Re: Question of installing over SAS controller and USB flash

On 11/10/2023 14:02, azathanai@icloud.com wrote:
> Hey Warner,
> the box is very featureLESS (an old Xyratex HS-1235T box, as far as I 
> researched it).
> T2029_QR v1.3.ai (hackspace.org.uk) 
> <https://wiki.london.hackspace.org.uk/w/images/b/b2/HS-1235T-ATX_Quick_Reference_Sheet.pdf>
> (5) Xyratex 0944037-03 Motherboard Mystery SOLVED : homelab (reddit.com) 
> <https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/comments/8loge6/xyratex_094403703_motherboard_mystery_solved/>
> 
> Through the POST process and the BIOS there is no option to get into the 
> SAS controller and enable its BIOS. I would love to install FreeBSD 
> directly on the drives and not to deal with the flash card, but I 
> suppose the lack of controller BIOS is the reason the box comes with 
> reader and card directly.

[..]

This depends on at what stage the computer starts to see the disk behind 
the SAS controller. I had an old HP server that only saw one disk out of 
four in the BIOS, so it couldn't boot from RAIDZ, but it was enough to 
make a 10GB partition on each disk as a 4 way ZFS mirror, boot from that 
and use the rest of each disk for the main RAIDZ storage (4x 8TB).

Maybe it would have been enough to use a USB flash drive for the 
freebsd-boot partition in GPT scheme and then continue boot from the 
disks on the SAS controller.

gpart create -s GPT da0
gpart bootcode -b /boot/pmbr da0
gpart add -b 40 -s 512 -t freebsd-boot da0
gpart bootcode -p /boot/zfsgptboot -i 1 da0

As long as the computer boots from the installer CD, FreeBSD with RAIDZ 
can be installed on the disks behind the SAS controller without any 
modification, only the USB flash drive must provide the boot.

If the USB flash drive must also contain a UFS /boot partition, then 
copy an image that can be downloaded from the web as a "mini-memstick" 
to the USB flash drive
https://www.freebsd.org/releases/13.2R/announce/ (use dd according to 
the instructions)
Or again, create a complete installation from the FreeBSD installer on 
the USB flash drive.

But the installation to big drives with RAIDZ should be done normally 
from the FreeBSD installer. No modifications needed.

Kind regards
Miroslav Lachman