Hello,
Is anyone else having trouble with newer editions of FreeNAS that use the BSD boot loader?
I've done some searches, and some of the problems people seem to be having with the BSD boot loader may be related to USB sticks, but this does not apply to my case.
I recently upgraded a FreeNAS system which I manage with the following specs:
Dell R620 (updated to latest firmware, as of the beginning of July, system is 2014 era)
Avago/LSI 9300-8E SAS Controller
SuperMicro 90 Bay JBOD
Internal Perc Controller, Mirrored SSD drives as boot volume ONLY
It went from the 11.1 stream to 11.2 and with it of course came the change from grub to the BSD boot loader.
The upgrade appears to work well, but only on subsequent reboots (once the GRUB loader is replaced) does the problem emerge.
What I get is this:
It has no trouble discovering my boot volume (freenas-boot) but this is as far as it gets.
(I did try some debugging with 'ls' at this point - it would complain about "too many files open", but I did not obtain a screenshot - I can provide this later if needed...)
There is however, a work around. If I power everything off, and then only start the server (but not the SuperMicro enclosure) the boot loader works and the system starts!
So what I've been having to do to get this thing to fire up properly, is turn on the SuperMicro enclosure at the FreeNAS boot screen, after all the normally BIOS initialisation. I then leave it for a few minutes for enclosure to initialise.
This happens if I use the EFI or MBR boot loader. I have tried both and I have tried re-installing a few times (I have a config backup.)
Once FreeNAS has successfully finished booting, everything functions as normal.
Out of curiosity, I thought I would then try to replicate a similar situation in ESXi (6.7) as the system above is in production and it can be difficult to find the right time slot for debugging.
I installed a 11.1-U7 system with a boot disk and a SINGLE data disk, just for testing. This worked fine, until I upgraded to 11.2-U5.
Upon starting, the boot loader gets stuck:
Now, if I disconnect the datadisk and reboot - voila! It boots without any difficulty...
It's tempting to ask ... What am I doing wrong?
But maybe some sort of work-around to stop the FreeBSD boot loader from "seeing" other non-boot volumes would be acceptable?
Regards,
Daniel
Is anyone else having trouble with newer editions of FreeNAS that use the BSD boot loader?
I've done some searches, and some of the problems people seem to be having with the BSD boot loader may be related to USB sticks, but this does not apply to my case.
I recently upgraded a FreeNAS system which I manage with the following specs:
Dell R620 (updated to latest firmware, as of the beginning of July, system is 2014 era)
Avago/LSI 9300-8E SAS Controller
SuperMicro 90 Bay JBOD
Internal Perc Controller, Mirrored SSD drives as boot volume ONLY
It went from the 11.1 stream to 11.2 and with it of course came the change from grub to the BSD boot loader.
The upgrade appears to work well, but only on subsequent reboots (once the GRUB loader is replaced) does the problem emerge.
What I get is this:
It has no trouble discovering my boot volume (freenas-boot) but this is as far as it gets.
(I did try some debugging with 'ls' at this point - it would complain about "too many files open", but I did not obtain a screenshot - I can provide this later if needed...)
There is however, a work around. If I power everything off, and then only start the server (but not the SuperMicro enclosure) the boot loader works and the system starts!
So what I've been having to do to get this thing to fire up properly, is turn on the SuperMicro enclosure at the FreeNAS boot screen, after all the normally BIOS initialisation. I then leave it for a few minutes for enclosure to initialise.
This happens if I use the EFI or MBR boot loader. I have tried both and I have tried re-installing a few times (I have a config backup.)
Once FreeNAS has successfully finished booting, everything functions as normal.
Out of curiosity, I thought I would then try to replicate a similar situation in ESXi (6.7) as the system above is in production and it can be difficult to find the right time slot for debugging.
I installed a 11.1-U7 system with a boot disk and a SINGLE data disk, just for testing. This worked fine, until I upgraded to 11.2-U5.
Upon starting, the boot loader gets stuck:
Now, if I disconnect the datadisk and reboot - voila! It boots without any difficulty...
It's tempting to ask ... What am I doing wrong?
But maybe some sort of work-around to stop the FreeBSD boot loader from "seeing" other non-boot volumes would be acceptable?
Regards,
Daniel
