freenas 9.3 - vmware workstation 11.0 - network issue

[pysiok1983]

Hi,
I run Free NAS on VM workstation 11.0. I configured as standard linux os (one nic). Nas was installed fine but after boot I faced issue. I see monit "No configured network interfaces were found. Try to do it manually". When I run shell I see em0 and lo0 interfaces. em0 interface was configured from DHCP and got IP. But when I try to go to http I see monit that problem is occured, please try later. Do you know what is wrong?

 

[joeschmuck]

How much RAM are you giving to the FreeNAS VM, and how do you go about doing the initial setup pf the VM hardware?? I run FreeNAS in Workstation 10 without issue, well the HPET needs to be adjusted but that is it.

 

[pysiok1983]

RAM - 4GB,
how do you go about doing the initial setup pf the VM hardware - ???

 

[joeschmuck]

You need to give it at least 6GB RAM in your VM when running the current FreeNAS 9.3 version.

You cannot configure to Linux OS, choose the FreeBSD 64 bit template. And maybe you need to read up on FreeNAS some because not knowing it wasn't Linux and is FreeBSD is a big deal when using a VM.

 

[cyberjock]

Actually, the manual (rightfully so) says 8GB of RAM for the VM.

Also FreeNAS (and FreeBSD) is *not* linux so choosing the linux guest is not correct.

 

[joeschmuck]

That is true but I know it will run fine using 6GB of RAM provided the user doesn't start loading a bunch of jails up. Anyone running a VM should be aware of what they are doing. It's okay as a test platform but I wouldn't run my FreeNAS out of a VM.

 

[toadman]

Yes, you have to know what you are doing, but you can most certainly run FreeNAS in a VM in production. Josh Paetzel states, "virtualizing FreeNAS is great—the engineering organization and I have used it that way for many years, and we have several VMs running in production at iXsystems."

In the article below he further states the general warning of "you shouldn't virtualize if you don't know what you are doing" got morphed into "you should never virtualize FreeNAS." I totally get why, as it's a lot easier to short circuit the discussion with "don't do it" vs. trying to explain what can be a complicated setup to people that don't have the necessary background. He lists several best practices and warnings you need to know what you are doing. (True of setting up any server really.)

http://www.freenas.org/whats-new/2015/05/yes-you-can-virtualize-freenas.html

 

[joeschmuck]

That is true but not in VM Workstation. In ESXi or similar Hypervisor then I agree.

 

[toadman]

Yep, agree with that, Workstation won't work well. e.g. can't do pci passthrough with Workstation. (To my knowledge anyway.)

 

[cyberjock]

In the article below he further states the general warning of "you shouldn't virtualize if you don't know what you are doing" got morphed into "you should never virtualize FreeNAS." I totally get why, as it's a lot easier to short circuit the discussion with "don't do it" vs. trying to explain what can be a complicated setup to people that don't have the necessary background. He lists several best practices and warnings you need to know what you are doing. (True of setting up any server really.)

Actually, it's worse than that.

People that want to virtualize FreeNAS are generally doing it because they want to pinch pennies every which way they can. So PCIe passthrough won't even be an option because they aren't using server-grade hardware, are using AMD (which doesn't always do VT-d properly), etc. They fail to understand the sudden, catastrophic consequences of ignoring that one setting.

For the people that are about to do everything properly, they are almost always a company or business that can not only afford to not virtualize FreeNAS, but their data has enough latent value that it's not worth taking the risk of virtualizing to save on buying another server.

So the easy way to answer the question is "if you have to ask you don't have the experience and knowledge (and probably the funds) to do it" and that is pretty damn accurate. As this is an all-volunteer forum there isn't a good way to provide the kind of one-on-one support to handle complex scenarios such as virtualization with a Type 1 hypervisor.

For those that have the experience and knowledge, the answers already exist in the forums in many locations, in other places on the internet, as well as Josh Paetzel's iXsystems page. So there really is no need to *ever* have to discuss this topic in my opinion.

 

[toadman]

Yes, I totally get your point. Well put.