SOLVED snapshotting kills my VM (epilogue: shapshotting wasn't the problem)

[guermantes]

Hi,
I am on 11.0-U4 and have been installing my first VM today, an Ubuntu server 16.04.5. After installing and rebooting the VM a few times between application installs/updates, I shut down the VM and went ahead to create a manual snapshot of the zvol hosting it. (As a baseline to revert to if I muck up forthcoming configs)

This apparently killed the VM (!) because when I went to start it afterwards, I got the "ISO / live CD grub screen" as if there was no OS installed on the drive. If I "empty" the CD-rom I get a UEFI interactive shell and I have no idea what to do there and suspect it is a sign of error.

So I deleted the zvol entirely and restarted the ubuntu install from scracth on a new zvol. After honing the system, I made a snapshot, and again the VM won't boot my Ubuntu anymore, it just asks to install anew.

1) Is it expected that a snapshot kills a VM like this?
2) Can I do anything to bhyve to recover my Ubuntu? I began venturing into "Rescue a broken system" but aborted since I have the impression that this should be fixed in Freenas-space, but I could be wrong, of course. I also realized I could not specify partitions in the Rescue mode since the VNC-bug makes me unable to type a / .

I am really perplexed.

This is the screen I get when no Ubuntu is installed in the beginning, and also directly after snapshotting.

If I empty the VM-cdrom (leave the ISO-field blank in CD-ROM settings) I get this screen.

 

[Stux]

You never tested shutting down and starting up. Which is different to restarting.

Bhyve is quite particular about where it expects the boot loader to be located.

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/howto-how-to-boot-linux-vms-using-uefi.54039/

 

[guermantes]

You never tested shutting down and starting up. Which is different to restarting.

My bad, indeed.

Bhyve is quite particular about where it expects the boot loader to be located.

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/howto-how-to-boot-linux-vms-using-uefi.54039/

Thanks @Stux for pointing me there. Perfect instructions by @KrisBee .

Let's see if I manage to install Nextcloud now, without access to the / key... :)
(as a backup I think I can switch to French keyboard layout in Ubuntu server because then I have / without forsaking the - although I will lose m and a few other characters... yikes.)

Strike that, just realized how to ssh into the VM where I have my own keyboard proper and nice.