Truenas Scale Feedback

[Andrew Barnes]

Hi, Really keen to use this platform, but have a few issues, and some of these will be due to my expectations.

1. I'd expect to be able to use virt-manager. libvirtd is not enabled out of the box, so I enabled it and it stuck post reboot. This is great until I find out that updates will disable it again - Will they?
2. VM's created in virt-manager do not appear in truenas U.I. Strange!
3. VM's created in truenas U.I do appear in virt-manager.
4. SR-IOV is hard work at the moment. I created a udev rule to set the number of VF's on my adaptors, but something won't let the VM's use them *UNLESS* there is another direct pci assignment. - I think apparmor? - I get permission denied /dev/vfio/xx
5. IF device naming is also restricted. I used my udev rule to give my adaptors meaningful names (so that they are meaningful) this broke the system and I couldn't find a way to resolve it without reinstalling. I don't understand the restrictions, and I don't find the new linux naming scheme meaningful either (yes I can read about how the names are created, and how they are consistent, but ens3f0 is a far cry from 10G1 or MGMT. and then vlan's that have to be called vlanX instead of vlan10-mgmt etc. it's all fine if you only ever use the U.I, but as soon as you look in CLI it's a mess to me.
6. Disable apparmor - how? I tried passing this on the kernel boot and then my pool become inaccessible (although mounted).
7. my vlan connection with static ip address won't re-apply on reboot. I have to configure adaptors, say no to removing it, no to resetting it, no to dhcp, yes to ipv4, then it knows all the settings so hit y, y, and no to ipv6 and then it works.
8. I have a bunch of hardware that I just don't want to see in the host. it's for VM's, e.g. all of the Virtual Function network adaptors. I want to configure initramfs to load vfio-pci driver. Which I did, but truenas removed my changes on reboot.
9. options to configure the kernel boot or module load options (maybe these changes are supported within modprobe, but I think some will need to be done in initramfs?)
* iommu=pt
* kvm_intel.nested=1
* kvm.ignore_msrs=1
* net.ifnames=0
* spectre_v2=off nopti or mitigations=off (I don't need this level of security, just for me and my little server)
* vfio-pci.ids=xxxx:yyyy,

Will keep using it like this - because that is the product I would like, interested if I get a backlash from the dev's/community....

Thanks

 

[morganL]

Hi Andrew,

TrueNAS needs all setup and configuration to go through its Middleware APIs. It can then preserve across reboot and updates.
The Web UI uses the middleware APIs... virt-manager does not
Updates may (probably will) destroy additional software added or enabled

So enabling virt-manager... would be a feature request. Alternatively, you could suggest we add UI capabilities into the VM manager in the web UI.

The other details are for the developers....are you potentially a developer that could join the team?

 

[Andrew Barnes]

Hi Andrew,

TrueNAS needs all setup and configuration to go through its Middleware APIs. It can then preserve across reboot and updates.
The Web UI uses the middleware APIs... virt-manager does not
Updates may (probably will) destroy additional software added or enabled

So enabling virt-manager... would be a feature request. Alternatively, you could suggest we add UI capabilities into the VM manager in the web UI.

The other details are for the developers....are you potentially a developer that could join the team?

Thanks Captain,

I probably know just enough to make things worse for myself. I can see the middleware uses libvirt, so I thus assume libvirt would be something I could use too and enabling the daemon is all that was required for other libvirt tools to connect. virt-manager is just one libvirt aware tool that I would have thought would be synonymous with most small scale QEMU/KVM deployments.

I used ovirt which is purely VM focused and more recently cockpit on fedora which is much more generic but lacking a fully featured storage functionality (offical ZFS, samba/cifs, domain controller etc), but both effectively been web based U.I for libvirt and of course truenas would bring it's wealth of storage functionality that I've been after and assumed frontend for libvirt\QEMU-KVM.


I'll look into raising a feature request,

Thanks,

 

[morganL]

Thanks Captain,

I probably know just enough to make things worse for myself. I can see the middleware uses libvirt, so I thus assume libvirt would be something I could use too and enabling the daemon is all that was required for other libvirt tools to connect. virt-manager is just one libvirt aware tool that I would have thought would be synonymous with most small scale QEMU/KVM deployments.

I used ovirt which is purely VM focused and more recently cockpit on fedora which is much more generic but lacking a fully featured storage functionality (offical ZFS, samba/cifs, domain controller etc), but both effectively been web based U.I for libvirt and of course truenas would bring it's wealth of storage functionality that I've been after and assumed frontend for libvirt\QEMU-KVM.


I'll look into raising a feature request,

Thanks,

Thanks.. please think through the workflow you prefer. The advantage TrueNAS API provides is that integration between KVM and ZFS. This allows us to automate configurations, test systems and synchronize updates for an easier user experience in the long term. In the short term, it does require some changes to how users previously did things.

We're looking for that smart middle ground... where we can simplify new deployments, but make sure long term that systems are reliable and supportable.

 

[edembowski]

Hi, revisiting this a year later. The only way to import an existing VM (such as with an OVA) to KVM is to bring it in on the command line, or with tools like virt-manager. Are there plans to support this within the TrueNas UI?

 

[morganL]

Most focus right now is transitioning VMs from TrueNAS CORE.

OVA is a wrapper for vmdk. Vmdk then needs to be migrated to qcow2. It's certainly possible, but not a current focus.

CentOS 7.x import ova file based VMs to KVM - Notes_Wiki

www.sbarjatiya.com

Make it a suggestion in "report a bug" and we can see how many others need it.

 

[edembowski]

Most focus right now is transitioning VMs from TrueNAS CORE.

OVA is a wrapper for vmdk. Vmdk then needs to be migrated to qcow2. It's certainly possible, but not a current focus.

CentOS 7.x import ova file based VMs to KVM - Notes_Wiki

www.sbarjatiya.com

Make it a suggestion in "report a bug" and we can see how many others need it.

I'll do that, thanks. The core problem isn't lack of ova support, it's the lack of an import feature. Converting an OVA is very straightforward unless there are special features added.