Problems installing 9.3

[Glorious1]

I've had trouble getting 9.3 installed. 9.2 installed no problem, but the new installation method is apparently problematic for me.

First, there are several errors in the 9.3 User Guide re Mac OS X. It suggests downloading the sha256.txt file and checking it with
shasum -a 256 name_of_file.sha256.txt
Two problems with the hash checking:

1. The command above results in the checksum of the text file, not the iso file. The correct command for comparing the two in Mac OS X should be:
shasum -a 256 -c name_of_file.sha256.txt

2. The sha256.txt file is not properly formatted, at least for the Mac version of shasum. It contains
SHA256 (FreeNAS-9.3-RELEASE.iso) = <hash>
but needs to be
<hash> FreeNAS-9.3-RELEASE.iso
(with two spaces between the hash and filename).

OK, after working through that, and verifying the hash, I've written it to two USB drives several times (using the command in the User Guide):
dd if=FreeNAS-9.3-RELEASE.iso of=/dev/disk3 bs=64k
and tried booting with it many times. The USB didn't show up in the boot menu at all.

Has anyone successfully created a bootable USB of the 9.3 installer using the procedure in the guide? I would appreciate any pointers.

 

[Glorious1]

I made some progress with this that hopefully will help someone help me. I found that, although my installer USB stick is not in the boot menus, if I go into the BIOS menu,
Boot > USB Device BBS Priorities
I see both USB sticks in there (the installer and the FreeNAS OS stick). There I can set the installer stick as Boot Option #1, and the OS stick drops to Boot Option #2.

Problem is , then ONLY the installer stick shows up, not only in the boot menus, but more importantly, in the options available in the FreeNAS Installer menu. In other words, Catch 22, I can get into and boot the installer, but then I can't see the OS stick I want to install to.

Can this board (SuperMicro A1SRi-2758F) only recognize one USB stick at a time? Need some sage advice here.

 

[dlavigne]

That's possible. In this case, you can still use upgrade to 9.3 using the instructions at
http://olddoc.freenas.org/index.php/Upgrading_FreeNAS®#Using_the_GUI_to_Upgrade.

I'll fix the instructions for the hash command in the docs.

 

[Glorious1]

For a fresh install, the solution, in my case, was to put both the installer stick and the FreeNAS OS target stick into USB 2.0 ports. Once installed and with FreeNAS running, I could enable USB 3.0 in Tunables (xhci_load, YES), shut down, and move the OS stick to the internal USB 3.0 port.

Doesn't sound so complicated when I write it out like that, but man did I try a lot of stuff and pull a lot of hair out before figuring it out! I understand the decision to disable USB 3 by default was a tough one, and I don't understand all the arguments, but it sure made my installation a bit rough (although it was aggravated by some weirdities of how my BIOS handles USB devices).

I was trying to figure out how to enable it during the boot process. There is a place where you can type "c" or "e" to get into various kinds of text input. In which one could you enter the xhci_load command? And would it be xhci_load=1 or xhci_load="YES"?

 

[dlavigne]

I think it should be set kFreeBSD.xhci_load=YES . Can someone with a system with USB3 ports confirm if is this is correct? Once we get the correct instructions, they can be added to the docs.

 

[Adam Baxter]

kFreeBSD.xhci_load=YES

didn't work for me, at least passing it in GRUB2 had no effect.

kldload xhci.ko in the installer shell allowed me to install to a USB3 drive, then
kfreebsd_module_elf /ROOT/default/@/boot/kernel/xhci.ko in the GRUB boot options allowed me to boot from it. Not sure how to make it permanent yet.

My board is a SuperMicro A1SRi-2758F

 

[Jailer]

Why not just use your IPMI interface to mount the iso and install to usb?

 

[Adam Baxter]

Why not just use your IPMI interface to mount the iso and install to usb?

That's what I did, but initially the USB3 port wasn't showing up.