Trouble virtualizing with PCIe-passthrough

[zyrex]

Hello,
I'm trying to get FreeNAS up and running as a VM on ESXi with PCIe-passthrough, but it won't even finish booting in this configuration.

Specs;
- Dell R730xd
- VMware ESXi 6.7
- H730P in HBA-mode
- Two HP 10k SAS drives

I did an install first without the HBA, and everything went swimmingly. Got it installed, logged in and had a look around and things were fine.
Then I shut the VM down and enabled the passthrough. Now it won't finish booting, and gives some (for me) cryptic messages.

I also tried installing the VM as a UEFI-based system, and I got a little further. I got some info that it found my drives for example, called da1 and da2 (two SAS drives in it at the moment). I can also see that it has discovered the HBA correctly according to FreeBSD's hardware compatibility list, driver wise.

Anything I've missed?

I tried passing the HBA to Linux VM I have and it worked immediately as it should've done..

 

[silverback]

Have you tried your hba on FreeNAS bare metal?

 

[Chris Moore]

- H730P in HBA-mode

I don't think that is supported hardware. Please take a look at this guide:

FreeNAS® Quick Hardware Guide
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/resources/freenas®-quick-hardware-guide.7/

Hardware Recommendations Guide Rev. 1e) 2017-05-06
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/resources/hardware-recommendations-guide.12/

Hardware Recommendations by @cyberjock - from 26 Aug 2014 - and still valid
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/threads/hardware-recommendations-read-this-first.23069/

 

[zyrex]

Seems it's not. H730P is SAS3108, so maybe too new? The linked guides only states SAS3008 as functional.
So I guess it was a foolish dream to think that even though FreeBSD supports it, FreeNAS is its own beast.

I have an extra, identical R730, I'll have a go at bare metal just for fun.

 

[zyrex]

Hmm. Tried another R730 bare metal, though it was a H730 Mini instead of the H730P. Though, it is the same chip.
Anyway, it installed right away and everything worked as I'd expect. So it not impossible it seems to get this to work.