FreeNAS-11-MASTER-201711130411 - Win10 VM clones boot - Debian Stretch VM clones just don't...

[Rocco]

So using FreeNAS-11-MASTER-201711130411, I created a Win10 VM, sysprep'd it then powered it off. Cloned it a few times then booted the clones and to my surprise they just work. That is cool! So I then I created a Debian Stretch VM, shut it down, cloned it and attempted to boot the clone. Nope. No debug info, no logging output that I can find. Nothing. At the top of the GUI, it says "VM Started" and at the bottom (I have console messages in the footer) it shows the TAP interfaces start then stop right away. The VM info on the VM page shows STOPPED though. I wish I knew where to look to get a clue.

 

[Ericloewe]

GRUB and Linux use nonstandard behavior to boot from UEFI that relies on exactly the standard behavior that bhyve does not yet have implemented to work.

There are workarounds documented in the Resources section, for now.

 

[Rocco]

Hi Eric, thanks for commenting! If I told you I was/am able to boot my Debian Stretch VM just fine would that change your comment at all? Because it is only the clones that will not boot. I'm assuming the workarounds in the resources section you mentioned are the ones related to putting bootx64.efi in /boot/efi/EFI/BOOT right?
Well on the clones, I cannot even get to the efi shell and besides, since they are clones, /boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi should exist on them too right? So here is what I'll do to further troubleshoot but besides this I'm running low on ideas... I will setup yet another Debian Stretch VM from scratch and change nothing from the defaults (except maybe the bootx64.efi stuff) then clone and attempt to boot the clone. I had made many changes to the initial Debian VM and I'm simply trying to rule out one of those changes as the culprit.

 

[Ericloewe]

If I told you I was/am able to boot my Debian Stretch VM just fine would that change your comment at all? Because it is only the clones that will not boot.

Okay, that's weird. I'm not sure what might be going on there.

 

[Rocco]

Well it must have been one of the many things I changed in the debian vm before I cloned it initially because after I created a new debian vm and changed very little, the subsequent clones now boot just fine. I haven't isolated the issue beyond that at this point.