Trunk interface names truncated to 7 characters on macOS hosts

[DWPoon]

If the name of a trunk interface on a macOS host is 8 characters or longer, then it causes an error when starting a VirtualBox guest:

[DWPoon]

If the name of a trunk interface on a macOS host is 8 characters or longer, then it causes an error when starting a VirtualBox guest:

[Socratis]

I just wanted to say "KUDOS!!!" for a perfectly documented and formatted ticket. It's a rarity these days, so much so, that it almost brought tears in my eyes! :D

I'm building VirtualBox for OSX on a 10.9.6 VM that I have just for that purpose. I'll try your suggestion, which pretty boils down to:

-  char szTrunk[8];
+  char szTrunk[INTNET_MAX_TRUNK_NAME];

Right? I can't run not even DOS after I'm done building VirtualBox (nested virtualization, blah, blah...) but I can definitely see if it's going to work at the configuration level.

Will keep you posted...

[Socratis]

The command

sudo ifconfig vlan1387 vlan 1387 vlan en0

didn't work for me, I had to issue the command

sudo ifconfig vlan1387 vlan 1387 vlandev en0

maybe it was a typo. Anyway, after that, ifconfig shows:

vlan1387: flags=8842<BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
        options=23<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,TSO4>
        ether 08:00:27:8a:5a:42 
        vlan: 1387 parent interface: en0
        media: autoselect (1000baseT <full-duplex>)
        status: active

and if I start the VM, the VBox.log shows that vlan1387 is indeed chopped off:

00:00:10.546906 [/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/] (level 5)
00:00:10.546909   IfPolicyPromisc      <string>  = "deny" (cb=5)
00:00:10.546911   IgnoreConnectFailure <integer> = 0x0000000000000000 (0)
00:00:10.546914   Network              <string>  = "HostInterfaceNetworking-vlan138" (cb=32)
00:00:10.546916   Trunk                <string>  = "vlan138" (cb=8)
00:00:10.546918   TrunkType            <integer> = 0x0000000000000003 (3)

Applying the patch described in my previous post, I get:

00:00:01.501953 [/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/] (level 5)
00:00:01.501956   IfPolicyPromisc      <string>  = "deny" (cb=5)
00:00:01.501957   IgnoreConnectFailure <integer> = 0x0000000000000000 (0)
00:00:01.501959   Network              <string>  = "HostInterfaceNetworking-vlan1387" (cb=33)
00:00:01.501960   Trunk                <string>  = "vlan1387" (cb=9)
00:00:01.501962   TrunkType            <integer> = 0x0000000000000003 (3)

Success! \o/

And just for completion, here's the full patch. Not sure if it's going to be applied as is. Maybe there needs to be a change in the INTNET_MAX_TRUNK_NAME to 256, and applied "globally" for Win, OSX, Linux and Solaris (which is fixed at 256).

Index: src/VBox/Main/src-client/ConsoleImpl2.cpp
===================================================================
--- src/VBox/Main/src-client/ConsoleImpl2.cpp	(revision 73978)
+++ src/VBox/Main/src-client/ConsoleImpl2.cpp	(working copy)
@@ -5308,7 +5308,7 @@
 
 # if defined(RT_OS_DARWIN)
                 /* The name is on the form 'ifX: long name', chop it off at the colon. */
-                char szTrunk[8];
+                char szTrunk[INTNET_MAX_TRUNK_NAME];
                 RTStrCopy(szTrunk, sizeof(szTrunk), pszBridgedIfName);
                 char *pszColon = (char *)memchr(szTrunk, ':', sizeof(szTrunk));
 // Quick fix for @bugref{5633}

[DWPoon]

Thanks for the confirmation and patch. You're right, I had intended to write sudo ifconfig vlan1387 vlan 1387 vlandev en0.

[Socratis]

Related discussion in the forums: ​https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=90129

[DWPoon]

Patch was applied in Subversion r75331. This ticket should be closed.