VSan on Proxmox - More than 2 NIC = No boot

[onenerdyguy]

Title basically covers it all.

Vm created with the free license. Imported, boot works fine first time with 1 Nic. Set management IP, golden. Shut down, add second nic. Boots fine. Set IP, golden. Shut down, add third nic. No dice. Gui sits on management service starting. If you hit the console, you can login, but if you go to the config Management network, you get a python error.

If you go into the shell, lspci shows 3 ethernet controllers. if you hit an ifconfig, you only see 2. I created a manual ens20.yaml file, and then it boots and I can load the web gui.

The physical nics on this (purely for testing of replication, not performance or anything) are 1 physical nic on a vmbridge for management, then 2 bridges without any physical nics attached. All on the same box, so no switches or anything

[yaroslav (staff)]

Welcome to StarWind Forum.
Correct me if I read it wrong. The VM has 2x pass-through NICs + one E1000E one and VM cannot get Management Network (or any other network) nicely.
If that's the case, it is a known issue. It looks like a problem described here viewtopic.php?f=5&t=6568&p=36202&hilit=proxmox#p36202. Please log a call with us at support@starwind.com.

[onenerdyguy]

@Yaroslav

Close!

VM has no passed through nics, all of them are virtuals provided by Proxmox.

They're being provided Virtio nics, not e1000s.

The issue seems to be the number, honestly. Any more than 2 nics, machine doesn't like it, sits on the "Management Service Starting" on the web gui. I was able to 'fix' it briefly by going in and setting up my own netplan for the third NIC, which allowed it to boot and get access to the WebGui.

However,I then ran into other issues, which led to frustration. Again, for pure testing, I added 3 virtual hard disks backed by the local-lvm storage. When I logged into the web gui to make a storage pool, it told me I couldnt, as they weren't on the same controller...even though they were.

I then tried to configure HA networking, When I go into the "Configure HA Networking" tab, the button is grayed out and has a message of "Your appliance does not license HA Luns to use this wizard". I did confirm it's running the standard Free license, which explictedly lists HA Luns as available.

I frankly got very frustrated at this point and left it for the night.

[yaroslav (staff)]

Thanks for your update.

I was able to 'fix' it briefly by going in and setting up my own netplan for the third NIC, which allowed it to boot and get access to the WebGui.

There might be something with the configuration itself, not necessarily the VM. I was using the CVM in Hyper-V and VMware environments (IDK how relevant are these experiences) where I could attach more than 2 NICs to the VM.
Please log a call with us at support@starwind.com use 1124903 and this thread as your references.

When I logged into the web gui to make a storage pool, it told me I couldnt, as they weren't on the same controller...even though they were.

Did you try the HardwareRaidImulation tweak from the guide (https://www.starwindsoftware.com/resour ... 681bee659d)?

I then tried to configure HA networking, When I go into the "Configure HA Networking" tab, the button is grayed out and has a message of "Your appliance does not license HA Luns to use this wizard". I did confirm it's running the standard Free license, which explictedly lists HA Luns as available.

Free license does not include GUI (web GUI too) for management to the full extent. Please consider using PowerShell scripts (install StarWindX on a Windows host from https://starwind.com/tmplink/starwind-v8.exe).

[Phobia3790]

hi all,
I am seeing exactly the same issue.
Is there any general solution about this please?

This seems to be caused by either the qcow2 disk image or by the configuration. But I triple checked all steps from this guide and still not getting anywhere sadly. I am trying to setup 3 node cluster so I need 1 management and 4 NICs for the heartbeat+sync to each peer node. This issue is blocking setup even for 2 node since I can't add 1 mgmt + 2 NICs for peer node


Guide I used https://www.starwindsoftware.com/resour ... 681bee659d

[yaroslav (staff)]

Could you please reach out to support@starwind.com for further cooperation?

[Phobia3790]

thank you . will do

[Phobia3790]

For anyone else stuck in the same place - the solution is to attach all NICs to the proxmox VM as VMXNET3 type not VirtIO. The VirtIO is shown in the pdf guide and I advised the support team to update it after they gave me a hint on the solution.

Guide is here https://www.starwindsoftware.com/resour ... ?pdf=34822 with page 13 being the one that is little misleading

[anton (staff)]

Sorry about it! We'll fix the guide... Thank you for reporting the solution!

For anyone else stuck in the same place - the solution is to attach all NICs to the proxmox VM as VMXNET3 type not VirtIO. The VirtIO is shown in the pdf guide and I advised the support team to update it after they gave me a hint on the solution.

Guide is here https://www.starwindsoftware.com/resour ... ?pdf=34822 with page 13 being the one that is little misleading

[yaroslav (staff)]

The issue was already fixed in the latest StarWind CVM build.
Please keep the software up-to-date.

[muddyfunkstr]

I'm having the same issue but with XCP-ng instead of Proxmox. I have the option of using either passthru or E1000 virtual NICs but neither type resolves the issue. Cos it's on the XCP-ng hypervisor, I installed the bare metal hypervisor agnostic version. Any ideas?

[yaroslav (staff)]

Installing ISO in the VM is not the intended use case for StarWind Bare-metal installation.
You might need the right set of drivers.