Hi, All
Just a public service announcement for those of you interested in building a FreeNAS box using the latest Skylake architecture. Intel have made 2 decisions with the new architecture that are hostile to getting FreeNAS running as people expect to be able to.
Firstly, next gen boards include the new I219-V & I219-LM Gigabit Ethernet Chipset. My understanding is the "LM" are the server equivalent of the "V" consumer models.
FreeBSD has no drivers for this new chipset.
I have logged a feature request for supporting the new chipset, which is waiting on a new release of FreeBSD:
https://bugs.freenas.org/issues/12399
For now, you're going to have to buy an additional NIC.
The second problem is that skylake completely removes legacy EHCI support. What this means is that you will not be able to boot up off a USB Stick, period. This is not about plugging the stick into the black port rather than the blue port, even the "backwards-compatible" ports will be controlled through XHCI:
http://wccftech.com/intel-skylake-remove-support-usb-based-windows-7-installation-platform-specs/
This means that GRUB 2 will not be able to recognise the USB, even though your BIOS will be able to run GRUB at the outset.
I have logged this as a feature request as well
https://bugs.freenas.org/issues/12400
In the meantime you'll want some kind of internal drive for your operating system, if you're using Skylake (e.g. a SATA DOM).
Just a public service announcement for those of you interested in building a FreeNAS box using the latest Skylake architecture. Intel have made 2 decisions with the new architecture that are hostile to getting FreeNAS running as people expect to be able to.
Firstly, next gen boards include the new I219-V & I219-LM Gigabit Ethernet Chipset. My understanding is the "LM" are the server equivalent of the "V" consumer models.
FreeBSD has no drivers for this new chipset.
I have logged a feature request for supporting the new chipset, which is waiting on a new release of FreeBSD:
https://bugs.freenas.org/issues/12399
For now, you're going to have to buy an additional NIC.
The second problem is that skylake completely removes legacy EHCI support. What this means is that you will not be able to boot up off a USB Stick, period. This is not about plugging the stick into the black port rather than the blue port, even the "backwards-compatible" ports will be controlled through XHCI:
http://wccftech.com/intel-skylake-remove-support-usb-based-windows-7-installation-platform-specs/
This means that GRUB 2 will not be able to recognise the USB, even though your BIOS will be able to run GRUB at the outset.
I have logged this as a feature request as well
https://bugs.freenas.org/issues/12400
In the meantime you'll want some kind of internal drive for your operating system, if you're using Skylake (e.g. a SATA DOM).