FreeBSD 11.3 & 12.0 has broken SCSI & Networking on KVM/QEMU Q35 with OVMF

Hi FreeBSDer's,

I use FreeBSD VM's on my Ubuntu KVM / QVM Host and have recently experienced a number of issues when using 11.3 & 12.0 Releases and the SCSI disk and and Network drivers with 64-Bit Q35 VMs and OVMF (open virtual machine firmware - EFI for VM) firmware.

I am posting here before submitting bug report to see if others have also had issues.

Here is summary of issues:

FreeBSD 11.2 (on KVM / QEMU Q35 with OVMF)
SCSI disk - none work
SATA disk - works
Networking - only e1000 works

FreeBSD 11.2 (on KVM / QEMU Q35 with BIOS)
SCSI disk - works with lsisas1068 controller type
Network - only e1000 works

FreeBSD 11.3 (on KVM / QEMU Q35 with OVMF)
SCSI disk - none work
SATA disk - works
Networking - nothing works
NOTE: I also tested with custom kernel build (ie remove all bit minimal drivers but leaving MPT/MPS & VirtIO SCSI and intel em and VirtIO Networking, still does not work

FreeBSD 12.0 (on KVM / QEMU with OVMF)
SCSI disk - none works
SATA disk - works
Networking - nothing works

So in summary, in move from FreeBSD 11.2 -> 11.3 / 12.X
- networking is broken with KVM / QEMU / OVMF
- SCSI disk support is broken for all KVM / QEMU / OVMF

So while there is work around of SATA and BIOS, the set of working options is shrinking and I am concerned that FreeBSD is not doing sufficient validation of releases on KVM / QEMU as virtual operations of machines is now how majority of people are running machines.

Can people please provide feedback on this and if they have experienced similar situations.

Regards.,

Zebity.
 
Hi FreeBSDer's,

I use FreeBSD VM's on my Ubuntu KVM / QVM Host and have recently experienced a number of issues when using 11.3 & 12.0 Releases and the SCSI disk and and Network drivers with 64-Bit Q35 VMs and OVMF (open virtual machine firmware - EFI for VM) firmware.

I am posting here before submitting bug report to see if others have also had issues.

Here is summary of issues:

FreeBSD 11.2 (on KVM / QEMU Q35 with OVMF)
SCSI disk - none work
SATA disk - works
Networking - only e1000 works

FreeBSD 11.2 (on KVM / QEMU Q35 with BIOS)
SCSI disk - works with lsisas1068 controller type
Network - only e1000 works

FreeBSD 11.3 (on KVM / QEMU Q35 with OVMF)
SCSI disk - none work
SATA disk - works
Networking - nothing works
NOTE: I also tested with custom kernel build (ie remove all bit minimal drivers but leaving MPT/MPS & VirtIO SCSI and intel em and VirtIO Networking, still does not work

FreeBSD 12.0 (on KVM / QEMU with OVMF)
SCSI disk - none works
SATA disk - works
Networking - nothing works

So in summary, in move from FreeBSD 11.2 -> 11.3 / 12.X
- networking is broken with KVM / QEMU / OVMF
- SCSI disk support is broken for all KVM / QEMU / OVMF

So while there is work around of SATA and BIOS, the set of working options is shrinking and I am concerned that FreeBSD is not doing sufficient validation of releases on KVM / QEMU as virtual operations of machines is now how majority of people are running machines.

Can people please provide feedback on this and if they have experienced similar situations.

Regards.,

Zebity.

And how is Qemu doing with FreeBSD as a guest installing Xorg? I remember that it corrupted because it compiled with GCC and didn't enter the user graphic to enter the desktop. The Guest libraries such as (audio, USB, CD/DVD, others) Do you detect it perfectly?
 
Hi, it's an old post but this might help.
I've had the same issue for months and I've found a way around. I managed to get network in 12.1 in Qemu by installing 11.2 and upgrading to 12.1 it with
# freebsd-update -r 12.1-RELEASE upgrade
Maybe the bug was simply fixed but this worked for me.
 
Hi FreeBSD'ers,

turned out there are 3 bugs behind this...

See the following bug reports:
1. One I raised as per initial post - https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=241774
2. One raises on virtio issues - https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=236922
3. One I raised on QEMU Q35 V4.x relating to PCIe Gen4 - https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=243640

Of these only (1) has been closed...
I have not completed 2 updated from 11.2 -> 11.4 (via freebsd-update, by passing 11.3) and these work without need for custom kernel compile as workaround (which is required for 11.3 & 12.1).

NOTE: To avoid bug (3) ensure you use Q35 v3.x VM as highest version for your QEM VM.

I have also raised bug on use of QEMU EvTouch Tablet driver with FreeBSD Gnome (X11) - https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=244079

Evidence is that KVM support for FreeBSD is a bit a of a blind spot, the more testing and bug reports that are completed the better this this will be addressed.

Cheers,


Zebity.
 
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