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I have VirtualBox 4.2 installed on Ubuntu Server 12.04, being managed with PHPVirtualBox. The server has fairly low-end specs, with only 512MB of RAM, and a Pentium 4 Prescott CPU @ 2.6 GHz (I read that people have virtualized on this exact computer).

When I go to install Ubuntu as a guest, it gets to about 13%-25% in the install process (actually copying things to the drive), and then I lose all connection to the server. I cannot connect with SSH, RDP (to the guest), or PHPVBox. When I go to login directly on the server, the login prompt is not working. I can actually erase everything on the display; including the "Username: " field. However, the hard drive is still very active. The only ways I can get back to the server are by waiting for the VM to abort (I guess) or by restarting the server.

Any advice on whats causing it? Let me know if you need any logs or extra info.

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How much RAM have you allocated to the virtual machine? – mikewhatever Oct 5 '12 at 17:22
~500 mb of ram. – Sam Clark Oct 5 '12 at 19:21
3  
So, basically, all of the RAM is given to the VM. How is the host machine supposed to work on only 12MB? – mikewhatever Oct 5 '12 at 21:14

2 Answers

up vote 1 down vote

You've left not enough RAM for your host and probably it OOM'd and is paging whatever it can. With 512MB ram I'd recommend you trying if it would work out with 256MB to VM.

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up vote 0 down vote

Does it still do this with < Hard Drive Virtual Disk Controller: IDE >? Try to disable "Host I/O cache" and make a hard drive under IDE and see if it does it.

Edit: Forgot to mention, Recommend disabling all Hardware Virtualization options just for troubleshooting. Under system [Processor -> PAE/NX]
[System -> Acceleration -> V-x]
and of course 3D video.

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Thanks for the response. I put the HDD on the IDE controller, disabled the IO Cache and PAE/NX. Ubuntu needs PAE to boot, so I had to enable that... It was about 20% through the install, and my laptop (RDP'd into the VM) went to sleep. I immediately woke it up, and i can't connect to the server... Is there any way an RDP disconnect can crash VBox? – Sam Clark Oct 5 '12 at 18:16
Quick answer: No idea. Long answer: Well lets see, (Havent used windows RDP in a long time, but I seem to recall it logs out of the primary display, before starting the remote view... – TardisGuy Oct 5 '12 at 20:16
Try A VNC Server/Client. – TardisGuy Oct 5 '12 at 20:18

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