9 Advanced topics
to the VBoxSDL main thread (first entry in the
ps
list). For example, when switching
away to another VT and saving the virtual machine from this terminal, the following
sequence can be used to make sure the VM is not saved with stuck modifiers:
kill -usr1 <pid>
VBoxManage controlvm "Windows 2000" savestate
9.8 Launching more than 120 VMs on Solaris hosts
Solaris hosts have a fixed number of IPC semaphores IDs per process preventing users
from starting more than 120 VMs. While trying to launch more VMs you would be
shown a “Cannot create IPC semaphore” error.
In order to run more VMs, you will need to bump the semaphore ID limit of the
VBoxSVC process. Execute as root the
prctl
command as shown below. The process
ID of VBoxSVC can be obtained using the
ps
list command.
prctl -r -n project.max-sem-ids -v 2048 <pid-of-VBoxSVC>
9.9 Using serial ports
Starting with version 1.4, VirtualBox provided support for virtual serial ports, which,
at the time, was rather complicated to set up with a sequence of
VBoxManage
setextradata
statements. Since version 1.5, that way of setting up serial ports
is no longer necessary and
deprecated.
To set up virtual serial ports, use the methods
now described in chapter
3.7.8
,
Serial ports
, page
53
.
Note:
For backwards compatibility, the old
setextradata
statements,
whose description is retained below from the old version of the manual, take
precedence
over the new way of configuring serial ports. As a result, if config-
uring serial ports the new way doesn’t work, make sure the VM in question
does not have old configuration data such as below still active.
The old sequence of configuring a serial port used the following 6 commands:
VBoxManage setextradata "YourVM"
"VBoxInternal/Devices/serial/0/Config/IRQ" 4
VBoxManage setextradata "YourVM"
"VBoxInternal/Devices/serial/0/Config/IOBase" 0x3f8
VBoxManage setextradata "YourVM"
"VBoxInternal/Devices/serial/0/LUN#0/Driver" Char
VBoxManage setextradata "YourVM"
"VBoxInternal/Devices/serial/0/LUN#0/AttachedDriver/Driver" NamedPipe
VBoxManage setextradata "YourVM"
"VBoxInternal/Devices/serial/0/LUN#0/AttachedDriver/Config/Location"
"\\.\pipe\vboxCOM1"
VBoxManage setextradata "YourVM"
"VBoxInternal/Devices/serial/0/LUN#0/AttachedDriver/Config/IsServer"
1
134