OS virtualization in FreeNAS

[Something]

I've heard from the IRC that using VirtualBox is a bit spotty but using an actual jail can be done.

I couldn't find any tutorials or anything on the subject, anyone have any advise?

 

[joeschmuck]

If you can hold out for FreeNAS 10 (December release date), the jails are expected to use a vastly different method called BHYVE. (I think I spelled that correctly)

For tutorials on how to use a FreeBSD jail, I'd do a google search for something like "freebsd jail tutorial guide" and see what shakes from the trees.

 

[Deleted47050]

There are two types of jail: if you want a jail running freebsd, then you can do that without using virtualbox (this is what happens when you use plugins, for example); if you want to use different operating systems in a jail, then you must create a jail using the virtualbox template as far as I know.

Have a look at the docs on how to do the latter: http://doc.freenas.org/9.3/freenas_jails.html#using-the-phpvirtualbox-template

 

[danb35]

I couldn't find any tutorials or anything on the subject, anyone have any advise?

@Dat Sysadmin has given you a link to the manual discussing VirtualBox (which I've found to be pretty stable, FWIW). If that doesn't answer your question, perhaps you could be a little more specific? "OS virtualization" is not a question. What, precisely, are you trying or wanting to do?

 

[shawly]

If you can hold out for FreeNAS 10 (December release date), the jails are expected to use a vastly different method called BHYVE. (I think I spelled that correctly)

I'm going to switch to FreeNAS on my home server this week when my new MB arrives, my current server was running ProxMox and I virtualized everything I need, for most things I can use jails but I've searched for a way to use KVM on FreeNAS, instead of VirtualBox, since I need one Windows machine for certain apps.
I could virtualize FreeNAS under ESXi, but it's not recommended to do that, so VirtualBox on FreeNAS would have been the only option.

But BHYVE is exactly what I was looking for, will FreeNAS 10 definetly release this December? Because if it really does, I can wait, since I really don't want to setup VirtualBox.
This way I can also keep the virtual harddisk from my KVM installation since BHYVE seems to support raw disk images.

 

[toadman]

One note: Yes, historically FreeNAS on ESXi was not recommended because of the complexity and issues if not done right. If you know what you are doing (and don't need support) then by all means, go for it. It works fine. iXsystems runs virtualized servers. I run one and have no issues.

The release schedule for FreeNAS 10 is December if I remember correctly. However, I would caution that it's a substantial change. Different UI and the entire middleware layer I think. And the development cycle is pretty aggressive. Oct Alpha, Nov Beta, Dec Production. So it would not be surprising for there to be some issues, esp with corner cases. Let your level of risk dictate whether you wait for Dec, or more like Spring 2016, or later.

 

[shawly]

One note: Yes, historically FreeNAS on ESXi was not recommended because of the complexity and issues if not done right. If you know what you are doing (and don't need support) then by all means, go for it. It works fine. iXsystems runs virtualized servers. I run one and have no issues.

Well, I've set up and ran ESXi for quite a while, the only reason I was switching to ProxMox was because my TV card didn't work well with passthrough on ESXi, which on the other hand worked nicely with KVM. But I don't watch TV anymore, so I'll throw the TV card out of my server anyway. But yeah, I don't need any support.

But my server is a custom build, can I pass the onboard SATA controller of my Intel S1200V3RPS through without problems? Or do I actually need a third party controller?
Because if that's the case I'll go without ESXi, because I don't want to spend more money just for that single Windows VM I actually need, I have other options.

 

[toadman]

I would at least try ESXi then. I've successfully passed through my onboard SATA controller. I suppose success would depend on the particular board, but with Intel HW I'd guess the chances of success are very high. The one thing I did have to do on my FreeNAS VM was to remove the HPET timer to prevent cases of a freeze up on boot (the vm got "stuck" and wouldn't finish booting). See this for the steps to modify the .vmx... https://bugs.freenas.org/issues/6562

(I'm running ESXi 6.0 fully patched with FreeNAS 9.3.1.)

 

[shawly]

I would at least try ESXi then. I've successfully passed through my onboard SATA controller. I suppose success would depend on the particular board, but with Intel HW I'd guess the chances of success are very high. The one thing I did have to do on my FreeNAS VM was to remove the HPET timer to prevent cases of a freeze up on boot (the vm got "stuck" and wouldn't finish booting). See this for the steps to modify the .vmx... https://bugs.freenas.org/issues/6562

(I'm running ESXi 6.0 fully patched with FreeNAS 9.3.1.)

Awesome, I'm really tempted to do this, but on the other side, I actually planned to replace the Xeon in my server with my Pentium, but the Pentium doesn't have VT-d..
I mostly use the Windows VM for browsing when I'm behind a proxy at work etc. but for this purpose I could just wake my PC and do it that way.. So there would be no need for virtualization, because for everything else I can use jails.
The things I need are the BTSync plugin, the Emby plugin and a Jail with JDownloader and a Jail with OpenHAB, all of these can run in Jails and won't ever need the power of a Xeon.

And the Xeon was planned to replace the 4770K in my gaming rig, so I can try GPU passthrough again, since it has become quite stable within the last couple of months.I mean it's just for fun, but having ESXi also wouldn't be really necessary for my usecases.

With BHYVE I can have my Windows VM on my server and it would also work out with the Pentium, so I could use my PC temporarily until FreeNAS 10 becomes stable. I might have to sleep on it a night or two to make this decision.

 

[adrianwi]

I've been running Windows 7 and now Windows 10 in a VirtualBox jail on FreeNAS for months, and other than the usual Windows updates it doesn't get restarted. Absolutely no problems with it at all.

 

[Jailer]

I've been running Windows 7 and now Windows 10 in a VirtualBox jail on FreeNAS for months, and other than the usual Windows updates it doesn't get restarted.

Care to share your settings for those VM's? I've yet to get either to run with any stability at all.

 

[adrianwi]

Don't think I've done anything special! Just a standard VirtualBox Jail (4.3.12) with 'allow.raw_sockets=true' in the syscrtl field (pretty sure this was added by default)

In VirtualBox I started with a Windows 7 install, which was upgraded to Windows 10 a couple of weeks after it launched. Settings below:

General: Windows 8.1 (64bit)
System: 8GB RAM (quite a bit, I know, but my Glassfish application loads lots of data into memory), 1 Processor, Enable IO APIC selected, and both Acceleration checkboxes ticked
Display: 16MB
Storage: 1 have two VDI devices - one for Windows and Applications and one for Data
Network: Just a single Bridge Adapter
Shared Folders: I have a single share pointing to a dataset in FreeNAS

No Audio, Serial Ports or USB and as I said, nothing that special although probably more RAM than you might normally assign.

Has never fallen over, and has only been restarted for Windows or FreeNAS updates.

 

[danb35]

Care to share your settings for those VM's? I've yet to get either to run with any stability at all.

Windows 7 runs stably for me in VirtualBox. The only change I've made to the defaults (at least that I can remember) is checking the box for use host I/O cache for the virtual hard drive.

 

[Something]

@Dat Sysadmin has given you a link to the manual discussing VirtualBox (which I've found to be pretty stable, FWIW). If that doesn't answer your question, perhaps you could be a little more specific? "OS virtualization" is not a question. What, precisely, are you trying or wanting to do?

Virtualize a server oriented Linux distro for code testing purposes. IE Ubuntu server 2014.

I've been running Windows 7 and now Windows 10 in a VirtualBox jail on FreeNAS for months, and other than the usual Windows updates it doesn't get restarted. Absolutely no problems with it at all.

Nice vote of confidence.

 

[shawly]

I would at least try ESXi then. I've successfully passed through my onboard SATA controller. I suppose success would depend on the particular board, but with Intel HW I'd guess the chances of success are very high. The one thing I did have to do on my FreeNAS VM was to remove the HPET timer to prevent cases of a freeze up on boot (the vm got "stuck" and wouldn't finish booting). See this for the steps to modify the .vmx... https://bugs.freenas.org/issues/6562

(I'm running ESXi 6.0 fully patched with FreeNAS 9.3.1.)

Well, bad news, the SATA controller isn't listed so I can't pass it through... There are three options now, buy a SATA controller that FreeNAS supports and pass it through, buy another motherboard that has a SATA controller onboard that can be passed through or just go with FreeNAS.. Since I'm short on time can somebody tell me which SATA controllers with 4 ports work with FreeNAS and passthrough?

Edit: As it seems, there is a trick to get the SATA controller passed through, it's somehow a problem with ESXi that the controller doesn't get listed, I'll try it out.
Passthrough worked, just had to add 8086 8c02 d3d0 false to /etc/vmware/passthru.map, restart ESXi and then it gets listed for DirectPath IO, easy. :)