PfSense and Hyper-V

defrag

FYI

1.21 Version of pfSENSE is able to run under Hyper-V

There is an issue with FreeBSD that does not allow it shutdown/turn off properly.

Temporary workaround is here until someoen figures out how to fix it

http://www.ditii.com/2008/07/19/powershell-hyper-v-script-hyper-v-freebsd-shutdown-problem-workaround/

Figured I would help some of you fellow Hyper-Vs out as I have been bashing my head trying to get the previous pfsense running in hyperv

cheesyboofs

Apparently there is a special kernel patch but the instructions are in Russian.

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winserverhyperv/thread/1c916783-ba02-411d-b52d-640a8a415f26/

http://blogs.technet.com/abeshkov/archive/2008/12/15/3169299.aspx :'(

cheesyboofs

I wonder if a dev can give me a couple of pointers?

I wish to create a M$ Hyper-V (2008 server) pfSense image, you may know that there is a freebsd kernel bug that prevents them shutting down.

This Russian website has a fix but I'm not quite sure what I need to do to implement it!

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&u=http://blogs.technet.com/abeshkov/archive/2008/12/15/3169299.aspx&ei=-u2wSe72KeTSjAeN1rjYBQ&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=1&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://blogs.technet.com/abeshkov/archive/2008/12/15/3169299.aspx%26hl%3Den

I think I need to install a development version of pfsense, run the patch, compile a kernel and copy the kernel to a live pfsense box.

Is this achievable by a complete novice?

Kind Regards.

cmb

That Hyper-V patch isn't correct. There was a more correct work around to hyper-v's glitch added to FreeBSD that's a considerably larger patch, not something we're going to back port to 7.2. It should work properly with FreeBSD 8, which is what 2.0 will be based on. I'm told there is a long discussion on one of the FreeBSD lists if someone is interested in details.

cheesyboofs

Yeh I've been following the various posts on the FreeBSD hackers list, http://unix.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/FreeBSD/hackers/2009-04/msg00070.html seems they are getting bogged down in a discussion about PCI BAR allocation or something. It seems no one can decide whether the fault lies Hyper-v or FreeBSD.
The windows camp say "Well other non-Windows OS seem to manage i.e Linux" but the FreeBSD camp say "We're not doing anything different other than standard behaviour"
I have used VMware for years but I have recently invested £1000 in a 4TB MicroITX mini server and as ESXI does not yet support my new hardware I am quite happy to run 2008 with Hyper-V enabled, but I wish I could run pfsense as a VM then I'd be really happy :D

This guy seems to think the problem will be resolved by M$ them selves in Windows server 2008 R2 http://unix.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/FreeBSD/hackers/2009-05/msg00096.html

cheesyboofs

Great News!

Just tried the RC1 of Windows Server 2008 R2 and the freeBSD shutdown problem has gone away. I installed x64 Enterprise (R2 only comes in x64) enabled Hyper-v set up a pfsense VM with two legacy NIC's. Then did a 99 install of v1.2.3-RC1 to a 1Gb VHD and then ran it.
I can shutdown the and reboot the VM without any problems at all.

I am now going to look into replacing the VM BIOS file of my existing live 2008 server with the new one that must be integrated in this R1 server as there is no indication at present that M$ are going to back-port this to existing R1 2008 installs. Saying that I haven't tried installing pfsense in a VM since I applied 2008 SP2.

cheesyboofs

Not So Great News!

2008 SP2 does not fix the issue so,

I nabbed the file vmwp.exe (vm worker process) from the working x64 R2 RC1 (file version v6.1.7100.0) box and replaced with the same file on a development x64 R1 box file version (v6.0.6002.18005) but unfortunately although the service runs fine when you start a VM it falls over with a "not a valid win32 executable" error. As I was sure to keep to x64 for both the R2 box and the R1 dev box I see no further way forward unless M$ bring out a Hyper-v patch that will bring Hyper-v up to v6.1.7100.0 on 2008 R1 servers. :'(

FuriouS

@cheesyboofs:

Not So Great News!

2008 SP2 does not fix the issue so,

I nabbed the file vmwp.exe (vm worker process) from the working x64 R2 RC1 (file version v6.1.7100.0) box and replaced with the same file on a development x64 R1 box file version (v6.0.6002.18005) but unfortunately although the service runs fine when you start a VM it falls over with a "not a valid win32 executable" error. As I was sure to keep to x64 for both the R2 box and the R1 dev box I see no further way forward unless M$ bring out a Hyper-v patch that will bring Hyper-v up to v6.1.7100.0 on 2008 R1 servers. :'(

Good news with the latest 2008 R2 Hyper-V.

I upgraded to the latest available 2008 R2 release candidate last night and my PFsense firewall 1.2.2 can now be shut down and restarted by the home. The poweshell workaround was working for me, but if I forgot to kill the pfsense VM before I rebooted or shut down the server would get stuck trying to shut it down.

cheesyboofs

"Not completely off topic so please don't flame me Mod's"

How was the upgrade? I have done an R2 upgrade on a dev box and it warned about reading a knowledge base article and disabling Hyper-v first. This has put me off upgrading my live box as I don't want to nuke my VM's. Brief feedback would be appreciated, also did you have to use a new R2 key or did the R1 key continue working?

Cheers

cheesyboofs

[SOLVED]

Have now upgraded 2008 to R2 and there are now no issues running FreeBSD based VM's. The upgrade was seamless, all you have to do is make sure you delete any snapshots and obviously you will need a new M$ Key.

I now have my dev box back in the form of a VM yey!