FreeNAS 11 as a VM host .. Is it ready?

[sesipod]

Hello all!

So just a basic question and don't hate me for this if you are long time lover of ESXI as I am!

I am simply here to ask if the support is ready and or if FreeNAS at its current state can be trusted to run VMs? I'm looking to replace my ESXI 6.5 build with FreeNAS as the only OS on the hardware. That being said my vms are semi light in production I have just a few game servers running on Debian / Windows Example: ( Minecraft and JC3 MP server). The primary objective here is to remove ESXI from my environment as all I use it for is small vms.



Here is the server specs:

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230V3 Haswell 3.3GHz LGA 1150 80W BX80646E31230V3 Server Processor.

RAM: Kingston KVR16E11/8 ECC Unbuffered DDR3 1600 4x8GB (32GB).

MOBO: ASUS P9D-C/4L ATX Server Motherboard.

SSD: 2x Samsung 840 EVO 250GB / Samsung 840 EVO 120GB / Corsair Force LS Series CSSD-F60GBLS 2.5“ 60GB.

HDD: 9x Red NAS Hard Drive WD30EFRX 3TB (raid z2)

CPU COOLER: ZALMAN CNPS9500 CPU Cooling Fan/Heatsink.

Raid CARD #1: ASUS PIKE 2008. ( For SSD vm Storage )

Raid CARD #2: LSI Internal SATA/SAS 9211-4i.

Raid Expander: Intel RAID Twenty-four port Expander Card RES2SV240.

PSU: CORSAIR RM Series RM450 450W ATX12V.

CASE: NORCO RPC-4224 4U

-Shawn

 

[Stux]

I think it works well for simple VMs, but not anything requiring multiple NICs or PCI pass-through etc.

I haven't tested Windows personally. But I think it should work well for Linux VMs.

 

[sesipod]

I think it works well for simple VMs, but not anything requiring multiple NICs or PCI pass-through etc.

I haven't tested Windows personally. But I think it should work well for Linux VMs.

I would only need a few Debian boxes to have multiple V-NICs added to it. Like Plex and or a Game server.. But only one of the NICs will have internet access and setup manually under the os.

 

[Stux]

The neat thing is (if your cpu allows) you can run bhyve in freenas in esxi... performance is not great... but it would allow you to test if you can actually setup the VMs how you want

 

[sesipod]

The neat thing is (if your cpu allows) you can run bhyve in freenas in esxi... performance is not great... but it would allow you to test if you can actually setup the VMs how you want

I have tested running nested vm of windows 10 pro in FreeNAS hosted on ESXI but mostly want to step away form esxi for a bit and learn something a bit different. Plus esxi is just basically there to do vms and then Passthorught of the LSI 2004 for FreeNAS anyhow. Really the only task that is going to be sketchy for me is PFsense in a vm in FreeNAS and then the networking but like I said (learn something new) :P

 

[sesipod]

Is there any support for something like esxi ( vm-tools ) in FreeNAS for the vms to power down gracefully? Say in the event of a power outage can FreeNAS handle safe shutdown of vms?

 

[chris crude]

FreeNas 11.1 is scheduled to allow multiple NICs, not just a single bridged connection. not sure about PCI passthrough.

 

[Stux]

Is there any support for something like esxi ( vm-tools ) in FreeNAS for the vms to power down gracefully? Say in the event of a power outage can FreeNAS handle safe shutdown of vms?

FreeNAS automatically soft-shutsdown all VMs before shutting down itself. And it can auto-start too.

Re: Pfsense, currently more hacky than you want I guess, but possible, and should get better with 11.1 I guess

http://davidnelson.me/?p=439

 

[amiskell]

I'd personally wait until 11.1 to see if support gets better around VMs and the interface for VMs.

I've personally been waiting for FN11's VM support to be on par with what was offered in Corral. FN11 is missing boot loader options that Corral offered, which makes settings up some/most Linux distros less than optimal (you have to go in and manually hack around adding grub configurations, etc.) and I personally find the interface for building VMs to be absolutely a mess.

 

[scrappy]

Bhyve runs VMs just fine. Features will be rather limited compared to ESXI, but reliability-wise, I can't say I've ever had an issue.

 

[sesipod]

Alright this weekend im going to test the waters running freenas on the hardware and maybe an old i5 with esxi just to test it out and get a feel for things.

The only other question that I have.. Is there some way to make a snapshot of a vm in FreeNAS like there is in ESXI ?