Dell M600 Blade: 6.4 works, 7.x and 8.x fail to boot
Peter Beckman
I've got two FreeBSD 6.2 instances installed on two M600 blades, and am
moving to a new datacenter with M600 blades and trying to install FreeBSD
7.2 or 8. But as others on this list and elsewhere have mentioned,
seemingly without resolution, is that it doesn't work.
http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-hackers/2009-July/029147.html
http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=486
I was able to install 6.4 on it today, but I'm still at a loss as to why
7.x and even 8.x will not. Did the architecture change in such a way that
it could no longer support M600 blades? Did someone leave something out of
the standard ISO kernel? Am I not doing it right?
Happy to pass along my dmesg.boot; I'm not sure how to troubleshoot this,
or where to look for documentation that says something in the M600 is no
longer supported, or that what was supported in the M600 was changed that
now causes FreeBSD to hang instead of booting.
Beckman
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Beckman Internet Guy
bec...@angryox.com http://www.angryox.com/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________
freebsd...@freebsd.org mailing list
http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers
To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-hacke...@freebsd.org"
Thierry Herbelot
> I've been scratching my head all day on an issue that's been frustrating.
>
> I've got two FreeBSD 6.2 instances installed on two M600 blades, and am
> moving to a new datacenter with M600 blades and trying to install FreeBSD
> 7.2 or 8. But as others on this list and elsewhere have mentioned,
> seemingly without resolution, is that it doesn't work.
>
>
> http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-hackers/2009-July/029147.html
> http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=486
>
> I was able to install 6.4 on it today, but I'm still at a loss as to why
> 7.x and even 8.x will not. Did the architecture change in such a way that
> it could no longer support M600 blades? Did someone leave something out of
> the standard ISO kernel? Am I not doing it right?
>
> Happy to pass along my dmesg.boot;
Hello,
from the two URLs you provide, it seems that i386 is working (for all FreeBSD
versions) and only amd64 is failing : can you confirm this ?
then, one of the first steps would be a the dmesg of both a succeeding and a
failing kernels (verbose !)
TfH
PS : is there any more recent version of the Dell BIOS ?
Peter Beckman
> Le Friday 13 November 2009, Peter Beckman a écrit :
>> I've been scratching my head all day on an issue that's been frustrating.
>>
>> I've got two FreeBSD 6.2 instances installed on two M600 blades, and am
>> moving to a new datacenter with M600 blades and trying to install FreeBSD
>> 7.2 or 8. But as others on this list and elsewhere have mentioned,
>> seemingly without resolution, is that it doesn't work.
>>
>>
>> http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-hackers/2009-July/029147.html
>> http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=486
>>
>> I was able to install 6.4 on it today, but I'm still at a loss as to why
>> 7.x and even 8.x will not. Did the architecture change in such a way that
>> it could no longer support M600 blades? Did someone leave something out of
>> the standard ISO kernel? Am I not doing it right?
>>
>> Happy to pass along my dmesg.boot;
>
> from the two URLs you provide, it seems that i386 is working (for all FreeBSD
> versions) and only amd64 is failing : can you confirm this ?
>
> then, one of the first steps would be a the dmesg of both a succeeding and a
> failing kernels (verbose !)
I tried the bootonly ISOs for 7.x and 8.x, both amd64 and i386, all of
which fail to boot on the Dell M600.
I was able to boot the bootonly 6.4 ISO, install via the net, and a friend
suggested I try binary updating. I have been able to binary update to
7.0-RELEASE thus far. I'm trying to get to 8.0-RC3 via binary update now,
and will report back.
I believe the issue is not with FreeBSD but the bootonly ISO. It could
also be a problem with the other ISOs, I'm not yet sure.
> PS : is there any more recent version of the Dell BIOS ?
According to the iDRAC, the firmware 2.2.3 reported as installed is what
Dell reports as the latest version (August 2009).
Thierry Herbelot
> On Sat, 14 Nov 2009, Thierry Herbelot wrote:
> >> I've been scratching my head all day on an issue that's been
> >> frustrating.
> >>
> >> I've got two FreeBSD 6.2 instances installed on two M600 blades, and am
> >> moving to a new datacenter with M600 blades and trying to install
> >> FreeBSD 7.2 or 8. But as others on this list and elsewhere have
> >> mentioned, seemingly without resolution, is that it doesn't work.
> >>
> >>
> >> http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-hackers/2009-July/029147.html
> >> http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=486
> >>
> >> I was able to install 6.4 on it today, but I'm still at a loss as to why
> >> 7.x and even 8.x will not. Did the architecture change in such a way
> >> that it could no longer support M600 blades? Did someone leave
> >> something out of the standard ISO kernel? Am I not doing it right?
> >>
> >> Happy to pass along my dmesg.boot;
> >
> > from the two URLs you provide, it seems that i386 is working (for all
> > FreeBSD versions) and only amd64 is failing : can you confirm this ?
> >
> > then, one of the first steps would be a the dmesg of both a succeeding
> > and a failing kernels (verbose !)
>
> I tried the bootonly ISOs for 7.x and 8.x, both amd64 and i386, all of
> which fail to boot on the Dell M600.
aha !
anyway, even with a CDROM, you can boot *verbose* and note where the boot
stops (even if there won't be a serial console, write down the blocking
device probe)
TfH
>
> I was able to boot the bootonly 6.4 ISO, install via the net, and a
> friend suggested I try binary updating. I have been able to binary update
> to 7.0-RELEASE thus far. I'm trying to get to 8.0-RC3 via binary update
> now, and will report back.
(a more robust, and slower, way to upgrade is via make buildworld / make
buildkernel)
>
> I believe the issue is not with FreeBSD but the bootonly ISO. It could
> also be a problem with the other ISOs, I'm not yet sure.
we may get a hint if/when someone sends some verbose dmesg ;-)
>
> > PS : is there any more recent version of the Dell BIOS ?
>
> According to the iDRAC, the firmware 2.2.3 reported as installed is what
> Dell reports as the latest version (August 2009).
fine
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Peter Beckman Internet Guy
> bec...@angryox.com http://www.angryox.com/
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thierry Herbelot
> >>>
> >>> then, one of the first steps would be a the dmesg of both a succeeding
> >>> and a failing kernels (verbose !)
> >>
> >> I tried the bootonly ISOs for 7.x and 8.x, both amd64 and i386, all of
> >> which fail to boot on the Dell M600.
> >
> > aha !
> >
> > anyway, even with a CDROM, you can boot *verbose* and note where the boot
> > stops (even if there won't be a serial console, write down the blocking
> > device probe)
>
> able to find out how.
speaking from memory : just before the kernel starts, you should have the
*loader* menu (with the ASCII graphics depicting beastie), where you can
choose between boot options, and option 5 is boot verbose (like 4 is boot
single)
TfH
Peter Beckman
> Le Saturday 14 November 2009, Peter Beckman a écrit :
> [SNIP]
>>>>>
>>>>> then, one of the first steps would be a the dmesg of both a succeeding
>>>>> and a failing kernels (verbose !)
>>>>
>>>> I tried the bootonly ISOs for 7.x and 8.x, both amd64 and i386, all of
>>>> which fail to boot on the Dell M600.
>>>
>>> aha !
>>>
>>> anyway, even with a CDROM, you can boot *verbose* and note where the boot
>>> stops (even if there won't be a serial console, write down the blocking
>>> device probe)
>>
>> Can you shoot me a link to the docs on how to do this? I haven't been
>> able to find out how.
>
> speaking from memory : just before the kernel starts, you should have the
> *loader* menu (with the ASCII graphics depicting beastie), where you can
> choose between boot options, and option 5 is boot verbose (like 4 is boot
> single)
Not sure I have any more. Since I'm not in front of the console, and
since the iDRAC only allows a "video" capture of the console, I made a
video.
The Verbose option was selected, but it hung at the same place it did. I
was using the 8.0-RC3 bootonly iso.
It hung just after isab0, isa0 and atrtc0 loaded. The last line:
atrtc0: registered as a time-of-day clock (resolution 1000000us)
The machine is just fine, I installed NetBSD 5.0.1 on it, and I have
FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE running on another blade adjacent to it.
Peter Beckman
> Le Saturday 14 November 2009, Peter Beckman a écrit :
> [SNIP]
>>>>>
>>>>> then, one of the first steps would be a the dmesg of both a succeeding
>>>>> and a failing kernels (verbose !)
>>>>
>>>> I tried the bootonly ISOs for 7.x and 8.x, both amd64 and i386, all of
>>>> which fail to boot on the Dell M600.
So I was able to binary update from 6.4 to 7.0-RELEASE, but when I tried
freebsd-update -r 8.0-RC3 upgrade
After installing after that I get the same hanging I saw with the bootonly
ISO. The mpt0 device is loaded, pcib8, but after it hits atrtc0, it
hangs.
I'm trying what someone suggested previously -- install 8.0-RC3 using the
6.4 install disk via the net. I'm trying that now, but I'm not hopeful.
I think I need to give up and move on that FreeBSD isn't going to work.
Beckman