How to add multiple virtual hard drive to a StandaloneHVM

[Lem Ming]

Hi all,

I am new to Qubes OS. I would like to use StandaloneHVM to virtualize FreeNAS fo
r learning purpose. I am looking for a way to add many virtual hard drive to the VM so I can to play and learn about ZFS.

How do I add multiple virtual hard drive to a StandaloneHVM?

Kind regards,
Lem

[Emily Andes]

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.
I'm sure there's a better/more straightforward way to do this, but off-
hand the two methods I know would be creating partitions either during
installation, or via live usb after installation. I don't have
particular experience with FreeNAS, but most modern installation
processes have the ability to create multiple partitions during
installation. Either way, start off with your choice of size of private
memory cumulatively, then partition as necessary. To do via live OS
which was my initial instinct use:

qvm-start --cdrom=$BlockorisoID $VMNAME
ie, qvm-start --cdrom=sys-usb:1.5-4 FreeNAS

Then use your choice of fdisk/parted/gparted/etc.
Make sure the iso is available as a block, or if you're willing to
accept the risk of USB passthrough, or trying to directly load through
another VM.
If you need to check available devices use qvm-device or derivatives.

Let me know if you have any questions about this, or I'm always
appreciative of learning more efficient manners of task completion if
someone has a more efficient way to do this.

Granted, you could also just attach them with qvm-device and label it
as persistent, so I guess in writing my response I may have found a
more efficient way to technically accomplish this, but using partitions
as opposed to additional persistent block devices just feels a lot more
proper to me. Less overlap of VMs.

--
Cordially,

Emlay
She/Her/Hers

[rambo...@gmail.com]

Hello Emily,

The reason I was specifying virtual hard drives and not partitions, is because ZFS can be more than just a file system sitting in a single partition. ZFS usually sits on the top of many hard drives and can organize them in many layouts (many acting like raid and more) for a vast variety of needs and specifications. Not knowing much about ZFS let alone the many functionalities it offers, I am trying to reproduce a virtual file server containing many hard drives so I can play around with different layouts and learn from it.

In VirtualBox, it is fairly straightforward to add new virtual hard drives to a VM when needed. I'm trying to do the same thing for a StandaloneHVM, but I have not found how to do that yet.

How can I simulate a file server containing many hard drives in Qubes?

--
Kind regards
Lem

On Wednesday, 10 June 2020 23:56:08 UTC-4, Emily wrote:

-----Original Message-----
From: Lem Ming <rambo...@gmail.com>
To: qubes-users <qubes...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [qubes-users] How to add multiple virtual hard drive to a
StandaloneHVM
Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2020 16:58:08 -0700 (PDT)

Hi all,

I am new to Qubes OS. I would like to use StandaloneHVM to virtualize
FreeNAS fo
r learning purpose. I am looking for a way to add many virtual hard
drive to the VM so I can to play and learn about ZFS.

How do I add multiple virtual hard drive to a StandaloneHVM?

Kind regards,
Lem
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[sysad.andes]

-------- Original message --------

From: rambo...@gmail.com

Date: 6/11/20 01:28 (GMT-05:00)

To: qubes-users <qubes...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: [qubes-users] How to add multiple virtual hard drive to a StandaloneHVM

Hello Emily,

The reason I was specifying virtual hard drives and not partitions, is because ZFS can be more than just a file system sitting in a single partition. ZFS usually sits on the top of many hard drives and can organize them in many layouts (many acting like raid and more) for a vast variety of needs and specifications. Not knowing much about ZFS let alone the many functionalities it offers, I am trying to reproduce a virtual file server containing many hard drives so I can play around with different layouts and learn from it.

In VirtualBox, it is fairly straightforward to add new virtual hard drives to a VM when needed. I'm trying to do the same thing for a StandaloneHVM, but I have not found how to do that yet.

How can I simulate a file server containing many hard drives in Qubes?

--
Kind regards
Lem

>>Sorry, took a minute to step back from gut response. From dom0  Use lvdisplay to check necessary settings for your specific VM and lvcreate to make the the hard drives, let me know if you need more specifics, and I'll reply when I'm more awake. This will be more involved, but will probably be as close as you get to do what you're asking.

>>But also, the difference between partitions and hard disks is somewhat negligible in a fully virtualized system.

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[dhorf-hfre...@hashmail.org]

On Wed, Jun 10, 2020 at 10:28:22PM -0700, rambo...@gmail.com wrote:

please dont top-post here.

> The reason I was specifying virtual hard drives and not partitions, is

...

> functionalities it offers, I am trying to reproduce a virtual file server
> containing many hard drives so I can play around with different layouts and
> learn from it.

for the purpose of "learning zfs" it should not matter where the block
devices come from.
anything from physical devices, partitions, logical volumes or even
loopbacks should be the same for most practical purposes.

> In VirtualBox, it is fairly straightforward to add new virtual hard drives
> to a VM when needed. I'm trying to do the same thing for a StandaloneHVM,
> but I have not found how to do that yet.

just add them with qvm-block (or the device widget).

if the actual question is how to create/manage devices under linux,
consult the manpages for "losetup" and/or "lvcreate" and/or "fdisk".

[Lem Ming]

Thank you Emily and dhorf-hfr...@hashmail.org for your useful information. I learned quite a bit more about Qubes OS and ZFS.