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I am about to create my first unRAID VM and have some what I think is a very basic question.

 

I am not looking to pass through anything. I just want to create a VM that I can access using VNC.

 

I am trying to use the Windows 10 preview .ISO

 

I have enabled VMs, and filling out the VM settings (see attachment).

 

My question is what do I do after hitting create. It says it is going to start the VM. How will I connect to it to be able to complete the Windows install process. I have the RealVNC client installed on my Windows machine that I would like to use to access it. How will I designate the "VNC Server"? Is there any manual editting of XML files that I need to do before starting the VM?

 

Thanks for help getting me started.

vm_settings.JPG.885425d700141dea1194786f33c13f82.JPG

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So I want my VM to be able to be accessed on my local network, so I believe I need to use a public bridge.

 

In the instructions it says " The public bridge can be created through the Network Settings page on the unRAID webGui."

 

With the server up I couldn't change anything on the network page. So I shut down my server, went to the network settings, and see no obvious way to create a public bridge from there.

 

I did see something saying "Setup bridge?", set to "N" and in a read-only field below there is a bridge name "br0".

 

I set the "Setup bridge?" and set it to "Y", and click Apply. It takes several seconds and the WebGui screen comes back grayed out (all the tabs and fields are greyed). There is an odd little half circle at the very bottom center of the screen (like something is clipped). Attempts to see what it says failed (scrolling, etc.). It seems to stay clipped at exactly the same spot.

 

If I then refresh the screen it comes back looking normal, with the Setup Bridge set to Y and the bridge name (br0) below is now no longer read-only.

 

It is unclear what I am supposed to do at this point. Am I supposed to change "br0" to something else? Or leave it alone?

 

Confused ???

 

I am just leaving it as Setup Bridge=Y and leaving the bridge name br0. Hope that is correct.

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Thanks. Yes, I was able to get it working. Win10 installed, although gave a weird crash dialog that quickly went away as the OS completed its installation. I was able to install Teamviewer successfully, and access the VM over the network.

 

I did use the latest vs stable version of drivers, figuring with Windows 10, they might work better.

 

I wanted this feature (Windows running on my unRAID server) when I first started using unRAID and, honestly, had sort of given up hope that it would ever become a reality.

 

I travel frequently and access my home machine via TeamViewer.  My next goal is to clone my desktop to a VM and be able to get that working. Then I will not have to leave my desktop running all week while I am away.

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I actually cover the setup for bridge mode and for VMs in videos I published to our you tube channel (they can also be found under the Videos page on the support menu of our website).

 

Maybe link from the Wiki? Also, the wiki refers to creating a "public bridge" whereas the Network Settings page just calls it a network bridge. Might want to align the terminology.

 

But overall the instructions were excellent, and the process went very smoothly. Thanks jonp! You've put a tremendous amount of heart and soul into this!

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Thought I might chime in on this one as I too have recently (two nights ago) installed Windows10 as a VM using JonP's guide.

The install went well and I used the stable drivers as opposed to the latest...so far so good, and I am not passing through any hardware.

 

A couple of things I had to investigate further were:

1) the registry key addition others have mentioned to allow you to see Unraid SMB shares;

2) I created an Unraid user same as my login to Win10 [which I now think might not have been necessary]

3) had to set the network permissions correctly to allow RDP access from another pc/iPad on the network.

Question still not sure about...

4) Do we have to leave the virtual drive (E:\) for the virtio-win drivers connected?

5) Can the same process for adding the virtio drivers to create a virtual cd drive be used to also mount a dvd or bluray as a virtual cd?

 

I don't know exactly how long but it took a while (minutes/hour??) for the Unraid Tower to show up on the Win10 network. It definitely wasn't instant after I had made the above changes. For those that have troubles, be sure to check the network settings etc and try a logout/login to see if any of your changes take effect.

 

I recall in one of JonP's videos he explained for users to expect VNC to be more static-y than when using RDP. So I've been experimenting with RDP to Win10 through the iPad.

 

Having not used Win8 yet, I am presently exploring/playing with the new interface of Win10. Taking a little while to get used to, but I am sure I will adjust.

 

What I am not sure about is how to know if I have properly assigned enough RAM and CPU to the VM? For my purposes right now, I am just testing Win10 out, so I will try modifying the RAM allocated and also the assigned CPUs and experiment.

 

Another question... with the Win 10 VM running, if I have mapped some drives to network locations (Unraid shares of course) will the Unraid disks remain active or will they go into standby mode eventually?

 

Anyway, thanks for the guide JonP. It was clear enough to give me the direction necessary to install Win10.

 

Cheers,

gwl

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Thanks!!  Definitely have plans to make things even easier, but I do feel like what we have delivered thus far is a dramatic improvement over what we had with Xen previously.

 

I fully agree, setting up a VM has become much easier, though it requires some reading to get things set up initially (I did it before the video existed), but pretty positive that LT is looking at making it even more easier  :)

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Thought I might chime in on this one as I too have recently (two nights ago) installed Windows10 as a VM using JonP's guide.

The install went well and I used the stable drivers as opposed to the latest...so far so good, and I am not passing through any hardware.

 

A couple of things I had to investigate further were:

1) the registry key addition others have mentioned to allow you to see Unraid SMB shares;

 

This is a Win10 specific issue.  After Win10 is officially released, we will investigate to see if this issue persists and if so, see if we need to do anything to unRAID to fix it or else add the registry tweaks to our wiki.  No sense in doing this before its actually available for the masses to use.

 

4) Do we have to leave the virtual drive (E:\) for the virtio-win drivers connected?

 

Nope, you don't.  But not sure why it matters as it isn't hurting anything to be there, right?

 

5) Can the same process for adding the virtio drivers to create a virtual cd drive be used to also mount a dvd or bluray as a virtual cd?

 

For the OS installation and for VirtIO drivers, it is necessary, but for other software, what's wrong double-clicking an ISO file over SMB in Windows and mounting it that way?  Not sure what you'd gain by mounting it as part of the VM as a virtual CD-ROM.

 

I don't know exactly how long but it took a while (minutes/hour??) for the Unraid Tower to show up on the Win10 network. It definitely wasn't instant after I had made the above changes. For those that have troubles, be sure to check the network settings etc and try a logout/login to see if any of your changes take effect.

 

Again, Win10 not officially released yet, so there may be some issues between it, our implementation, and the VirtIO drivers from the Fedora project.

 

What I am not sure about is how to know if I have properly assigned enough RAM and CPU to the VM? For my purposes right now, I am just testing Win10 out, so I will try modifying the RAM allocated and also the assigned CPUs and experiment.

 

How would you know if you had enough RAM in a physical Windows PC?  Same applies here when assigning RAM / CPUs to VMs.

 

Another question... with the Win 10 VM running, if I have mapped some drives to network locations (Unraid shares of course) will the Unraid disks remain active or will they go into standby mode eventually?

 

They should spin down just fine (they do for me).  That said, not sure if Win10 is any different.  Shouldn't be, but who knows, right?

 

Anyway, thanks for the guide JonP. It was clear enough to give me the direction necessary to install Win10.

 

Glad it got you going!

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4) Do we have to leave the virtual drive (E:\) for the virtio-win drivers connected?

 

Nope, you don't.  But not sure why it matters as it isn't hurting anything to be there, right?

 

Down the track, I was thinking about if I was to set up a thin client for my better half to use, having these additional drives may cause confusion. So it was really about keeping it nice and clean...to remove potential hassle of "Oops, what did I just do?" ;-)

 

5) Can the same process for adding the virtio drivers to create a virtual cd drive be used to also mount a dvd or bluray as a virtual cd?

 

For the OS installation and for VirtIO drivers, it is necessary, but for other software, what's wrong double-clicking an ISO file over SMB in Windows and mounting it that way?  Not sure what you'd gain by mounting it as part of the VM as a virtual CD-ROM.

 

Again, I was thinking a bit randomly at the time and whether there was anything to advantageously use this approach from a media (dvd/bluray) perspective. (Presently, I use Plex to watch my movies through an AppleTV but a PVR to search for and load DVD ISOs when I want to watch Extras...)  I guess you're right, nothing to gain except the overhead. I'm just one to regularly see [and learn] if there are better ways of doing things.

 

 

Another question... with the Win 10 VM running, if I have mapped some drives to network locations (Unraid shares of course) will the Unraid disks remain active or will they go into standby mode eventually?

 

They should spin down just fine (they do for me).  That said, not sure if Win10 is any different.  Shouldn't be, but who knows, right?

 

Yes, I've taken note they spin down for me as well.

 

Anyway, thanks for the guide JonP. It was clear enough to give me the direction necessary to install Win10.

 

Glad it got you going!

 

So am I! I'm an end user of Windows VMs at work, and to get this working at home, opens up some opportunities to simplify things at home by reducing hardware requirements, and to keep my family end-users setups all better maintained.

 

Needless to say the creation of the VMs through the GUI (Thanks bonienl and LT team!) has made this more accessible and much simpler to achieve.

 

cheers,

gwl

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