FortiManager VM on KVM

[Joe_Kordish]

Curious if anyone has had any success getting the fortimanager vm to boot on KVM. Been playing around with it and it kernel panics at boot. -- No disks available Creating swapfile...Skipped Initialize file systems... New version: v5.0-build0121 130201 (GA Patch 1) initd (733) - error in blocking task (localnet, 92, exit - 255). initd (733) - error in blocking task (cmdb_shm_init, 155, signal - 11). [cmfinit.c:58] init_cmdb_app error initd (733) - error in blocking task (cmfinit, 157, exit - 255). cmdb_init.c, 434: init_cmdb_app error cmdb_init.c, 439: nCfg_init error Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init! Pid: 1, comm: initXXXXXXXXXXX Not tainted 2.6.36.3 #1 Call Trace: [<ffffffff80229a20>] ? 0xffffffff80229a20 [<ffffffff80372c81>] ? 0xffffffff80372c81 [<ffffffff80228d80>] ? 0xffffffff80228d80 [<ffffffff803b966a>] ? 0xffffffff803b966a [<ffffffff8022c3e0>] ? 0xffffffff8022c3e0 [<ffffffff8022c9da>] ? 0xffffffff8022c9da [<ffffffff80234ede>] ? 0xffffffff80234ede [<ffffffff80201dc8>] ? 0xffffffff80201dc8 [<ffffffff80260000>] ? 0xffffffff80260000 [<ffffffff80233678>] ? 0xffffffff80233678 [<ffffffff80233b51>] ? 0xffffffff80233b51 [<ffffffff8055b25a>] ? 0xffffffff8055b25a Rebooting in 5 seconds..

[SteveRoadWarrior]

Sorry, no experience doing it on KVM. VMWare ESXi is very stable though. Looks like the VM is having trouble accessing its disk, so if there are any options to dumb down the disk controller you might try that (disable any paravirtualization, etc).

[Joe_Kordish]

Attempting straight binary emulation doesn' t work. Is there a way to drop to a shell (maybe busybox) from within a running manager?

[SteveRoadWarrior]

There is a CLI provided but there is no provision for a full shell. The CLI allows programming of Interfaces, IP, etc enough to get the system to where you can log in via web portal.

[Joe_Kordish]

Had a bit more time to play with this. Changed the devices to IDE on VMware Workstation and it still boots just fine which leads me to believe this isn' t an disk controller issue. Think there is something within the fortinet init that must be expecting something that I' m not presenting. It is really hard to debug the VM though since I can' t reach a shell.

[Dave_Hall]

Maybe check the " FortiManager-VM.ovf" file for the disk image(s), disk format, or comptroller type it is expecting.

[lindblom]

I' ve also tried this, but with no dice... Upvote for fortimanager on kvm!

[Adrian_Lewis]

Would have thought that it' s likely to do with the NIC drivers as they' re VmxNet3 ones. Have tried on Xen as well with no joy but not to any great level of debugging.

[Adrian_Lewis]

Joe, Stefan, I' m trying to get some traction within Fortinet for supporting KVM as a supported hypervisor for the FortiManager product. Are you able to make enquiries at the same time? If you work for a reseller/integrator you should know who to ask. If you' re an end-user customer, please see if you can get your wishes heard through your Fortinet partner. Feature requests are rarely implemented without customer demand so if Fortinet are aware that there is demand from existing or potential customers, the implementation priority can change dramatically. As far as I can tell, requests for KVM support have so far been very limited so even a couple more requests would help. If anyone else reading this also has a requirement for KVM support, please make sure that you ask. Unless Fortinet can quantify customer demand, it is very unlikely that this will be implemented in the near future. If they don' t know it' s wanted, they won' t pay it much attention. Cheers, Adrian

[Adrian_Lewis]

I don' t think the failure to boot disk related either to be honest. If you delete the data disk from the VMware version it still boots. The first error that both Joe and I get is related to the initd localnet script which tries to bring up and configure all network interfaces. This then leads to a problem with the cmdb_shm_init which I assume is due to the failure of setting up any network interfaces. Latest Qemu can emulate vmxnet3 nic hardware but haven' t tried it yet. Hopefully, if Fortinet can pop in the virtio drivers, that' s all that would be required. Still not been able to get the second disk to mount - perhaps again the drivers are specifically for VMware emulated hw but not much use continuing until we can get the VM to boot properly (if at all possible).