Import windows 11 from proxmox/install fresh?

[ThisTruenasUser]

Hi all.

How is this done?
I tried to install windows 11 in a testing machine as a VM.
Apparently the virtual machine did not meet the spec.
I could not find any additions to add for the TPM emaulation.

In promxox it emulates the TPM & secure boot function and does it well.

What about truenas scale?

I searched google for workarounds.
I tried an option to change the registry in windows 11 setup.
It did not work.

I do not want workarounds. I want it to work though.

So how would I import a working windows 11 machine from proxmox to truenas scale.

For context:

My use for truenas scale is for storing and sharing files. this can be dome through a variety of ways.
I got some very cheap 2 x 16GB intel optane drives for deduplication.
With the right configuration, got it working well on a test machine.
The dedup data was vastly reduced through 1MB block size option & formatting as 1MB block sizes on the client test machine.
Then plans is to have multiple large ISCSI shares for games, using deduplication.

Also a lancache server, and a windows virtual machine to update the games.
On my main machine, will have a 14TB sparse drive for games. The same on the virtual windows machine, updating the same games.

I could use windows 10, but are looking long term, so windows 11 support is a must.

So how do I install windows 11, or import it from proxmox?
That is with no hacks or workarounds?


I could maybe run truenas virtualised within proxmox, but hardware passthrugh is borked so will need to use direct attached drives. This is far from ideal.
I am not buying any more storage or controllers.

So basically windows 11 I need to use, or it is hard for me to see any use for truenas.

Useful info appreciated!

 

[sretalla]

So how do I install windows 11, or import it from proxmox?
That is with no hacks or workarounds?

You can't.

The GUI doesn't allow for the detailed modification of the KVM config files, hence you are not able to specify any options not available in the GUI... TPM is not available in the GUI, so you can't specify it without workarounds.

There are 2 possible workarounds to that (even if you're not interested in them, here they are):

1. Mess with the config of an already created VM via tools like virt-manager... will remain in place until reboot of TrueNAS, then be discarded. (not great, but can do whatever virt-manager can do... for a while).

2. Install or modify during install a version of Windows 11 to instruct it to ignore the TPM requirement. (plenty of information on the web about how to do that, it's just a registry key or an install with that already set).

 

[ThisTruenasUser]

Thank you for the reply.
That is very sad and quite a big fail on the part of truenas scale software.
Windows 11 is not exactly an obscure OS.
I know there is a workaround for the tpm issue.
Microsoft make it clear if doing this, may not get future security udates, so a big problem.

I am testing it out on an older machine. I did manage to do the hack and install windows 11.
Risking using it for something useful is another issue.

The machine I am looking to install truenas scale has proxmox.
It seems that truenas scale is far from ready to use as a hypervisor.

It seems my smarter choice to be using it, is as a virtual machine only. hardware passthrough is broken so will be using direct attached disks inside proxmox.
For me, is for entertainment related storage - games and media. It is all backed up maybe once a week. There will be nothing important stored on it.

 

[sretalla]

will be using direct attached disks inside proxmox.

I did manage to do the hack and install windows 11.
Risking using it for something useful is another issue.

Swapping one hack for another... your choice.