I'm following the manual to set up my first VM in Unraid 7.0.1

 

It says "Select which CPUs you wish to assign the VM - You can select up to as many physical CPUs that are present on your host"

 

Does this mean that the CPUs are statically assigned? On my T440 there are 8 CPUs. If I assign 4 each to Windows and Debian VMs, and one VM was working on a CPU intensive task, and the other VM was idle, the idle VM's CPUs would be wasted? Can I assign all 8 CPUs to VMs, or do I have to leave one for Unraid?

 

I know from running in-OS virtualization environments such as VirtualBox, I can run several VMs and the CPU resources of the host system are shared.

 

Also can I change the assignment later? Maybe I go with 4 and 4 now, but later decide that 5 and 3 would work better?

 

Other notes (inconsistencies):

 

From myserver.local/VMs, I click Add VM. I'm given a choice of OS. I choose Debian.

This presents a form with various options. There is nothing like "Set the Template type to Custom"

In addition to the CPU assignment, there is also a "CPU Mode:" setting, defaulting to "passthrough". I find that under "Advanced Options, so I leave it on.

For Machine, I see "Q35 is the default setting". However there are many choices for Q35. Pick the highest number Q35-9.1? What does it the number mean? (not mentioned in the manual)

 

 

EDIT ---------------

 

I completed the form to the best of my ability and tried to start it.

I get the UEFI interactive shell.

 

I tried the "Troubleshooting Stuck at UEFI Shell - In the event you are stuck at the UEFI shell after booting your VM, you can enter a few commands to manually trigger the boot sequence:"

fs0:
cd efi/boot
bootx64.efi

 

It did not work

 

 

Oops - I see I typed "fso:", not "fs0". I tried again with "fs0:" and got the same result.

 

Now I'm just trying to get back to where I started. From the VMs page, I see it listed as "Started". I click the Stop All button, and it spins a while, then returns to showing as Started.  How do I stop this failed VM to try again?

 

Edited April 19, 20251 yr by timg11
Further issues discovered

Unless you have specific demands, just leave the CPU assignment untouched. UNRAID will dynamically use and grant cores. 

Just give the number of maximum cores.

And, don't panic too. Cores are not fixed, they are not locked to a certain VM.

The "pinning" feature is mostly used to asure that certain cores are always free (for the UNRAID OS). But again, just leav it alone.

8 hours ago, timg11 said:

How do I stop this failed VM to try again?

There is a "force stop" menu entry too. But be aware, if you leave the VM's setting, it is started again (at least it tries to start)

8 hours ago, timg11 said:

Pick the highest number Q35-9.1? What does it the number mean?

Its just the version number. And, as usual, "the highest lance wins!"

 

Have you "inserted" and configured a valid boot image (ISO file)

The UEFI setup only comes up if it does not find anything to boot.

 

I don't remember how the cores were set. Here's what I've got now.

I did "insert" the bootable Debian DVD ISO file.

I picked br0 because I want to use the shared bridged LAN, not the private isolated virtual LAN.

 

Here is the template currently - please advise on any setting changes needed to allow it to boot.

 

 

 

 

I tried starting it again, and got the same UEFI Interactive Shell. The commands offered in the manual for "Troubleshooting Stuck at UEFI Shell" do not work, same responses as shown in my first post above.

 

 

Edited April 20, 20251 yr by timg11

8 minutes ago, timg11 said:

I don't remember how the cores were set. Here's what I've got now.

I did "insert" the bootable Debian DVD ISO file.

I picked br0 because I want to use the shared bridged LAN, not the private isolated virtual LAN.

 

Here is the template currently - please advise on any setting changes needed to allow it to boot.

 

 

 

Use boot order 2 on the cd.

I typed "exit" from the UEFI shell, got to the BIOS, and was able to navigate to the DVD device, selected it as the boot device, and the Debian installer started.  I can select language and keyboard preferences.  However, after it reaches the network setup where it attempts DHCP, the VNC console goes black and never comes back.

 

This console is a windows opened from the same browser as Unraid, and has this URL:

t440.local/plugins/dynamix.vm.manager/vnc.html?v=1729196260&resize=scale&autoconnect=true&host=t440.local&port=&path=/wsproxy/5700/

 

There is a cursor visible in the middle of the black window, but it does not follow the host system cursor.

 

From here, I can only close the VNC window and force stop the VM.

Trying again gives the same results.

 

 

Finally solved this. A helpful person @CwF on the Debian forum noticed the minimum RAM in the Template was 1G. I changed the minimum RAM to 8G, and the installer completed normally. I had the maximum RAM set at 24G, incorrectly thinking that the VM would allocate what was required up to that limit.

My error was to use the "Template" for a Debian VM provided in the Unraid "New VM" list of templates. That template has the 1G memory. Being new to Unraid, I was trying to minimize making changes to settings, incorrectly believing the Template was appropriate for a Debian VM.