SOLVED FreeNAS-11.0-RC3 Windows VM locking up

[Wolfeman0101]

So I got a Windows 10 VM booted but after a little bit it locks up completely where I can't even shut the VM down in the GUI I have to kill -9 the process. I'm wondering if my CPU or RAM isn't enough. I've got the Intel Core i3-4150 and 16GB ECC RAM.

 

[dlavigne]

Any other VMs, Jails, or Plugins installed?

 

[Phil_02]

I was having the same issue running Windows Server 2012 R2 where it would run for 3-5 minutes and then the VM would lock up and show 100% CPU for the bhyve process. After a lot of tests, I disabled hyperthreading in my bios and the VM has been running clean for 5 hours so far. I am going to do some load testing of the VM before calling this the 'fix' for my box but try it out if you are at a loss.

Edit: See below, I was using the e1000 driver, needed to use the VirtIO driver for the NIC. I also re-enabled hyperthreading.

 

[Stux]

If that is an issue, it sounds like a bug.

 

[Phil_02]

It seems like it helped but didn't fix the problem. The VM wouldn't lock up on its own anymore (with hyperthreading disabled) and would run for hours idle, but when I tried to run an iPerf test it locked up immediately.

 

[Wolfeman0101]

Yeah I've got Plex and some other lightweight stuff running but it shouldn't lock up the VM completely. I mean I have to hard kill the process so I'm not sure what's going on.

 

[Phil_02]

Just searching for windows updates seem to lock up windows 10 and windows server 2012 VMs on my machine. I submitted a bug for this, we will see what happens. It seems that vcpu 0 pegs at 100% and the VM becomes unresponsive.

 

[Wolfeman0101]

Just searching for windows updates seem to lock up windows 10 and windows server 2012 VMs on my machine. I submitted a bug for this, we will see what happens. It seems that vcpu 0 pegs at 100% and the VM becomes unresponsive.

Do you have a link for the bug report? It's gotta be something with Windows because no one has had these issues with Ubuntu I've heard of.

 

[Phil_02]

https://bugs.freenas.org/issues/24350

I do think it's windows but also these VMs ran in esxi just fine so I think it's a windows bhyve issue.

 

[Stux]

Are you using e1000 or VirtIO as your NIC?

I found this bug report:
https://bugs.freenas.org/issues/19951

 

[bluezp]

Mind if I ask how you got a windows VM to install in FreeNAS 11?

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

 

[Phil_02]

If anyone finds this in the future.

As the above bug report explains, the e1000 driver seems to cause issues on Windows VMs. The VirtIO driver is needed right now to keep your Windows VM stable, until the e1000 driver is debugged and fixed. Unfortunately this driver doesn't come with windows installations so you'll need to add it yourself, but its easy to do.

Additional Info: https://wiki.freebsd.org/bhyve/Windows

As with anything there a multiple ways to do this but below is the method I took.

I downloaded the following three drivers to test:
Windows 10: virtio-win-0.1.118.iso
Others Windows OS: virtio-win-0.1.96.iso
Latest driver as of 6/5/17: virtio-win-0.1.137.iso

To download:
-Web browse to: https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/archive-virtio/
-Click on the directory of the driver you want to download.
-Select the virtio-win-x.x.xxx.iso file for the driver, above are the drivers I selected to try.
-Place this downloaded .iso file on your zpool of the FreeNAS host, I had a smb share I moved it to.
-Go to your Windows VM in the FreeNAS gui, click Devices.
-Change the NIC type to VirtIO, save.
-Add a CD-ROM, select the .iso you previously placed on your zpool, save.
-Boot the VM.
-VNC to your Windows VM and open Device Manager.
-Select the ethernet controller that doesn't have a driver (it should have a little ! triangle).
-Right click and install driver.
-Point the driver install to your CD-ROM on your VM.
-Proceed with the driver install.
-Set the IP for the VM again on the new interface.
-Done

The VMs I was having problems with have been running clean for a couple hours. I will let them run over night to confirm but it's looking good.

I ran some stress test programs, iperf, web brower and nothing has locked up the VM yet.
Also, virtio-win-0.1.137 seemed to allow for higher throughput on Windows Server 2012.

 

[biGdada]

i am experiencing same lockups while using virtio driver.
it has to be something else....

 

[Wolfeman0101]

i am experiencing same lockups while using virtio driver.
it has to be something else....

I'm not. It seemed to fix the issue for me.

 

[Phil_02]

@biGdada what does FreeNAS show as the cpu use for the bhyve VM while it is 'locked up'? Does the VNC session get disconnected? Can you not ping the VM IP anymore after it locks up?

Using the VirtIO driver I have been running 4 VMs (two windows 10 and two server 2012) since yesterday afternoon clean without lock ups.

 

[biGdada]

Cpu use is 100%.
I can connect to vnc cosole but all i get is a black screen.
The machine does not respond to ping

 

[Icy1211]

Phil_02, thanks for the suggestion! I was having the same exact issue.

 

[hunsra]

Switching to the VirtIO driver solved the VM lockup issue for me. Thanks Phil_02!

 

[Wolfeman0101]

So any idea when this bug will be fixed? I feel like the e1000 NIC will perform better.

 

[Stux]

Bug report it