VM improvements - A combined list

Apps and Virtualization
1

There are so many, I just thought I would post a list and hopefully they get picked up.

If anyone thinks any of these should be classed as bugs let me know. If there are any that should be added to the list, I could do that maybe.

Thanks for looking

Disk Image Import Wizard

  1. Create new disk image / Use existing disk image names are confusing
    • rename to Create new Zvol / Use existing Zvol
  2. Create new disk image / Use existing disk image
    • Both of these allow imports, this can lead to importing data over the top of an exisitng Zvol, is this intended?
  3. Add option to set the volblocksize or logical sector size for the imported disk image
    • These are 2 vital settings that you should be allowed to configure which prevents data
      corruption and non-booting environments
  4. Zvol size
    • During the Wizard the Zvol size is already prefilled with 10 GiB
    • The expected Zvol size is already calculated from the disk image because if the size you pick is not large enough you get a warning that it needs to be a minimum of X which is exactly the size of the image
      • This calculated size should be the prefilled amount and the message that is normally only displayed when the disk is not large enough should be permanently shown with additional wording saying this is the current size of the disk image you are importing. This gives the user the option of keeping the same or expanding the disk.
  5. There is no option to select sparse or thick provisioning
    • this has been asked before, but it is worth mentioning in this context.

Disk Image Export Wizard

  1. When exporting a disk and that task has completed, ask if the user wants what the sha256 checksum.
    • If you are exporting the disk, you probably want to move it to a non-TrueNAS box and in which case a sha256 checksum is very useful to make sure the file remains correct.
  2. Remove QED as an disk image export option
    • If this is a dead format, should it still be allowed?
    • it is dead format. for those 5 people that use it, they can convert this themselves, pushing a dead format is not a good idea.
    • Making sure you're not a bot!

Virtual Disk Images / RAW File

  1. Add additional sector sizes such as 8K and 16K
    • There is currently only 512 and 4096 sector sizes available

Virtual Machine Settings

  1. Add ability to toggle Secure Boot from the VM settings
    • during the create wizard you have the option of setting secure boot, however when you edit the VM this option is not available, you have to boot into the BIOS of the VM to change this.
  2. Add a boot up pause by X seconds
    • This would allow a user to press a key and enter the VMs BIOS as currently there is no way of accessing the BIOS on a normally booting VM. You have to start the VM, then open SPICE, enter a password and by then it is too late.
    • I would expect this would also present a message saying press button to enter BIOS.
  3. Add a custom switches box for QEMU startup commands
    • This would allow a user to enter custom switches to be added to the QEMU startup command and get around the restrictive GUI.
    • I would also some text cavitating the risks etc..
  4. The ability to import and export TrueNAS VM configrations.
    • This would be a JSON for TrueNAS and maybe an OVA/OVF
  5. Improvement of the control buttons
  6. Show the QEMU startup commands
    • This makes it easy for a homelabber (or enterprise) to dump a Disk image and then mess with it on their local PC but not have to fight with QEMu to get it to work.

VM Devices

  1. When you add a new disk, there is no import image option.
    • so how can you create a virtual machine that uses multiple disks that all need importing
  2. Ejectable CD-ROM
  3. Make Virtio the default, not AHCI
    • This make smore sense becasue you should be steqaring people to use Virtio
  4. Rename virtio to virtio-blk
    • This is its correct name and I also beleieve theri is now virtio-scsi
  5. Allow SPICE password to be optional
  6. Autofill the SPICE display port port number
    • rather than having to guess a port number, TrueNAS should just enumerate the next free port for spice. I can be changed if needed, but this is a lot better that trying to remember what port you should use next especially if you manage multiple TN boxes.
  7. Allow the ability to set the drive serial number (Disk / RAW File)
    • QEMU has the ability to manually set the drive number which can come in use when testing software that rely on drive serial numbers.
    • If a user does not set a serial, it will be auto generated as normal, but can be edited later.
  8. Virtual Machines - Add virtio-scsi as a storage driver option
    • It makes sense to offer this modern option, without removing virtio-blk

VM Startup commands

  1. add detect-zeroes to the startup command
    • and maybe use the option unmap rather than on so it matches with the discard command`
    • This will allow better handling of zeros and therefore space on the ZFS system
    • here is an example partial startup command showing the current discard setting passed
-blockdev {"driver":"host_device","filename":"/dev/zvol/tank/vms/ubuntu-rlsb54","aio":"threads","node-name":"libvirt-1-storage","read-only":false,"discard":"unmap","cache":{"direct":true,"no-flush":false}}
-device {"driver":"virtio-blk-pci","bus":"pci.0","addr":"0x7","drive":"libvirt-1-storage","id":"virtio-disk0","bootindex":2,"logical_block_size":4096,"physical_block_size":4096,"write-cache":"on","serial":"1qiLfsam"}
2

Moved Category to keep FR on topic

3

these are all feature request. please put it back.

4

Each feature request should be individual, not grouped. I will also highlight that Kris Moore posted, which is clear on the things that make a strong submission Feature Request Guidelines

5

no one has any votes left.

I sent your colleague (@SmallBarky ) a more in depth message.

6

Thanks for the heads up. We’ve been pretty heads down in the run-up to 26 release. We’ll be doing some sweeps of the feature requests soon and accepting/closing items out to free back up votes.

7

Not saying you have to :smiley: , but just have someone glance over the big list I did, some of them are quite obvious and your guys might like to include them without me having to do feature request for them all. (e.g. ability to set volblocksize during import.)

I appreciate I will not get back personal feedback.

p.s. your voting system could be done like this

Everyone has 1 vote per issue, they can use that vote either as a plus or a negative on each feature request.

This has benefits

  • not limited to only voting on a few items
  • a user can give feedback in a positive or a negative form allowing for better community feedback

my solution will have much better engagement rates.

Loose the 3 month limit.

thanks for the feedback.