Install of FreeNAS 9.2.0 stuck in reboot loop

[EricKerby]

I have been running 9.1.1 from an 8GB flash drive since August without any issues. My system is a 64bit AMD Athlon Dual Core 4850e, 8GB RAM, with two 1 gigabit Ethernet NIC's. I attempted a GUI upgrade to 9.2.0. The system boots FreeNAS and brings the ZFS pool online, but when it is configuring the network interfaces (one is connected to a DHCP-enabled network and the other is connected to a static-IP private LAN) the system reboots. This goes on continuously until I manually turn off the system.

I then tried a clean install of 9.2.0 on both the previously-working flash drive and another 4GB flash drive. In both cases, I see the same symptoms...a reboot loop when or just after configuring the network devices. I then performed a clean install of 9.1.1, and got back to a properly working configuration without any issues. What changed in 9.2.0 that may cause this reboot loop on a system that works perfectly fine with 9.1.1?

 

[cyberjock]

Can you post your hardware specs? My first guess is you aren't using Intel NICs and a driver update has made the NICs no longer compatible with FreeNAS.

 

[deastick]

same problem for me, but mine is a new-clean install. 4Gb usb stick. based on the FreeBSD boot sequence, I can see that it gets an ip addr via dhclient, then starts up some daemon's and once it hits ntpd (or somewhere around there) it reboots. every time.

 

[dlavigne]

Which NIC driver is probed at boottime? (e.g. em0, rl0, something like that).

 

[deastick]

Re0 realtek on the mobo I guess.

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[deastick]

FYI. Mine is not an upgrade. New install, although I have used freeBSD since release 3.2.

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[deastick]

sorry for not including the specs. I should have known better.

mobo - ASUS M2A-VM
ram - 2 Gb.
usb key with FreeNas - 8 Gb.
sata 1 drive WDC WD1600AAJS-0 (160 GB)
sata 2 drive ST31000528AS (1 TB)
CPU athlon 64 X2 dual core processor 5200+. speed 2700 Mhz, cache RAM 512x2
onboard LAN appears to be using the re0 driver

this system was a WinXP desktop system for the family about 3 years, and I'd like to make the 1TB drive a NAS for media. Wondering if I should get a PCI-based gigabit ethernet adapter since the Realtek is not recommended.

any help appreciated.

any more h/w/ specs I'd have to figure out how to capture a dmesg output, or at least pause it.

 

[deastick]

hmmm. coulda sworn this cpu was 32bit. I see it is 64-bit. I'm gonna download the 64bit version of FreeNAS and give that a try instead

 

[deastick]

64-bit gives same problem. reboots endlessly after starting ntpd. I confirm that the probe for network interfaces gives re0 and it gets an ip address that makes sense to me, and the valid gateway for my home network.

 

[DJ9]

What could possibly go wrong with these hardware specs.

 

[deastick]

Lol. Yeah, I'm not kidding, I thought I'd give it a try to serve dlna of media. I don't care about loss of torrented TV shows that the kids downloaded.

FYI, I'm trying a basic install of freebsd 9.2 right now.

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[deastick]

oh I wasn't complaining. I was asking.

FYI - update. Installed FreeBSD 9.2-RELEASE on the 160 GB disk. dhclient would not grab an ip address (which is kinda freakin weird), so I did a assigned a static ip address. successfully ftp'd a few .txz RELEASE files from ftp.freebsd.org and nothing has barfed yet.

So, (assuming I am a glutton for punishment), how can I assign a manual static IP address to re0 during setup of FreeNAS booting from USB? Again, I know I'm asking for trouble, but how would one do that?

(and, yes I now considering a rack-mount server mobo with recommended hardware. I do thank everyone for the work they have put into the recommendations, even though I'm the idiot that thought on xmas day it would be an interesting thing to play with).

 

[deastick]

Screw it. Ill give up on that hardware. I turned on minidlna on my freebsd rackmount and I'll put the big drive into that box. Thanks for the input, now back to your regularly scheduled program.


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[EricKerby]

Sorry for the delayed response, but here are some specs for my hardware:

My 2 NIC's:

re0@pci0:3:0:0: class=0x020000 card=0xe0001458 chip=0x816810ec rev=0x01 hdr=0x00
vendor = 'Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.'
device = 'RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller'
class = network
subclass = ethernet
re1@pci0:4:7:0: class=0x020000 card=0x816910ec chip=0x816910ec rev=0x10 hdr=0x00
vendor = 'Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.'
device = 'RTL-8169 Gigabit Ethernet'
class = network
subclass = ethernet

The motherboard is: GIGABYTE GA-MA770-S3 with 8GB of RAM and a AMD Athlon X2 4850e 2.5GHz dual core CPU.

I understand that Realtek NIC's are not highly recommended, but they have worked fine with previous 8.x and 9.1 versions of FreeNAS. Let me know if any further information would be helpful.

 

[EricKerby]

So, if this is an incompatibility with one or both of my Realtek chipsets, is it normal for FreeNAS to enter a reboot loop like this?

If there's no hope for my current hardware working with 9.2.0, I imagine my best bet would be to spring for a couple Intel NIC's (such as the Intel EXPI9301CTBLK) for better support?

 

[cyberjock]

So, if this is an incompatibility with one or both of my Realtek chipsets, is it normal for FreeNAS to enter a reboot loop like this?

If there's no hope for my current hardware working with 9.2.0, I imagine my best bet would be to spring for a couple Intel NIC's (such as the Intel EXPI9301CTBLK) for better support?

There is no "normal" with Realteks. Hence we don't recommend them.

What is "normal" for Intel NICs is for them to work flawless and out of the box.

 

[EricKerby]

I purchased and installed two Intel EXPI9301CTBLK NIC's, removed the Realtek PCI NIC, and disabled the other (integrated onboard) Realtek NIC in the BIOS. Now I still run into the exact same issue when attempting to boot FreeNAS 9.2.0.

Here is the final text I see on the console log before the screen goes black and the system reboots:

Since my network cards do not seem to be the issue, what else could be causing this failure?

 

[cyberjock]

Check for BIOS updates. I know AMD based boards have had weird unexplained issues for some people.

Some boards don't do a particularly thorough job of disabling stuff when you disable it in the BIOS. Not sure if that's your problem.

Unfortunately, I don't have any 100% answers. It's very much a try stuff and see how it goes.

You could try installing FreeNAS 9.2.0 on a new USB stick and booting to see if it even boots up with the default config.

 

[EricKerby]

You could try installing FreeNAS 9.2.0 on a new USB stick and booting to see if it even boots up with the default config.

When my initial experience with GUI-upgrading my existing 9.1.1 install to 9.2.0 ran into these reboot issues, I have since only been testing with clean 9.2.0 USB sticks. A clean version of 9.1.1 boots fine (as I found out when recovering from my 9.2.0 issues), but a clean version of 9.2.0 results in the described reboots.

Any idea what is happening in the boot sequence following the "Updating motd" message? Perhaps whatever the next step is could be the cause.

I'll try checking for BIOS updates as well just in case.

 

[cyberjock]

The next thing that loads on my machine after updating motd is starting ntpd. That is a network using service, but I don't think it gets to the part where it starts because I think that it says 'starting' before it actually starts the ntpd service.

How long have you given it for new installs when booting? I know that new installs take a bit longer than normal to boot up. But if you waited more than 10 minutes or so then you definitely waited long enough.