[WORKAROUND] problems updating to 19.1 on a Freebsd 12p3 bhyve VM

[_Raúl_]

This is my first post here so first things first, thanks a lot to everyone that makes opnsense possible.

I've read on release notes that is a known error on uefi / bhyve and it is under investigation. I use it with bhyveload instead uefi and it hangs booting after update to 19.1, probably related. I've looked for several days, threads, tweets ... without success, where can I find the progress on this situation?

Thanks a lot in advance.

[lattera]

If you're using FreeBSD as the host, make sure you're passing in the -w option to ignore unimplemented MSRs.

[franco]

I did test 12.0-p3 yesterday with this script https://github.com/opnsense/tools/blob/master/build/boot.sh#L43-L51 and whatever this is some people are seeing it's not a general issue with 19.1 or 11.2 as this boots fine.

Any help with providing the steps to reproduce is highly appreciated.


Cheers,
Franco

[lattera]

In this particular case, it's because we at HardenedBSD ported over a cool security feature from OpenBSD: disabling a specific Intel backdoor called Intel SDBG. We have to toggle a not-well-known MSR that FreeBSD's bhyve freaks out on. We implemented a workaround in HardenedBSD's bhyve that FreeBSD refuses to import upstream, though they initially promised they would.

[franco]

But why did it not freak in my test?

[lattera]

Were you already passing in the -w option? How were you booting opnsense 19.1 in bhyve?

[franco]

*click* https://github.com/opnsense/tools/blob/master/build/boot.sh#L43-L51

[lattera]

Interesting. Perhaps it's not the Intel SDBG disable, then. Lemme double-check a few things and I'll get back to you soon-ish. Probably around a week or so.

[franco]

ok, thanks <3

[_Raúl_]

If you're using FreeBSD as the host, make sure you're passing in the -w option to ignore unimplemented MSRs.

I use churchers/vm-bhyve to manage vm's. Looking at the sources, there is a config parameter called 'ignore_bad_msr' witch translates on that -w parameter. After adjust the config, log reports: [bhyve options: -c 4 -m 2G -AHPw .... it was '-AHP' before, without that 'w' you suggested .

Now it works here flawlessly. Thanks a lot!.

[sjorge]

I can also confirm '-w' works for opnsense 19.1.x and vanilla HBSD 11.
HBSD 12 does not need it, so I asume once opnsense is based on that we can drop it again.