TrueNAS Scale: Virtualization & vmxnet3

Apps and Virtualization
1

Hi all! How are you? Hope fine :slight_smile:

As I tried for the 3rd time unRAID, I think I definitely don’t understand how the array and pools are working. So I give a new try to TrueNAS Scale, as I would like to run some Dockers and VMs

I finally successed on how to configure my pools and NICs Failover Aggregation. And it seems to work like a charm. I’m happy!

But, when I create a new VM, I don’t understand why I can’t choose between the different NICs that TrueNAS supports.

Here I can see these supported “vNics”:

admin@TRUENAS:~$ qemu-system-x86_64 -nic model=help
qemu: module ui-ui-gtk not found, do you want to install qemu-system-gui package?
qemu: module ui-ui-sdl not found, do you want to install qemu-system-gui package?
Supported NIC models:
e1000
e1000-82544gc
e1000-82545em
e1000e
i82550
i82551
i82557a
i82557b
i82557c
i82558a
i82558b
i82559a
i82559b
i82559c
i82559er
i82562
i82801
ne2k_pci
pcnet
pvrdma
rtl8139
tulip
virtio-net-pci
virtio-net-pci-non-transitional
virtio-net-pci-transitional
vmxnet3
admin@TRUENAS:~$

So, why can’t I choose vmxnet3 for example? Is there a way to modify it in command line console?

Many searches on the old forum and this new one, but no real answers found.

Any advices?

Thanks a lot

V.

2

What’s wrong with VirtIO?

1 Like
3

Hi!
I got an ESXi which is going to die. I need to move my VMs with vMotion on a Replica as soon as possible.

Unfortunatly, ESXi80U2b does not recognize the TrueNAS NICs (VirtIO / e1000).
And, I tried a custom ISO with updated Flings. Not working either.

But with a VMXNET3 NIC, it will be good to go.

And as my computer does not have enough RAM to use VMware Workstation, my only way is to migrate to a rescue nested ESXi, hosted on my TrueNAS Scale :frowning:

Do you think it’s doable?

Thanks a lot

Regards,

V.

4

I don’t have much experience with KVM so no idea, honestly. With bhyve on CORE definitely not because it doesn’t support VMXNET3 in VMs at all.

With SCALE it looks like fundamental support is there in the underlying framework but iX did not implement that option in the UI and middleware. Best file a feature request.

5

You could PCIe pass through a real NIC.

Probably a better solution anyway.

6

Hi @Stux
thanks for your reply. This is what I’m thinking.
As I don’t have available NIC Cards on my TrueNAS Scale Server (they all in LAGG ^^), I decided to buy this 2-Ports PCIe Card after checking the VMware I/O Compatibility Page
So, I hope it will be good with Passthrough

I stay in touch

Thanks :slight_smile:

Regards,
V.

1 Like
7

Hi!
OK, so… it’s not working. The NIC Card is correctly detected. But, the PassThrough gives an error

[EINVAL] Not a valid choice. The PCI device is not available for passthru: Following errors were found with the device: Unable to determine iommu group

IOMMU is enabled and dmesg gives a lot of PCIe/USB and other stuff.

I will find an another way…

Thanks a lot for your help. Sorry I bothered you all :cry:

Best Regards,
V.