zfs-Windows-arm64

[lundman]

So I installed Windows 11 for ARM64 on my macmini M2 under Fusion, and it does work rather well. I did the work to the code and build environment to create an ARM64 build of OpenZFS.

I wanted to try it, but obviously chances of it just working first attempt is rather unlikely, so I set up Kernel Debugging, which is now available for ARM64 in the latest WDK. I can configure the target VM without issues.

But then the good times came to an abrupt halt.

My best guess is that my Fusion VM is set up with a vmxnet3 NIC, which the Kernel Debugger takes over (as is expected), and it uses it to enter promisc and send a bunch of RAW packets.

This sort of happens, in that my vmxnet3 NIC is listed in DeviceManager as controlled by the Debugger.

The Debugger is also meant to create a virtual NIC for the OS to have networking still, called "Microsoft Kernel Debug Network Adapter". I do not get this, so Windows has no networking.

kdnet points out that things go wrong with:

KDNET transport initialization failed during a previous boot.  Status = 0xC000000E.
NIC hardware initialization failed.
KDNET did not successfully receive any packets during init.
KDNET did not successfully send any packets during init.

Most likely because it is trying to send RAW packets, and promisc on etc, and vmware vmxnet3 does not let that happen.

It's a somewhat common technique to change the NIC from vmxnet3 to e1000, which will get your RAW network in the VM. However, I can not find any Intel E1000 ARM64 drivers, they most likely do not exist.

So I am at an impasse here, Broadcom could fix the vmxnet3 driver, but that seems unlikely. Someone could compile E1000 for ARM64, but porting ancient hardware isn't all that fun.

It probably would just work if it was on hardware, and not in a Fusion VM, but I only have one development PC lying around.

I'll put it on the TODO list for later.

[sskras]

Time to try QEMU via UTM in the meantime?

[lundman]

Yeah but it can't do snapshots, so I can't rollback each time I try the driver, that's almost worse :)

[sskras]

Tips about / tools for getting ISO files of different releases of Windows 11: utmapp/UTM#5324

[lundman]

Loading it manually without kernel debugger:

But BSOD when trying to create a pool.