shares a NIC with the host in bridged mode. This is the third virtualization solution, that I'm evaluating now. 1) VMware Workstation: host drivers badly integrated in the host kernel (kind of not at all), significant _host_ stalls perceptible, VM control from host (save, restore, shutdown, start) is working fine. 2) kvm/libvirt: good kernel integration, high cpu load in idle state, acceptable impact on host, bad client driver support, really bad VM control from host (ACPI interface nearly dysfunctional, forced me to control VM from host with awful wmi commands), therefore went on to 3) VirtualBox: acceptable kernel integration, nice distribution support, best behaviour on host impact, great suspend/resume performance, good VM control from host, nice UI, minor glitch in host systemd integration (packaging issue), definitely my favorite, but I would like to solve the bridging issue with whatever it takes (dedicated NIC, NAT?) An attempt to discuss this on vbox-dev stalled already. Any enlightment to work around/solve this issue is much appreciated. Thanks, Pete" defect closed network VirtualBox 5.0.24 fixed VBoxNetFlt Windows Linux