Why does virtual box vboxheadless process using Vagrant use 100% of my cpu?

Question

So I'm using a couple vagrant boxes and when i have them up, "sometimes/randomly" it starts to take up 100% cpu on my OS X machine and i have no idea whats causing it. I can ssh into the vmachine and check the load and it's at 0 sot its not something thats running in the box.

The only way I can fix this is if i suspend it and resume it, then it goes away until randomly it starts to happen again. Sometimes hours later, sometimes days later.

The only thing I can think of is it might be because i'm using nfs mounts within my virtual machine to access my projects, but i'm not sure yet. Any ideas?

Answer 1

EngineerCoder's answer only applies if you're using CoreOS.

I've run into problems if the VirtualBox Extensions pack version differs from the version of VirtualBox. Also, install the Vagrant VirtualBox guest plugin:

vagrant plugin install vagrant-vbguest

And make sure to update the plugin when you update Virtualbox and the extension pack:

vagrant plugin update vagrant-vbguest

Answer 2

For Vagrant with CoreOS only please do the following:

• Set $enable_serial_logging=false in config.rb
• vagrant destroy
• vagrant up
• Observe three VBoxHeadless processes under 3% CPU

This PR is a working source of this info.

For Vagrang with any vm you can also try disabling nested paging.

See "Fix High Guest CPU Utilization in VirtualBox by disabling Nested Paging" article for more info.

Answer 3

Step 1: keep guest additions up to date

Make sure you have vbguest plugin that will keep your guest additions up to date:

vagrant plugin update vagrant-vbguest

If it wasn't installed already, you can install it with:

vagrant plugin install vagrant-vbguest

Step 2: disable sound

In VirtualBox window:

• Click on the machine you are using
• Click settings
• Go to: Audio Tab
• Uncheck both "Enable Audio Output" and "Enable Audio Input"

Step 3: recude general CPU consumption

(Optional) Note: this step will decrease your vm maximum performance!

You may reduce the general CPU consumption:

• Click on the Machine --> Settings --> System --> Processor
• Reduce the Execution Cap. This limits the % of the host CPU, that the guest CPU can use. (Default, is 100% - no limit).