EH-Net

I have a vmware workstation 7 running backtrack 5r2 & windows xp, backtrack uses 2GB of ram & xp uses 1GB, the host O.S system is HP with 4GB Ram, 320 GB HDD, windows 7 ultimate. the virtual machine hangs & freez the guest & host while i practice penetration testing, before i used virtual box everything ran super fine, are there any settings to be applied ? please suggest me if you have any any idea regarding this issue.

Regards

skorpinok.

         

for me knowing your computer's RAM and HDD is not enough you must tell me what is the system's CPU? Did you installed Vmware tools on both virtual systems?

i think Vmware needs more system resources than Vbox and as you have windows seven its better to dedicate 2GB of ram to your real PC it means 1GB for backtrack and 1GB for XP

i extremely suggest you to use VMWare 8 and i dedicated 512mb OF ram for Backtrack and 256 MB for XP i dont have any problem about performance.

and VMware 7.1 is much more better than 7. If you coouldnt resolve the problem disable you AV before you start the VMs and its better to run Game booster programs like Game Fire (its great)

But totally Vmware is much better than VBox its much more advanced

I would suggest to drop VMWARE and switch back to Oracle VirtualBox.

You can run without any problems the vmware image files that BackTrack released on VirtualBox, I'm doing so for weeks without any problems.

Hope that helps. Most people don't know you can run VMWARE images on VirtualBox.

If he do that he will lose many great features of VMwrae. in my opinion update or try VMware player or do what i said in last post i never use virtualbox anymore im not saying its bad but VMware is much better i can prove it

Oh sorry about that, systems CPU is Intel core i5 2430M CPU @2.40 GHz, Yes i installed vmware tools, i never forget that part.

yeah you are right, i think 1GB ram for backtrack & 512 for xp should sound better i guess, coz , running  nessus, metasploit, or sometimes metasploit community edition may use more cpu.

ok man u have good hardware so just change the VM's RAM as i said. and if u still have the problem try to dedicate 1 or 2 of ur cpu's core to backtrack. Again if u failed update ur vmware or install gamefire to boost ur system's performance. Even if u have too reinstall win7!!! I extremely recommand u to use vmware

Why is it better. I disagree with you.

with the 4GBs of RAM on the system, there is a good chance you are maxing out.  CPU should be sufficient.  If you system is able to I would bump the RAM to at least 8GB.  If you are running heavy scans against your victim VM, keep in mind you are pushing your system into double duty.  BT is going to use the CPU/RAM to run the Nessus scans and your victim VM is going to have to process the network traffic.  Which of course is all happening on the same host. 

As for which is better, well I can never remember why, but I always find myself going back to vmware from vbox.  The major pro for vbox is that it is free, supports snapshots and can easily import vmware images.  VMWare workstation is certainly more expensive, but does come with some nice features.  I am a fan of Unity, and I make use of it when running something like IDA Pro where pushing the view to a full screen display but allows me to run my apps from my host along side it, comes in pretty handy.  I think it also allows you to convert your host to a VM which is nifty.  If you want a true comparison though, I would use vmware player vs vbox.  Vbox will win that one hands down.

Networking isn't as nice, for me, on VBox.  When updates come for VMWare, they usually go cleanly, etc, but when they come for VBox, it regularly screws with the addressing on my configured networks, etc, and I have to clean up (not a HUGE issue, but an annoyance, when I'm in a hurry.)  Additionally, in NAT, all NAT'd machines get the same IP, in VBox, which can get annoying, if you want them to talk to each other, on the NAT'd subnet.  VMWare plays nicer, there, for me.

Running BT with NAT under a virtual machine is a very bad idea imho anyway.

Vmware bridging is great uinty is awsome vmware tools is much more better than vbox specially for linux. And alot of many other features vmware brings to u

Your post suggests that there is no bridging in VBOX or that the bridging in VBOX is not working correctly.

Both very untrue, I use bridging in VirtualBox since years without any problems.

as i know virtualbox has only NAT and host only. but Vmware has a lot of great feature much mooooooooooooore than virtual box

@ cyber.spirit - VirtualBox absolutely has bridged, too.

@ sternone - Note, I said nothing, specifically, about bridging.  Bridging works fine for me, in VirtualBox.  

What VirtualBox blows up is that, every time it 'reinstalls' it's adapters, after updating to a new version, it either gives them new IP ranges, or whacks them entirely (if I have NAT NIC 1 and an extra NAT NIC 2 defined, it almost always deletes NAT NIC 2 entirely, as well as assigning a new subnet to NAT NIC 1.)

And I can assure you, it does this, regularly (as someone who uses it a LOT for work, all day, every day.)  VMWare NEVER did that to me, regardless of circumstance.  

And yes, again, I was discussing NAT, not bridged.

I'm not slamming VirtualBox. I use it all day.  Just that it definitely DOES have some quirks, which VMWare has long since put behind their offering, in Workstation.

The remark wasn't pointed to you.

You can set your IPs fixed in your OS software.

I remember an option in VirtualBox that you can keep the network settings (meaning MAC address) during updates. I will check it out.

Had the feeling it wasn't, but wanted to be very clear.  I was unaware of said setting to maintain the IP, so I'll check that, too, thanks.

(Will also have to see why it whacks the extra created NAT NIC's, too.)

You can fix the ip's in the OS but you should fix the MAC address in VirtualBox.

Hope that helps.

Gonna have to look some more.  Didn't see any settings for a persistence after updating.  I'm sure if you say it's there, it'll turn up, though.

I agree try upgrading the Ram you may also want run memory test on the Ram you have to make sure its not faulty.

https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/660

What I read is that people just note the MAC address before the upate and after the update they re-enter that old MAC address. That seems to work.

Ah, so I wasn't nuts (that it isn't there...)  Good to know, and basically the same mess I go through by hand, afterwards, so it's as I expected.

Thx.