Ok, this took a long time to build, but it works, and the end result was ISO and img files for both i386 and x64.

Update: By popular request, I’ve uploaded the iso for those unable/unwilling to build it.. see this latest post for the link to the iso.

For the more intrepid who want to do this themselves, read on.. 🙂

I haven’t tested the i386 build as I’m not really interested in 32-bit, given I’m running FreeNAS and want gobs of memory for that VM, but the 64-bit version installed just fine, and I’e got it running with a Dell Perc H310 flashed with LSI HBA firmware.

First off, you need to go fetch a copy of FreeBSD 9.2 to create the build environment.

If you’re doing this in a VM like I was, you want to give it a lot of cores, 4GB of RAM, and at least 15GB of free disk space to build in.  Yes, building FreeNAS isn’t trivial – its a loooong build process.

The good news is that starting the build process is pretty straightforward.  Once you’ve got FreeBSD installed and running to your satisfaction, then go ahead and kick off the FreeNAS build process like so:

Start by installing git and the crdtools package (for building the ISO) – a fair few dependencies for this, but just accept the defaults as it goes and you’ll be right.

cd /usr/ports/devel/git && make depends install
cd /usr/ports/sysutils/cdrtools  && make depends install
cd /usr/ports/archivers/pxz && make depends install
mkdir /home
cd /home

git clone -b 9.2.0-RELEASE git://github.com/freenas/freenas.git
cd freenas
make git-external

vi nanobsd/FREENAS.amd64

options         NO_ADAPTIVE_MUTEXES
options         NO_ADAPTIVE_RWLOCKS
options         NO_ADAPTIVE_SX

# Xen HVM support
options         XENHVM
device          xenpci

vi nanobsd/FREENAS.i386

VERSION?=9.2.0-RELEASE-xen

make release

cd /home/freenas/release_stage/x64
ls

FreeNAS-9.2.0-RELEASE-xen-x64.GUI_Upgrade.txz
FreeNAS-9.2.0-RELEASE-xen-x64.GUI_Upgrade.txz.sha256.txt
FreeNAS-9.2.0-RELEASE-xen-x64.img.xz
FreeNAS-9.2.0-RELEASE-xen-x64.img.xz.sha256.txt
FreeNAS-9.2.0-RELEASE-xen-x64.iso
FreeNAS-9.2.0-RELEASE-xen-x64.iso.sha256.txt

From here, you can go install FreeNAS directly into a PVHVM virtual machine.  Here’s the conf file I used to install:

name = 'freenas'
builder = 'hvm'
maxmem = 8192
memory = 8192
vcpus=2
acpi=1
apic=1
vif = [ 'bridge=xenbr0, mac=00:aa:0a:14:01:99' ]
disk = [ 'phy:/dev/vg_ssd/vm_freenas,xvda,w',
 'file:/mnt/isos/bsd/FreeNAS-9.2.0-RELEASE-xen-x64.iso,hdb:cdrom,r' ]
# Boot from the cdrom device
boot='d'
vnc=1
vncunused=0
vnclisten = '0.0.0.0'
vncdisplay=3
vncconsole=1
serial='pty'

on_poweroff = 'destroy'
on_reboot = 'restart'
on_crash = 'destroy'
#pci = ['01:00.0']

Note that you really want to use the serial console – so after the first boot, use the web admin pages to enable the serial console, and set a baud rate of 115200.  After that, you can use the default xen console without having to use a vnc viewer.

Lastly – if you’re passing in a PCIe device such as an LSI HBA, go check out my next post on making an LSI HBA adapter work with PCI passthrough and Xen using the xen_pciback modules. Here’s the post about getting the LSI HBA card working.

I’m also investigating adding the iso and img files directly to this site for download – but for now the instructions above will get you the same result, just slower 🙂

Ooroo!