SOLVED FreeNAS-11.0-RC3 Windows VM locking up

[Wolfeman0101]

Bug report it

Pretty sure someone already did. That's why I was asking.

 

[Chris Maier]

I had the same issue with the e1000 NIC, switched to the VirtIO and that fixed it, the VM does not lock up under heavy network load. Definitively something buggy with the e1000.

 

[Stux]

Pretty sure someone already did. That's why I was asking.

Then second it :)

 

[yottabit]

Yep, I was having the same problem and I think I've isolated it to the e1000 network stack. Switching the guest to virtio network (installing the Red Hat virtio network driver in Windows) seems to have solved the problem for me so far.

See my thread:
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/how-to-control-bhyve-i-o-sync.55646/

 

[yottabit]

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

As with any VM host, the e1000 driver will still be emulated and result in traps by the host. It's widely compatible, but should not be faster than the virtio driver specifically written for a virtualized guest by avoiding the calls that the host has to trap and emulate.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

 

[Alex98234]

e1000 NIC driver was causing my VM to crash. Using the VirtIO driver has fixed the issue for me.

 

[dlp1950]

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.

Your comment to "Set the IP for the VM again on the new interface." Where do you do that, excuse me I am new to this, I followed everything else, and this is the only thing i can't figure out.

 

[dlp1950]

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

Question: How do you do the Show/Hide boxes?