[SOLVED] AOC-S3008L-L8e stuck at installation

[Pippo1993]

Goodmorning,

i've recently buy a Supermicro server X10DRi-T4 and i've purcase an AOC-S3008L-L8e for TrueNAS13.
That controller is in passthrough mode in esxi.
When i install TrueNAS or try to boot same machine with TrueNAS already installed the machine stuck on this:

I've flashed the controller in many release. Now it is in the current state:

Please, there is someone can help me about this?

Thank you
Carlo

 

[jgreco]

Does it work on the bare metal?

"Absolutely must virtualize FreeNAS!" ... a guide to not completely losing your data.

[---- 2018/02/27: This is still as relevant as ever. As PCIe-Passthru has matured, fewer problems are reported. I've updated some specific things known to be problematic ----] [---- 2014/12/24: Note, there is another post discussing how to deploy a small FreeNAS VM instance for basic file...

www.truenas.com

 

[Pippo1993]

Yes, if i install it without Esxi it works. It can be an esxi problem?

 

[jgreco]

Yes, if i install it without Esxi it works. It can be an esxi problem?

Of course it can be an ESXi problem. It can also be a mainboard problem or a variety of other things. The very first paragraph of my post on virtualizing is

[---- 2018/02/27: This is still as relevant as ever. As PCIe-Passthru has matured, fewer problems are reported. I've updated some specific things known to be problematic ----]

"Fewer problems are reported". The problem is that this is not the same as "No problems are reported", there were a number of X9 boards that weren't quite stable with passthru, and some X10's have been reported as problematic as well. Now it is entirely possible that there is a workaround of some sort, but not having worked with this particular board, I don't know.

 

[Pippo1993]

How can i verify that?
It is possible that Esxi v 6.0 is better than Esxi v. 6.5/6.7, in this case?

 

[jgreco]

You can try, but I wouldn't be particularly hopeful. VMware is supported by their enterprise licensing fees, which means that they have a lot of money to throw at development and bugfixes, and in most cases I would expect ESXi 6.7 or 7 to work better than ESXi 6.

 

[ChrisRJ]

"Fewer problems are reported". The problem is that this is not the same as "No problems are reported", there were a number of X9 boards that weren't quite stable with passthru [..]

Do you happen to know how the X9SRi-F is doing here?

 

[Pippo1993]

Now i've Esxi 6.7 and seems that the passthru not work.

 

[jgreco]

Do you happen to know how the X9SRi-F is doing here?

Not offhand, sorry. The general thing I've noticed is that it tends to be the boards with more fancy addons and doodads that have problems, some of which have turned out to be related to BIOS settings for those devices. My nonthorough and nonscientific speculation is that Supermicro's BIOS customizations for these boards may be resulting in quirky PCI chipset setups that aren't quite compatible; remember that when you're putting complex software like TrueNAS on top of also-complex software like ESXi, you are essentially creating a house of cards sitting on another house of cards. It only takes one thing to be off kilter.

That said, one other thing to remember is that with the advent of TrueNAS SCALE, you do have the option to try changing one of those houses of cards. If TrueNAS SCALE won't work, try TrueNAS Core. And vice versa. If you are virtualizing TrueNAS anyways, then the difference in virtualization server stacks (KVM vs bhyve) between the two products is irrelevant, and while jails and containers are also somewhat different, it's likely you can get your work done either way.

 

[Pippo1993]

Not offhand, sorry. The general thing I've noticed is that it tends to be the boards with more fancy addons and doodads that have problems, some of which have turned out to be related to BIOS settings for those devices. My nonthorough and nonscientific speculation is that Supermicro's BIOS customizations for these boards may be resulting in quirky PCI chipset setups that aren't quite compatible; remember that when you're putting complex software like TrueNAS on top of also-complex software like ESXi, you are essentially creating a house of cards sitting on another house of cards. It only takes one thing to be off kilter.

That said, one other thing to remember is that with the advent of TrueNAS SCALE, you do have the option to try changing one of those houses of cards. If TrueNAS SCALE won't work, try TrueNAS Core. And vice versa. If you are virtualizing TrueNAS anyways, then the difference in virtualization server stacks (KVM vs bhyve) between the two products is irrelevant, and while jails and containers are also somewhat different, it's likely you can get your work done either way.

TrueNAS SCALE is an alternative of VMWare ESXi?

 

[ChrisRJ]

Depends on how you define "alternative". Technically there is a significant difference. XCP-NG or Proxmox are much closer to ESXi than TrueNAS Scale.

I am a big fan of looking at the use-case, however. If, and only if, what you want to do fits nicely with Scale's capabilities, why not. But don't expect Scale to be some drop-in replacement for ESXi.

 

[jgreco]

TrueNAS SCALE is an alternative of VMWare ESXi?

In the same sort of sense that a pickup truck is an alternative to a freight train, maybe.

The point was that you can try TrueNAS SCALE on top of ESXi and see if that works any better.

 

[Pippo1993]

I've resolved!!! There was a flag in the BIOS that was deactivated. Now TrueNAS it's working!!

Thank you at all!!

 

[jgreco]

I've resolved!!! There was a flag in the BIOS that was deactivated. Now TrueNAS it's working!!

Thank you at all!!

Do you recall what it was, offhand? This is consistent with stuff that's happened to other people in the past with BIOS options for specialty hardware, which kinda sucks. I should probably see if I can generate a list, but I don't get much feedback about these things, so it's a bit difficult.

 

[Pippo1993]

Do you recall what it was, offhand? This is consistent with stuff that's happened to other people in the past with BIOS options for specialty hardware, which kinda sucks. I should probably see if I can generate a list, but I don't get much feedback about these things, so it's a bit difficult.

Yes, sure!
Inside the PCI-e configuration panel i've enabled the SR-IOV function.
Easier said that done xD