Re: Question of installing over SAS controller and USB flash

There's not a FreeBSD port/pkg for lsiutil, but I'ved used it at $WORK for
things.

https://github.com/thomaslovell/LSIUtil

has an archive of sources. I've not used this at all, and it hasn't been
ported to FreeBSD in this repo.
But I know it allows one to turn on/off the POST / BIOS in the card, which
is what you need.  It runs
under Linux for sure (again, don't know what packages are available there).
I don't think I can share
what I have for $WORK with the public since I think we got it in a way that
doesn't let me disclose the
sources.

One might also be able move the code lsiutil that enables it to mpsutil.
It's going to be sending a raw
command to the device. It shouldn't be too hard....

Warner

On Wed, Oct 11, 2023 at 6:02 AM azathanai@icloud.com <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.
>
> As I'm new to FreeBSD and ZFS I'm struggling to set up the partitioning. I
> was thinking to:
>
>    1. Partition the entire FLASH card (4gigs) on MBR with freebsd-ufs and
>    mount /boot. As I've read there should not be ESP (efi) partition as this
>    is flash, thus MBR, which is "legacy" and without ESP.
>    2. Partition one of the drives (3tera) with GPT, freebsd-zfs stripe
>    and mount /
>    3. When the system is up and running, add the rest of the drives (11
>    more) to the pool and change the pool to RAIDZ2. However I'm not sure this
>    is possible, to change the type of the pool without erasing everything.
>    Logical thinking says it is not possible.
>    4. After all of these comes the mounting of filesystems and creating
>    fstab to continue the installation, which is full darkness at the moment,
>    as I'm still struggling with the initial start and not have read anything
>    on that.
>
>
> All of these should be done in shell with the gpart utility during install
> and I cannot figure out, how to make points 2 and 3 on one go having
> directly the RAIDZ2.
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* owner-freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org <
> owner-freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org> on behalf of Warner Losh <
> imp@bsdimp.com>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, October 11, 2023 00:20
> *To:* azathanai@icloud.com <azathanai@icloud.com>
> *Cc:* freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.org <freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org>
> *Subject:* Re: Question of installing over SAS controller and USB flash
>
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 10, 2023 at 2:36 PM azathanai@icloud.com <azathanai@icloud.com>
> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
> a newbie in FreeBSD here trying to install a RAIDZ2 on a server with mps
> SAS controller with drives which are not visible in the boot order in BIOS.
> So, I cannot install directly on the drives, despite that the installer
> "sees" them, because the BIOS does not see the controller and its drives as
> option.
>
>
> Have you enabled the BIOS on the mps card itself? Otherwise it won't
> install a BIOS fragment to run at boot, and the drives won't be seen.
>
> On the other hand, I have a card reader with a flash card on it (4gigs)
> from which I can boot and where I can have my /boot partition with the
> kernel.
> I've a lot of questions and I still cannot find the answers to most of
> them, despite going through the handbook, the boot process explanation, the
> installation process handbook and a lot of more reading.
>
>
>    - How should the flash card be partitioned and with what mountpoints?
>    The server is BIOS capable.
>    - How should the rest of the drives be partitioned with ZFS and the
>    mountpoints? The standard configuration from the installer on RAIDZ2 is
>    good for me.
>
> I've experience with Linux but is not helping a lot here. The setup looks
> quite different .... probably because of the ZFS.
>
> Any help, links, ideas and comments will be much appreciated!
>
>
> That's a workaround, but you should be able to enable the BIOS part of the
> mps/mpr cards and boot off them. I've done that before.
>
> Warner
>
>
>
> Cyberly yours,
> deragoth
>
>
>