I’ve set up a Windows 10 VM with VNC enabled - but I am unable to access the instance through the VNC tool.
It is unresponsive. I receive a grey/blank screen, similar to the color of the TrueNAS webui. This indicates that the VM is running in some capacity, however when I try to access the shell, it states “Error: VM agent isn’t currently running”. I am not sure what that could mean then.
Here is my suspicion:
Under “Disks”, I set the VM to running off of a zvol I created called “Win10”. Well the physical disk that this volume is on is in fact an older HDD. Could that make it too slow for a VM to run?
But I have been able to set up VMs by just setting the “Root Disk” size to some value (in GiB), but where then is that root disk stored?
In any case here is some additional into about my VM:
Using a VNC viewer I was able to confirm that the VM is not booting properly, as shown in the images. When I place vnc://192.168.0.179:5900/ in the browser it shows a blank screen, but when I place it in the viewer you get the classical “no boot” shell looking screen that shows for failed to boot VMs in TrueNAS.
I am currently attempting the same thing. I did setup a Instance with a disk and the Windows 10 install CD. To boot on the CD you need to open VNC very quickly and press a key to start the installer when the CD requests it.
Though, I am stuck right after with the installer not finding the harddrive. My assumption is that Instances setup the disk as a VirtIO disk, one solution would be to mount the virtio-win driver CD as well and load drivers in the installer or setup the instance with a more classical emulated SATA controller. I am not sure how to do either so I am still investigating.
Thank you for your insight. I will try to repeat those steps to see if I can get further. If you have screenshots of the bootup, that would be helpful. I will try to collect some as well.
Thought, after looking in discourse, this seems to be a common problem with Windows in Incus so it might become a bit off topic in this thread. I am still looking around for a solution …
Thanks for those useful captures. Still exploring this too, will post when I have updates. EDIT: Please do post if you find a solution.
EDIT2: Specifically this is a Storage Controller driver issue. I am considering a few possibilities.
The HDD I am using may be too old to be supported by the TrueNAS hypervisor drivers that are available, which is why I cannot see the storage device and why it is asking for a driver. If this is case, a new drive (such as an SSD) may fix the issue, but can’t confirm that for now.
This step may require a manual install, which in turn requires adding a USB or CD/DVD drive to the VM, to then add the appropriate drivers which would then be searchable in this step in the installation. As for which drivers to install, people keep posting this link for Windows VirtIO drivers, but those seem to me to be only for after the installation (such setting up networking with networking drivers etc.). Unsure what is specifically needed here.
After a lot of troubleshooting I havent yet solved the issue but the furthest I have gotten is by following these guides:
TL:DR; The guides basically involve downloading the virtio-win.iso onto the root of your NAS, and then editing the incus config file for your instance/vm (in this case mine is called “Windows10”), to mount this ISO (so that all the driver files appear in the install menu).
Well, I’ve gotten to the point where the Windows 10 instance sees the vioscsi driver file that it needs to initially communicate, for the windows install, but when I select it and click next, it still says “no device drivers are found”.
Well as a temporary fix I simply reverted back to TrueNAS Scale version Electric Eel, and I am able to build a Windows 10 VM in this older version. As such I have not tested your (more clear) fix in version RC1 to see if it actually worked for me…
Also I will eventually have to upgrade again, and in the upgraded version I may yet again run into this issue. I hope it is addressed by then.
