Trouble booting CentOS 5.3 in VirtualBox
by Tomas Quintero on May.31, 2009, under Linux, virtualbox
Typically I work with Windows for day-to-day tasks, however I do use *nix for various tasks both personally and professionally. My background is primarily with FreeBSD and recently I’ve transitioned over to the Debian/Ubuntu camp (although they’re far from the same camp).
I’m looking to take a crack at CentOS though, it seems popular, companies like it, etc. The best way to work with a new OS - run it in a virtual environment!
To turn this into a short story, I was attempting to boot the CentOS 5.3 installer using VirtualBox (2.2.4 r47978) on Windows Vista64 Ultimate. Unfortunately, the install kept hanging at the message of “NET: Registered protocol family 2″. Strange.
Next I began poking around and found that checking off “Enable IO APIC” in VBox’s advanced options proved to become a solution.
Now, my CentOS installer boots up, with no problem!
July 30th, 2009 on 10:29 am
I’m looking for the solution, thank you!
September 12th, 2009 on 2:32 pm
that didn’t work for me, but booting with the line “linux noacpi noapic nolapic” did. thanks anyway
(found at http://vbox.innotek.de/pipermail/vbox-trac/2007-May/104584.html)
October 5th, 2009 on 4:56 pm
Thanks!! I was having the same issue on 3.0.6, Fedora Host, CentOS guest.
November 29th, 2009 on 6:34 am
Thanx a lot. Works like charm!
December 16th, 2009 on 6:49 pm
Thanks! Checking “[x] Enable IO APIC” was the solution for me!
December 21st, 2009 on 11:09 am
Cheers for the tip. Was having the same problem with the evaluation DVD of RHEL 5.3 on Virtual Box 3.0.12, (running on Ubuntu 9.04 host), but ticking the IO APIC option cured it. My eval server currently happily building!
December 30th, 2009 on 6:31 pm
THANK YOU!
Andrew, your suggestion solved my problem. I had to launch the installer with:
linux noacpi noapic nolapic
The virtualbox.org moderator “sandervl” (Sander van Leeuwen) attempted to discount the existence of this bug and belittle me, within the bug tracking system, for pointing-out the fact that he was wrong. It’s gratifying to know that the bug does indeed exist and that it has a solution. Don’t count on a warm reception from the virtualbox.org moderators, should you ever have the nerve to report a bug.
January 5th, 2010 on 4:34 pm
Thanks a lot man, did the trick for me. In my case, I was moving a VM from one computer to a different one, but encountered the same problem. After following your suggestion it worked just fine. Thanks!
May 19th, 2010 on 12:54 pm
fixed it for me - thanks!
July 6th, 2010 on 10:07 am
Thanks, I think even fixed this once before by myself but I had forgotten:
Details:
virtualbox = Centos 5.3 guest machine hangs at Net registered protocol family 2
Enabling IO/APIC allowed me to get past that freeze!
July 21st, 2010 on 3:06 am
appeared suddenly with v3.2.6. r63112
also got Kernel panic without. (debian)
fixed it for me - thanks!