VirtualBox broken in 9.10.2

[meku]

Warning if you are using VirtualBox jail then do not upgrade to 9.10.2 because users are reporting that VMs will not start.

FreeNAS's response to this issue is it will not be fixed. The Release Notes mention bhyve support for basic VM management but fail to provide any notice that VirtualBox VMs will no longer start.

 

[m0nkey_]

Warning if you are using VirtualBox jail then do not upgrade to 9.10.2 because users are reporting that VMs will not start.

FreeNAS's response to this issue is it will not be fixed. The Release Notes mention bhyve support for basic VM management but fail to provide any notice that VirtualBox VMs will no longer start.

Any support for VMs on 9.10 is purely experimental at best. The bug you linked does have a manual solution to build your own VirtualBox jail, which would probably be better than the template, as you will be able to keep it up to date.

When FN10 is released, the WebUI will have full support for Bhyve VMs, including VGA consoles. Performance will be far better than VirtualBox.

 

[Soloam]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in bhyve we can't run a GUI correct? I use Vbox to run CrashPlan on a Debian VM, and for that I need a GUI.

Thank you

 

[m0nkey_]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in bhyve we can't run a GUI correct? I use Vbox to run CrashPlan on a Debian VM, and for that I need a GUI.

Thank you

You can still run GUI applications under Bhyve, but you need to use SSH into the VM and use X11 Forwarding to do this.

 

[Soloam]

Thank you! I have no idea how to do that! I think I'll stick with vbox until freenas 10 rolls out!

 

[Pasquale61]

Thank you! I have no idea how to do that! I think I'll stick with vbox until freenas 10 rolls out!

I'm with you on this one. I use Crashplan in a Ubuntu VM and it's been working flawlessly, unlike the Crashplan plugin. I was really bummed that vbox broke in the last update, but I get it. The SSH/X11 forwarding is not a clean solution and can be a pain to deal with. The concept is somewhat similar to using the Crashplan plugin and port forwarding (Crashplan Headless) if you have ever used that. In the end I had to rollback FreeNAS and plan on staying there until this all sorts itself out.

For what it's worth, I tried following these really nice instructions to manually install the latest vbox on the latest version of FreeNAS. It did work, but for some reason my Ubuntu kept crashing so I decided to roll everything back. Unfortunately my Crashplan is now out of sync and it's about 8 days in out 20 or so in completing my cloud backups. (Not sure what happened, but when I checked my files in the Crashplan cloud, many of my larger files were shown as "deleted" after I rolled everything back.)

 

[bobpaul]

The SSH/X11 forwarding is not a clean solution and can be a pain to deal with.

You can also use vncserver or xrdp. You're probably familiar with VNC to connect to a local X11 session attached to a graphics card (x11vnc, Gnome's vino-server, etc can do this) but you can also use vncserver to create a virtual x11 session that you can connect to remotely with VNC. xrdp can do the same thing IIRC, but uses rdesktop (or mstsc on windows) to connect.

Both VNC and RDP are much more reliable and snappy than X11 forwarding.

 

[Osiris]

I'm using vbox on 1 nas, but had to roll them all back to 9.10.1
Apparently there's an issue with smb authentication between freebsd versions, so I could no longer mount between my nas'.
Too annoying to sustain.
And no it's not my /etc/nsmb.conf file that get's overwritten (I've added it to base and doublechecked it)

PS: pro'lly related issue

I'm trying this tonight.

 

[m0nkey_]

VirtualBox on FreeNAS 9.10.2 is dead. You're better off finding a new solution.

 

[Osiris]

As I am experimenting with iohyve/bhyve on my other nas, I believe this configuration seems quite alpha'ish.
Secondly, just look how massive a setup of a mswin on bhyve looks.
As someone who's - besides working with bsd, linux, and other shady & shelly stuff - used to gui functionality from vbox & vmware, I feel like reinventing warm water.
Waiting for FN10 is not an option either.

Instead of replies like "vbox on 9.10.2 is dead", which are deconstructive and useless, you could have pointed towards a solution.
Lots of people use FN on a semi-pro / home level & have virtualised workstations & servers via vbox.
Without possible migration paths, lots of these fine people will be reluctant to move towards a "new solution" or they'd find one on other platforms, where devs do not have a tendency to kill functionality, even if it was not officially supported. You did offer a template.

It is clear that you're aiming more & more on a professional, monetizable solution with FN10.
This is not what FN used to be and I feel another fork coming.

 

[m0nkey_]

To say iohyve/Bhyve is alpha-ish in 9.x, you're totally correct. It never moved out of the experimental stage. VirtualBox was killed to make way for the native hypervisor in FreeBSD.

Since FreeNAS 'Corral' (10) has been released today, it contains a complete UI for managing Bhyve virtual machines allowing you to run FreeBSD, Linux and Windows on top of FreeNAS. VMs are no longer a second class citizen.

Development on FreeNAS 9.x will continue for some time. Support for Byhve is coming to the UI, along with a new base OS on FreeBSD 11. This will give us VGA consoles in the 9.x train, allowing for Windows installations in Bhyve. You're welcome to switch to the 9.10-Nightlies train and test it. Be warned, there be dragons ahead.

 

[NAStyBox]

Whoa..... They seriously broke VirtualBox on purpose? lol...... Alright kiddies, enough is enough.

 

[Ericloewe]

Virtualbox always had a warning attached to the effect of it being experimental and unsupported.

It was killed because one of the components had a security flaw and development on this highly experimental thing had ceased.

 

[Sonny Williams]

Except, that Corral is now cancelled. :( Though, I believe the 9.10.3 release notes say they are bringing the Docker back, which will add back in support for GUI based bhyve installs. Corral also gave a webVNC, so you could easily install Ubuntu and stuff. I hope that comes back. I can do command line, but it isn't my favorite. I liked Corral (but not as much as 9.10) so I am looking forward to them eventually adding in the Docker GUI to 9.10.

If it gets to that point, I'll probably stop updating! lol I have seen the new UI for 9.10.3 and I wish they'd stop changing it around so much.

 

[m0nkey_]

I have seen the new UI for 9.10.3 and I wish they'd stop changing it around so much.

The original UI for 9.x has barely changed. There is a new UI in the works based on AngularJS and it's not anywhere ready yet, so it's bound to change.