VMs won't start after Update to 9.10.1-U1

[danb35]

I think the issue is two-fold. The first, and more obvious, issue is that I also use the VirtualBox jail, having a Windows 7 VM running inside it. I probably should just go ahead and migrate it to my Proxmox host, but that's inherently a bit of a hassle, and Windows activation makes it more of one. In addition, my jails are on an SSD, so that VM is pretty snappy now, while the Proxmox host is on spinning rust.

But the second part is, IMO, the bigger issue, and this isn't the first time something like this has happened. We have what should be a minor maintenance release that's making significant changes, and doing so without any warning at all to the user (there wasn't even anything in the changelog for 9.10.1-U1 about VirtualBox). In this case, it's removing a feature, but other cases I remember are a wholesale replacement of the iSCSI target (though we at least got some warning about that one, IIRC) and a fairly-major Samba change, both between 9.2.1.x subversions. This isn't the way that other STABLE release branches work. CentOS 6, for example, is still using PHP 5.3.3, because that's what it first shipped with; they do the same with other major packages in that distribution. They're backporting security patches, but keeping the same versions (incrementing release numbers, of course). That's what people expect from "stable" server software--that it will continue to behave in the same way until you do a major upgrade. Upgrading from 9 to 10, of course there will be big changes. From 9.2 to 9.3, yeah, you're going to see something. But in going from 9.2.1.5 to 9.2.1.6 (or from 9.10.1 to 9.10.1-U1), the only behavior changes you should see are fixed bugs. And that just doesn't seem to be the release philosophy of the dev team.

 

[csjjpm]

I won't bother venting my frustration. Is it possible to roll back the updates? Is there an alternative to Freenas that it is easy to migrate too?

 

[danb35]

Is it possible to roll back the updates?

Sure--go to the boot environments menu and choose the previous one.

 

[csjjpm]

Sure--go to the boot environments menu and choose the previous one.

...and relax. Thank you. I've seen that menu before but was blinded by rage

 

[Ericloewe]

I can certainly understand deprecating old stuff that isn't maintained. However, that fact needs to be disclosed, not buried away in the comments for a bug ticket. The changelog mentions absolutely nothing about the removal, not even a vague hint. I spend way too much time on the forums and reading bug tickets, and I had no idea this was going to happen.

 

[danb35]

...and that bug wasn't even referenced in the changelog for this update.

 

[diskdiddler]

As a user who doesn't use VB, this doesn't affect me. However, as a user who uses freenas, the fact that a feature that is in use by many others can be dropped without any warning or communication concerns me greatly. Or perhaps I missed the notice that it was being removed (other than reading the bug of course).

I echo these sentiments very very much. I don't use VirtualBox under FreeNAS but I'd be damned annoyed if I did.
Is the Docker stuff under FreeNAS10 going to alleviate this?

 

[Muddro]

You're someone, aren't you?

I am. But I am not knowledgeable enough to do much more than say, hey, you broke your shit.

 

[Abdullah AL Zayadi]

Sure just remove that feature... no warning its not like I'm running a small windows server for my small business on it with Unifi hotspot and a freepbx on another VM live for the full company.
at least say VB was removed in the update log so I won't update and break my live environment and spend all night trying to find out why it isn't working :(
I really love freenas, and that will make me consider switching to unraid, I don't mind paying a small fee like unraid if you guys can provide better support and service.

 

[danb35]

I am. But I am not knowledgeable enough to do much more than say, hey, you broke your crap.

You have a system on which the failure is happening, which can provide much more information than (say) mine, where it isn't (since I haven't done the upgrade yet). If you click the support button in the web GUI, it will guide you through creating a ticket, and give you a checkbox to attach your debug file, which will help the devs track down the issue. Describe the problem as thoroughly as you can provide as much information as you can, and if the devs need more, they can ask. Don't wait for someone else to report it (but do check to see if someone else has, and if so, see if you can add to that ticket instead).

That's one of the ways everyone can contribute to free/open source software. If something isn't working correctly, find out how to report a bug, and if there isn't one already about your issue, do so.

Edit: In the case of this bug, someone else has reported it (https://bugs.freenas.org/issues/17869), and it looks like a fix is ready for release in the next few days. But in general, my advice above stands.

 

[Moppen]

It took me months to find me a solution for all my filestorage needs, (plus a system that has all the Media Server, -Downloader, Backup-Solution already built-in) took me weeks to find and assemble the right hardware and lots of cheating on myself too buy such expensive stuff for my 1 Person household. But at least I was pretty pretty happy with freeNAS.

I won't start any fires like "do what I want, or I go somewhere else". I don't want to go somewhere else. It was a long way for me to finally come together with freeNAS, I don't want to start all over. I came to stay. Just bring back VirtualBox... PLEASE!

 

[diskdiddler]

Is it possible to even bring back? If it was being updated by a 3'rd party not part of the primary development team (is that correct? It's how I interpreted the thread)
Would FreeNAS10 have supported Virtualbox anyhow though? Had this removal not just occurred now?

 

[danb35]

Apparently it is possibly to bring back, at least in the short term, as that bug is marked "ready for release". But it doesn't seem likely that VB will run on 10.

 

[diskdiddler]

What about under the whole docker thing? Can you get VirtualBox for Docker .. ?
I installed Docker just to play with it on my Windows 10 PC, all it did was render my install of VMWare 12 unable to run.

 

[danb35]

Can you get VirtualBox for Docker .. ?

A little bit of Googling doesn't find a way to do this. Really, though, what should happen is for users to migrate the VMs to bhyve. It'll perform better and be more stable. Unfortunately, there isn't a really straightforward way to do that, as far as I can tell. The virtual disk format can be migrated, but from there it's building a new VM to use the converted virtual disk. With Unix-y guest OSs, this probably isn't a big deal, but with Windows it would likely be a problem.

 

[Ericloewe]

With Windows, you can probably do the same (possibly go through some activation hassles with MS phone support, but they're very lenient).

Hell, my old Windows 7 install still boots up fine on a completely different system that is five years newer. You might want to install any bhyve drivers before moving it, though.

 

[Chris230291]

Dropping VirtualBox sucks, dropping without any warning sucks even more.
I guess its time to roll back and hope either VB gets support again or we are offered a better alternative.

I heard unRAID is pretty good, better than FreeNAS even. Unfortunately it's locked behind a pay wall though.

 

[danb35]

They're restoring VirtualBox in an update due out on Monday. As to unRaid, no ZFS, so no sale for me.

 

[Ericloewe]

Long-term, the virtualbox jail is toast.

Short-term, the security fix that broke it has been reverted for U2.

I heard unRAID is pretty good

No way in hell I'm trusting a closed system like that. A bunch of amateurs (compared to the guys at Sun) have zero chance in hell of coming up with a magical solution that comes close to ZFS. I'd rather trust still-unproven btrfs. Microsoft probably threw twice as many resources at WHS' drive extender as the unRAID company has come across over its lifetime and they said "You know what? Magical RAID with arbitrary disks is a pain in the ass", after fixing several data corruption bugs in WHS.

 

[Chris230291]

That's awesome. It's always nice when devs listen and address stuff like this, especially this fast.
Someone was asking for an alternative so I mentioned unRAID. Probably a better option for me but I've been using FreeNAS for a while now (maybe since 2010/11) so I'll stick with it unless something seriously changes for the worse.

EDIT: So it's coming back only for a bit without an alternative? If they're offering an alternate solution that's better then great. If VM's are going for good then that sucks.