bhyve: How to choose zvol for VM disk in 11.2

[Paul Crook]

I am new to FreeNAS and bhyve. I am trying to create a test VM and am stuck at the point where I must select a pool or dataset. Prior to starting the VM wizard, I created a zvol in Storage/Pools to serve as the VM's hard drive.

In the VM wizard, I clicked the browse button and expanded the dataset but I didn't see the zvol in the tree:

Can someone tell me how to do this?

Thanks.

 

[sretalla]

The clue is there... select a pool or dataset (not zvol).

Does that change if you use the option to select use and existing image?

 

[KrisBee]

@Paul Crook You say you're new to FreeNAS, so have you started with the new FN11.2 BETA or are you using the new UI in FN11.1.-U5? You can access the user guide in the new UI by using the sidebar. scroll to the bottom to find it

The VM dialogue in your screenshot uses slightly confusing terminology referring to disk images. You need to select "use an existing disk image " in order to use the zvol you created.

 

[Alister]

@Paul Crook You say you're new to FreeNAS, so have you started with the new FN11.2 BETA or are you using the new UI in FN11.1.-U5? You can access the user guide in the new UI by using the sidebar. scroll to the bottom to find it

The VM dialogue in your screenshot uses slightly confusing terminology referring to disk images. You need to select "use an existing disk image " in order to use the zvol you created.

I'm testing out 11.2 on a spare box (having hang issues when going 11.1U4 -> U5) and want to confirm getting my win10 VM up and running

I had a ZVol but ended up deleting that and creating a data set and getting errors about going over 80% - when using a 80GiB image on a 120GB SSD

My final Home-Prod will have

120GB SSD for Win10 VM 4GB
120GB SSD for Linux mint /Ubuntu 2GB

on a 16GB 6x 4 TB RAID-Z2 based system.

The VMs are messing around with

 

[Paul Crook]

Thanks @sretalla and @KrisBee. I'm on 11.2 and I now see that the guide describes how this works quite well. It's too bad the GUI isn't as clear. I'd suggest changing the radio button labels from "Create new disk image" and "Use existing disk image" to "Create new ZFS volume for VM disk image" and "Use existing ZFS volume for VM disk image" or some such. Where's the best place to make this suggestion?

I now have a running Ubuntu VM connected to two physical NICs which was all configured from the FreeNAS GUI. Woot! Maybe I won't need ESXi after all.