Moving from FreeNAS to Proxmox, virtualizing FreeNAS and SteamOS/Debian (Now running PopOS!)

High-Performance Computing Workstations & Servers
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Yeah, currently have a spare 670 so wanted to start their before I invest in too much more hardware.

Fair enough on overhead. at worst I change my CPU’s to 5670’s, 50% faster clocks, 50% more threads per cpu should get me in the right ballpark.

not quite sure what a dead header is unfortunately. Is that a device that tell’s the graphics card it’s connected to a device without actually having to be? Is such a device needed?

I’ve never played around with NFS, since my main machines are windows and MacOS, so could be nice to play with something new.

EDIT: with steam on linux with the Proton emulation layer having gotten a fair bit better in the last few years, should I run a linux vm instead of a window VM for in home streaming?

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https://www.amazon.com/CompuLab-4K-Display-Emulator-fit-Headless/dp/B00JKFTYA8/ref=pd_rhf_sc_s_vtp_ses_clicks_nonshared_0_2/137-7759281-2741457?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B00JKFTYA8&pd_rd_r=42b29e63-a5fc-4b3c-8da3-980d4c751a5f&pd_rd_w=xFoyi&pd_rd_wg=RkBRy&pf_rd_p=af51e21a-6deb-41cf-854d-4e8f96d7bd8e&pf_rd_r=C83W38E33AMWV74XZ42A&psc=1&refRID=C83W38E33AMWV74XZ42A
Something like that will tell the GPU it’s connected to a 4k monitor so the operating system knows it has a display connected to the graphics card to render games on, and therefor use the GPU.

As of Windows 2000 NFS has been supported in Windows. ZFS can actually do exports natively on datasets for you, at least on ZOL, I can’t speak for FreeNAS.

I have lived in *nix for the last 12 years and haven’t touched Windows. I will say check out protondb.com for the games you want to play and make sure that users have gotten them working. I play games that run well on Linux (proton included) but that means that some games I just won’t play. If you have to have the ability to play any game, and don’t want to do research first before buying, then Windows is still needed. That’s up to you.

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Thanks for the link on the Headless adapter. Had been thinking a KVM might have to be involved, but the adapter seems better suited to this task.

Looking at the proton database, it has everything I’m looking at playing, so should be fit for purpose. Any idea if the Nvidia drivers through a fit if they’re in a linux VM? from the Nvidia site they do seem to have unix drivers, just a question of them supporting this use case. at worst it seems relatively trivial to trick the VM into thinking it’s running on bare metal. (source for the Gpu passthrough for anyone that might come across this thread in the future http://mathiashueber.com/windows-virtual-machine-gpu-passthrough-ubuntu/#Removing_Error_43_for_Nvidia_cards)

I’m installing Proxmox into a VM as I type this, so will take a look and see what is what

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The authors linked post at:
Other Link

is the link you meant? and yeah, he’s got the right idea.

Vendor id has to be 12 characters.

When he says virsh edit, it might use one of several apps, depending on the local editor.
the CTL+X then CTL+y is for Nano or similar (default on 'buntu.)

Virsh sometimes opens in vim or vi.
if so, you’ll need colon w q

Literally

:wq

then enter

  • Just in case the editor doesn’t work with the CTL+x CTL+y
  • in vi/vim, colon escapes the text area and takes the cursor to the bottom, w will save out on exit, then q is for quit.
  • I guess if you are in Vi/Vim, you probably need to press the Ins (insert key) te be able to edit text, and when everything to your liking, you can press the Esc key to stop being in “insert” mode.
    I’m not really a Vim user, sorry
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Friends don’t let friends get trapped in VIM.
Even new internet acquaintances…

17

If that is your plan… might want to take a look at a topic I posted about recently…

One of the big reasons I may end up ditching FreeNAS all together is to greatly reduce complexity. I have also researched VLANs to further reduce complexity on the network hardware (save a bit of power too) Proxmox (and other linux distros) are perfectly capable of managing the array and with some research, you can do pretty much anything FreeNAS offers and more. Maybe just not quite in the nifty GUI.

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I skimmed through to see if it was already suggested, but I didn’t see it.

What about virtualizing your FreeNAS server and use a hardware passthrough for the disks? Then hardware passthrough your GPU?

(Ah, beat me to it. lol)

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Friends don’t let friends get trapped in VIM.
Even new internet acquaintances…

My dog is no longer a fan of my being on this forum, just laughed for a good minute at that one.
I’m also scared to admit that Vi is my editor of choice

Alright, I’ll keep that in mind.

Also update on the testing of Proxmox in a VM. looks like it required a VGA device :facepalm::facepalm::facepalm::facepalm:

Have Class early in the morning so won’t be dealing with that this evening. might pull down virtual box and try it that way.

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That is odd, I really thought proxmox worked headless

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Glad someone likes Vim :slight_smile:

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Not always, newer AMD cards have the reset bug.

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Wow, what a strange bug. 100 GB was pulled out of my ass, I have 144GB on the server, so was thinking 32GB for the Steam Box, 100GB for FreeNAS and the balance to Proxmox and maybe PFS sense down the line. Between my 2 pools, one dedup and 1 not deduped I should be around 60 gigs, but don’t see a reason to not give more to the ARC. looks like I’ll just have to “settle” for 96 GiB. :sunglasses:

Yeah, as silly as it sounds, I really like the GUI, especially since the 11.1 update where they moved to AngularJS for the platform.

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Probably on bare metal, but since it’s in a VM, it seems to not like it.

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Yeah, seem’s to be the place to go to achieve everything I want without completely kiboshing my existing workflows.

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Even odder, as the vm will have “spice” drivers, so technically has a GPU, more than bare metal might as standard.
Oh well Good luck tomorrow night with your tests

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That’s the one where the VM does’t properly let go of PCIe devices when they reboot correct?

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Sounds good! will report back when I can, hopefully this thread can eventually be useful to others in a similar situation.

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I think it is that the PCIe device does not properly reset itself when told to.

There are patches being worked on-


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FWIW, I do this in Proxmox by passing a HBA to the FreeNAS vm it’s been working for many months without issue.

I personally recommend this (or Proxmox). You can rest easier knowing the distro supports ZFS natively.

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Just picking up the thread after a failed attempt at sleep.

@Camofelix I think you have a workable solution but my guidance would be to test build this first if you have the hardware spare.

I’ve never taken the plunge with ‘hyperconvergence’ because I don’t have 100% trust in my geek-fu not to break something and trash all my pools. Restoring from backup is not my idea of a good time.

I’d suggest getting your converged system up and running with hypervisor (thin or thicc) and gaming hosts (you can have windows and Linux on there at the same time!) and test your gaming performance, responsiveness and most importantly, case temps.

If it is all fine, then clone your freenas config, create a new freenas vm, pass through the HBA, load your config and move your disks. Test it all running and see how you feel.

Things that would worry me:

  • single point of failure.
  • power bills from powerful system running all the time
  • temps impacting hardware longevity, especially hard disks
  • noise at my desk
  • loss of ability to upgrade desktop parts in situ without risking data loss on the Nas
  • something I haven’t considered going wrong

But if it works, it will be sweet and we can all enjoy your journey to get there.

Good luck!