My CPU is not VT-d compatible but it is VT-x. Will I be able to setup a pfSense VM and properly use the NICs to setup my network? Will that require the passthrough?

 

no, just setup bridge for the nic(s) you want to use as WAN and LAN in pfsence and attach that to the VM

Managed to have this working following the guide and adding the intel_iommu=on parameter to boot options.

 

I had a Sandy Bridge i5 supporting VT-d but the ASUS H61 motherboard it was on didn't support VT-d. So after some research on Asrock's website (they seem to generally have VT-d support in BIOS) I bought an Asrock H61-VG3. Intel's website shows the H61 chipset as not supporting VT-d (even though on another page they list one of their own motherboards as having support for that feature).

 

The board however has toggles for both VT-x and VT-d in BIOS and passthrough works perfect. Could be an interesting option for those looking for an inexpensive entry point (especially if you have a Sandy or Ivy Bridge CPU with VT-d support around) as the board was only 30 EUR (or around 41 USD).

 

The motherboard has only 4 SATA ports and you can only passthrough the whole controller at once so I bought a cheap SIL3132 based PCIe SATA card from Amazon.co.uk to run the host OS off. Works fine also.

 

Also, pfSense is running fine with 2 NICs in the host, bridged and attached to the pfSense VM. Can confirm that works as well.

 

edit: next stop will be to try my hand at virtualizing XBMC, unless it's known that it simply can't be done - haven't found too much information searching for XBMC and KVM

grumpy...have you tried (or had success) performing the XBMC installation described in the thread above in a VM?  I got through the entire procedure but XBMC (or Ubuntu) always wanted to default to the VMware graphics adapter rather than the Radeon card.  Is there a way to force Ubuntu (XBMC) to use the Radeon card as the default adapter?

 

Edit:  I'm actually following the how-to on the first page:  http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=174854

 

Yes. I have had success this in several Linux Distros (I maintain the thread on Arch Linux on how to do this). Let's take this discussion offline since it doesn't apply here. Sending you a PM.

 

Would you have a guide of sorts on how to get VGA passthrough working on OpenSUSE 13.1? Would that use the VFIO mechanism as described in https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=162768 or rather following the general instructions in the KVM documentation http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/How_to_assign_devices_with_VT-d_in_KVM?

 

I've been trying to get this working to passthrough a GT210 (nVidia) to a guest, where the host is using KVM and configured as in your first post? Any help you can provide is appreciated.

VGA passthrough is working using VFIO as per the Arch forum thread linked in my previous post using

 

- kernel 3.14 from Kernel:/stable/standard repository, recompiled to include vfio-pci and patched with i915 VGA arbiter patch (I'm using Intel igfx for the host)

- updated QEMU (2.0.0) and Seabios (1.7.4) from the virtualization repository /Virtualization/openSUSE_13.1

 

This works on both Asrock motherboards I have, a H61 and H77. The card passed through to the XBMC guest is an AMD 6450 card.

I've checked the whole thread and not found the answer so apologies if I've missed it...

 

Does unRAID 6 beta6 have the necessary hooks to run as a guest under KVM/Xen or would modification be required.

 

Or, looking at the question another way, what's the latest unRAID that can run as a guest under KVM (is it the modified image from the OP?)

 

Thanks in advance

 

Peter

I amhave not loaded unRAID 6 but I would shocked if they removed KVM or Xen guest support in it.

I just changed the content of the .vhd to beta 6 and it's runing on KVM with no problems

I just changed the content of the .vhd to beta 6 and it's runing on KVM with no problems

 

Hi, could you share this modified .vhd?

 

Rgds.

I just changed the content of the .vhd to beta 6 and it's runing on KVM with no problems

 

Hi, could you share this modified .vhd?

 

Rgds.

 

If you are using a Windows machine...

 

1. Goto File Explorer.

 

2. Right click on This PC / Computer and click manage.

 

3. Double Click Storage.

 

4. Double Click Disk Management.

 

5. Click on Action and Attach VHD and select my old VHD file.

 

6. It will mount my old VHD as a drive which you can see in File Explorer.

 

7. Replace the bzroot and bzimage with the latest.

 

8. Eject VHD in File Explorer.

 

Done!

Excellent! Always your guidance makes things look easier:)