Howto: install Ubuntu in FreeNAS 11.0

[skywise_ca]

I've been battling with an EFI bug in 11.0 for a couple of days and now I have a nice simple step by step on how to get Ubuntu onto FreeNAS 11.0
(this post gave me everything I needed to figure this out: https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/how-to-how-to-boot-linux-vms-using-uefi.54039/ )

I'm installing Ubuntu 16.04.2 Server.
When making the VM itself, I edited the NIC, selecting VirtIO for the driver and when I added the disk, I also selected VirtIO.

Normal install from CD, force UEFI install.
At first reboot, stop/start VM, CD will boot again.
Select ‘rescue a broken system’
Mount your root/boot when asked. (in my case, /dev/ubuntutst1-vg/root)
At rescue menu, select “force GRUB installation to the EFI removable media path’
The next page explains what’s going on.
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It seems that this computer is configured to boot via EFI, but maybe that configuration will not work for booting from the hard drive. Some EFI firmware implementations do not meet the EFI specification (i.e. they are buggy!!) and do not support proper configuration of boot options from the system hard drives.
A workaround for this problem is to install an extra copy of the EFI version of the GRUB boot loader to a fallback location, the “removable media path”. Almost all EFI systems, no matter how buggy, will boot GRUB that way.
---
When GRUB is reinstalled, select reboot.
Stop the VM, remove the CDROM, and start the VM.
Also while you're in the devices, edit the VNC device and uncheck 'wait for boot' if you want everything to start without needing to connect to the console.

At this point you have a nice base Ubuntu installation, have fun!

 

[chris crude]

Or you can use this method
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/how-to-boot-ubuntu-desktop-vm-in-uefi-mode.53863/
Just start at part3 since you already setup VM and only want to fix boot, run all the terminal commands. Bonus is it updates all the linux packages so you have up to date VM

 

[skywise_ca]

Or you can use this method
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/how-to-boot-ubuntu-desktop-vm-in-uefi-mode.53863/
Just start at part3 since you already setup VM and only want to fix boot, run all the terminal commands. Bonus is it updates all the linux packages so you have up to date VM

I tried that method, didn't work.
It complained about not having a 150M boot partition at the start of the disk and set to bootable. Did most of the other stuff ok (except for not actually having a secure boot checkbox to uncheck) but didn't work in the end, not sure why, didn't do a work around boot to see what it did or didn't do.
Also, since I'm installing server, I had to download Desktop in order to follow the steps.
Just seemed to be a lot of extra steps for a simple fix. (the original post I quoted also had a simple fix, if you were still bootable)

 

[chris crude]

Good to know there are options. Many people post about having Ubuntu VM boot issues, I was just trying to make it easy for people to get as much information and options out of 1 thread as possible.