# Problems booting up Dell R730 - IDRAC



## Jonathon Yong (Jul 6, 2015)

Hi all,

I've installed the ISO: FreeBSD-10.1-RELEASE-amd64-uefi-disc1.iso onto a Dell R730 machine.

Everything went well, however when it try to boot into the OS, iI've got an error indicating an IDRAC issue. Do anyone have a resolution to this?

Thanks in advance.

Jonathon.


----------



## junovitch@ (Jul 6, 2015)

The da0/umass(4) lines may not be relevant here if that is just an add on drive presented by the iDRAC.  I've heard of odd issues with some of the software RAID cards in some Dell servers.  I'm not familiar with this model but seeing the mfi(4) device being mounted and the failure shortly after makes me want to start there.  If you just hit enter for single user mode can you `gpart show` to see if it recognizes the RAID?  What is the output of `mount`?


----------



## Terry_Kennedy (Jul 8, 2015)

Jonathon Yong said:


> Everything went well, however when it try to boot into the OS, iI've got an error indicating an IDRAC issue. Do anyone have a resolution to this?


The iDRAC lines are just kernel output telling you that the iDRAC has reported it is configured with a 308MB virtual disk. That's normally on the SD card right above the DRAC's Ethernet connector on the back of the server. You can suppress that by entering the DRAC on a reboot (normally "Press Control-E within 5 seconds" prompt) and unmounting the virtual media.

There is something else going on here - /bin/sh should not segfault unless there is something wrong with the hardware or the operating system install. This is on the first boot after installing, right? No re-compilation of the kernel or userland?

If you boot from the installation disc again and select the live CD option (shell), you should be able to check the integrity of the filesystem, mount it and look around, etc.


----------



## outpaddling (Oct 19, 2015)

Did you try using the standard install image instead of UEFI?  You can change the boot mode to BIOS via F2.  Dell claims that you need UEFI mode when using 4TB disks, but I disproved this on one of our 730s with a PERC H730 RAID controller.  It has a 40TB RAID 6 (12 4TB drives) for the data array.  Works just fine as mfi1 in FreeBSD non-UEFI.


----------



## Tomse (Nov 9, 2015)

I'm trying to install 10.2 (also tried 10.1) AMD64 UEFI on a Dell r730xd and configured as UEFI.

2x300GB disks in hardware raid1. Built-in raid controller.

The installation is simple, using GPT/UFS using guided on the entire disk.
Deselected games and ports, but added source.

I've tried installing from a USB cd drive with the DVD, and also from the memstick (ofc UEFI versions).

After the reboot from install I end up in:


```
ukbd1: <Keyboard> at usb0
kbd2 at ukbd1
Trying to mount root from ufs:/dev/mfid0p2 [rw]...
pid 16 (sh), uid 0: exited on signal 11
Nov  9 13:09:21 init: /bin/sh on /etc/rc terminated abnormally, going to single user mode
Enter full pathname of shell or RETURN for /bin/sh
pid 17 (sh), uid 0: exited on signal 11
Nov  9 13:09:25 init: /bin/sh on /etc/rc terminated abnormally, going to single user mode
Enter full pathname of shell or RETURN for /bin/sh
pid 18 (sh), uid 0: exited on signal 11
Nov  9 13:09:30 init: /bin/sh on /etc/rc terminated abnormally, going to single user mode
Enter full pathname of shell or RETURN for /bin/sh
```

any ideas?

EDIT: I've just done the same install using the "normal" version and in BIOS mode. Destroyed the first 500 megs to remove gpt info. Installed choosing MBR instead of GPT otherwise the same settings as above. Still the shell exits.


EDIT2: tried the same on a R630 with the same results.
The weird part is that the shell and other features work fine off the install cd/usb drive.

I found someone with similar problems (as he posted a pic it didn't come up in my search query)
https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/problems-booting-up-dell-r730-idrac.52256/


----------



## Tomse (Nov 9, 2015)

Just found this thread after posting my own issues.
https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/bin-sh-on-etc-rc-terminated-abnormally.53956/

crossreferenced the links for future searches.

outpaddling - yes tried both UEFI and BIOS settings.
Terry_Kennedy - I'll try the live CD and get back at you.

Sorry for hijacking an "old" thread, but I don't see any answers so might keep the thread here.

Can a mod merge the two threads?


----------



## Tomse (Nov 9, 2015)

I've come a little further.

Atleast for BIOS mode - changing the RAID to Write Through instead of Write Back seems to fix the problem (I reinstalled after doing this).

At present time I'm installing in UEFI mode to check if it's fixed there as well. - This didn't go well from DVD, will try and install from usb stick.

I still haven't gotten this to work on the 730, only 630.. perhaps I was lucky?


----------



## wblock@ (Nov 9, 2015)

Tomse said:


> Destroyed the first 500 megs to remove gpt info.


The GPT backup table is at the end of the disk, so that did not overwrite it.  `gpart destroy` is the thing to use.


----------



## Tomse (Nov 9, 2015)

Thanks, though I doubt the GPT causes the mentioned error. Useful information regardless


----------



## Tomse (Nov 10, 2015)

The R630 failed on boot today so
I've removed the "Read Ahead" feature of the RAID on the drive that holds the FreeBSD installation.
(F2 for setup on boot, configure devices -> integrated raid -> virtual drive -> advanced -> read ahead set to none)

Doing so seems to have fixed the problem.

UEFI boot works, so does the R730xd.

A few reboots more during the next couple of days is needed before I can better say if it works or not.


----------



## Terry_Kennedy (Nov 11, 2015)

Tomse said:


> The R630 failed on boot today so
> I've removed the "Read Ahead" feature of the RAID on the drive that holds the FreeBSD installation.
> (F2 for setup on boot, configure devices -> integrated raid -> virtual drive -> advanced -> read ahead set to none)
> 
> Doing so seems to have fixed the problem.


Or hidden it. Changing to write through and disabling readahead both reduce the performance of the controller.

I would suggest going to Dell's support site and getting the latest firmware for the disk controller. It looks like the latest RAID controller firmware is 25.3.0.0016. The latest BIOS is 1.3.6 and that's worth updating as well.

The easiest way to do this is with the SUU DVD - find it under "Systems Management". It will need to be de-bloated in order to fit on a physical DVD. You need a compatible Linux live CD to run the SUU - I suggest this one from Dell.

Note that the 1.3.6 BIOS may be too new to be on the SUU. You can download it and add it to the /repository directory on the SUU image after you de-bloat it and before you burn it. Then you can run it manually (press F3 when prompted when the CDU boots).


----------



## Tomse (Nov 19, 2015)

Terry_Kennedy said:


> Or hidden it.


If the problem was just hidden I still wouldn't have been able to access the shell.



Terry_Kennedy said:


> I would suggest going to Dell's support site and getting the latest firmware for the disk controller. It looks like the latest RAID controller firmware is 25.3.0.0016. The latest BIOS is 1.3.6 and that's worth updating as well.


I'm already running with latest firmwares.

The controller was replaced today due to PCI parity errors + controller ram problems which occured after a few days of running.

sysutils/screen repported Illegal Instructions (core dumped). So this triggered me to reinstall FreeBSD after the controller change.
Now I get Illegal Instructions while running `ssh`.

screen is/was installed from packages, and not from ports.


----------



## JeanC (Dec 15, 2015)

Any updates on this thread?  I am having similar problems with new R530 with raid.  Dell replaced the raid controller today but installing 10.2 I got an error  mfi0 failed to execute command and although I can boot on newly installed OS, I found a corrupted file when installing ports so the install isn't good.  I have not yet tried changing read-ahead to none but will do so if that actually fixed the issue.


----------



## Terry_Kennedy (Dec 15, 2015)

JeanC said:


> Any updates on this thread?  I am having similar problems with new R530 with raid.  Dell replaced the raid controller today but installing 10.2 I got an error  mfi0 failed to execute command and although I can boot on newly installed OS, I found a corrupted file when installing ports so the install isn't good.  I have not yet tried changing read-ahead to none but will do so if that actually fixed the issue.


Please post the Dell RAID controller model as well as the firmware package name (this is the version shown on the BIOS option ROM screen, at least in non-UEFI mode).

This is a new system and you had Dell replace the controller because of this issue, or...?

What sort of volume(s) did you create on the controller for use with FreeBSD?


----------



## JeanC (Dec 15, 2015)

This is a new system. Integrated raid controller Perc H730P.  Fixed it!!  At loader prompt set hw.mfi.mrsas_enable=1.  Got a clean install and then in loader.conf: hw.mfi.mrsas_enable=1 so properly set each boot.  This is where I got info from:
http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.os.freebsd.stable/92673

PS - out of the box I was getting timeout errors from the raid controller that were on the IDRAC logs so that was why Dell replaced the RAID controller.  That left me just with the installation issue.


----------



## Tomse (Dec 22, 2015)

Thanks.. SirDice mentioned this in an other thread as well.
https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/change-storage-driver-during-install.54222/


----------

