First time trying to setup a FreeBSD guest in FreeNAS VM

[seanm]

Hi all,

I'm trying to create my first VM on FreeNAS 11.2-U6. I followed the user guide and chose the default options for most everything. I'm trying to host FreeBSD 12.1. I used this file:

https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/releases/amd64/amd64/ISO-IMAGES/12.1/FreeBSD-12.1-RELEASE-amd64-dvd1.iso

I'm able to VNC to the resulting VM and see a boot loader screen (attached), I've tried option 1 & 2, the screen clears except for a cursor at the top-left, then nothing... how do I debug this? what might I have done wrong here?

 

[scrappy]

Does the login prompt eventually come up after a few minutes? Have you tried the serial console option from your FreeNAS VM menu? My best guess is that you'll need to add boot_serial="NO" to /boot/loader.conf in your VM - that is, if you can eventually get a login prompt, or can use the serial console instead of VNC.

 

[seanm]

Does the login prompt eventually come up after a few minutes? Have you tried the serial console option from your FreeNAS VM menu? My best guess is that you'll need to add boot_serial="NO" to /boot/loader.conf in your VM - that is, if you can eventually get a login prompt, or can use the serial console instead of VNC.

I had not tried the 'serial' option.

I've just tried choosing '3' at the bootloader then entering the command: set boot_serial="NO" and then boot, then in my VNC connection things progressed and now I have the FreeBSD installer screen!

Wow. How on earth would someone know to do that? I don't see anything in the FreeNAS User Guide nor the general FreeBSD installation docs. When using the exact same .iso in VMWare Fusion I didn't have to do that. Is this some bhyve thing?

Anyway, thanks a lot!

 

[seanm]

So after going through all the installation prompts (seemingly successfully) and then rebooting it again got stuck. So I figured I needed to edit /boot/loader.conf as you said, to make that setting permanent. So I went through all the install prompts again, at the end I chose the option to get a shell, I edited the file, then rebooted, but again the next boot just brings me back to the installer. :(

 

[scrappy]

the next boot just brings me back to the installer. :(

Try removing the CD-ROM image from your VM then you should be able to boot normally.

 

[seanm]

Try removing the CD-ROM image from your VM then you should be able to boot normally.

Thanks, that did it. I guess I assumed that the installation procedure would have automatically changed the boot disk.

 

[scrappy]

Thanks, that did it. I guess I assumed that the installation procedure would have automatically changed the boot disk.

No problem. Theoretically, you should be able to simply change the VM device order to number the VM disk drive lower than the CD-ROM and it would see the disk drive first. However, in practice that doesn't really work well/at all - for me at least.