VMWare Esxi 6.5 VCPU's

[is-this-valid]

Hi,
I am planning to setup FreeNAS in a virtualized environment. I currently have 2 Intel E5-2620v4 https://ark.intel.com/products/92986/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E5-2620-v4-20M-Cache-2_10-GHz on an Intel MB (Intel® Server Board S2600CW) . I do a passthrough of the motherboard's MEGARAID SAS controller and have enabled Virtualization in the BIOS. What I have found is that I cannot create a FreeNAS vm with more than 1 VCPU. I have tried a combination of Cores/CPUs but cannot get it to work. Installation with 1 VCPU works fine. Is this due to a problem with the physical CPU's I have (It should since they support Virtualization) or might this be something else?

Just some additional information:

Motherboard and raid controller firmware is the latest from intel.
VMware esxi has got the latest patches installed.
I am installing FreeNAS-11.0-U4.iso from a virtual CD drive.
The VM hard drive is eagerly zeroed.
The error I get when I try and add additional VCPU's is that the install hangs at: random unblocking device.
Changing the amount of VCPU's after installing with 1 VCPU causes the boot to hang at: Trying to mount root from zfs:freenas-boot/ROOT/default[]
Removing the PCI SAS controller from the FreeNAS VM allows me to startup FreeNAS with multiple VCPU's but this make it kind of useless.

Replicating the scenario using another OS (Ubuntu) allows me to use multiple VCPU's and the SAS controller which makes me think this has something to do with FreeNAS, is there a way to allow debug output during the startup?

Thank you.

 

[Stryf]

I have an E3 12## V3 cpu with one physical cpu and 4 cores. ESXI set to 4/1 or 1/4 in the CPU section works in Freenas. Not sure about dual CPUs. Check your bios for a setting called 4G Override or 4G something and disable that. Make sure the VM instructions are enabled in bios too.

 

[Dice]

Sounds weird.
My gut tells me to investigate further in the bios settings.

 

[is-this-valid]

I have an E3 12## V3 cpu with one physical cpu and 4 cores. ESXI set to 4/1 or 1/4 in the CPU section works in Freenas. Not sure about dual CPUs. Check your bios for a setting called 4G Override or 4G something and disable that. Make sure the VM instructions are enabled in bios too.

Thanks, VM Instructions are enabled and I couldn't find anything related to 4G override. It seems to be that attaching the SAS controller as a PCI device on the VM causes the limitation problem to occur.

 

[is-this-valid]

Sounds weird.
My gut tells me to investigate further in the bios settings.

Browsing the settings now but these server motherboards has got so many options so I have to read up on most of them before deciding if I should change them. The limitation/error strangely only occurs when I attach the SAS controller as a PCI device in VMware.

 

[is-this-valid]

I replicated the scenario using another OS (Ubuntu) this allows me to use multiple VCPU's and the SAS controller which leads me to think this has something to do with FreeNAS, is there a way I can get debug output during boot?

 

[is-this-valid]

Additionally I have tested this with a FreeBSD 11.1 release ISO in a multi-user environment setting up a ZFS root and did not experience any issues. I tried the FreeNAS 11.1 RC iso but still no luck. Anyone else perhaps have any ideas?