# VirtualBox network settings causes FreeBSD instant reboot



## graemeg (Apr 30, 2015)

I've never reported bugs on FreeBSD, or know how or where to do it. I thought I would first post here to get some feedback and if others can confirm the issue.

*Summary*
I've accidentally managed to cause FreeBSD to instantly reboot when I start a VirtualBox session. I can reproduce this on demand. No error messages are displayed (to the console or X11). The screen just goes black, and the whole computer does a hard reboot. This is pretty harsh, and not something I would expect to be normal.

*Details*
Three days ago I had to move my workstation (FreeBSD 10.1 64-bit running on x86_64 hardware) temporarily. There was no cabled network, so I enabled WiFi for the first time. I have a built-in  Atheros AR9485 wireless network adaptor at ath0. The initial interface is ath0, but when I configured the network to connect to my access point, it created a new interface called wlan0 which has the actual IP address assigned. Network and internet access worked perfectly.

I then needed to run a 32-bit FreeBSD 9.0 server in VirtualBox (v4.3.20). I switched the bridged network settings from em0 (wired network interface) to ath0 (wireless interface). I started the VM, and everything looked fine, until the VM wanted to bring up its network. My workstation when blank, and the computer did a hard reboot! This happened a couple of times, until I realise I selected the wrong wireless interface for the VM. I switched it from ath0 to wlan0 and my VM started up without problems, and no more hard reboots of my workstation.

Now I am pretty sure a instant hard reboot is not what is expected in such a case, or why it happens. Surely some error message would be better. I haven't tried duplicating the issue with another VM yet, but don't mind creating a new FreeBSD base install VM and trying again - if it helps confirming this bug.

Anybody else experience this before?

ps:
Where do I report this bug? Would in be a FreeBSD base system bug, ports bug etc?

Regards,
  Graeme


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## junovitch@ (May 1, 2015)

https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/ would be the place to report the bug.  It sounds like the machine does a kernel panic from whatever VirtualBox is doing.  It's probably too soon to tell if this is a base or ports issue.

Lets start with some basic info.
1.  Does `dmesg` happen to show anything from the prior startup on this system?  Depending on the hardware, that may show the backtrace from a kernel panic if it is still in the kernel message buffer when the system reboots.
2.  Does the system have a swap partition?  If so, ensure /etc/rc.conf contains the line below.  That will provide valuable information for the bug report.

```
dumpdev="AUTO"
```


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