# FreeBSD 10 not reading fstab at boot



## sixday (May 14, 2016)

Hi All,

I ran into a very interesting issue and can't figure out the solution, so looking for help.
2 identical new servers (supermicro twin2), FreeBSD 10.
First server is installed and runs without issues, GPT, entire disk, 110GB (2xssd, hw mirror).
Second server installed exactly the same way, GPT, entire disk, it is having 6x 2TB sata disks in raid6, 7.3T
Both server is running with mfid0 and identical fstab files.

The second server is simply not booting up automatically, it stops at mounting the root partition.
Strange thing it is not writing anything like "trying to mount blah" just exists to mountroot.
As far as I understood from loader documentation it should scan the fstab file and boot based on that, but it's simply not doing it, any idea why?

At mountroot when I'm typing ? it shows me a list of valid devices.
If I'm typing manually into mountroot promt: ufs:/dev/mfid0p2 then the server boots without issues.
If I'm adding the vfs.root.mountfrom="ufs:/dev/mfid0p2" to /boot/loader.conf then the server boots without issues automatically, so this is a proper workaround.
But this is just bugs me, why it's not booting by default?

Thanks for everyone.


----------



## kpa (May 14, 2016)

There's a complex interaction with the storage drivers/devices and the boot procedure that under certain conditions makes the boot procedure "jump the gun" and try to continue booting to the part where the root filesystem is mounted even if the storage devices aren't fully ready yet. This is quite common with lower quality USB thumb drives but it can happen with SATA controllers too. Try putting this into /boot/loader.conf:


```
kern.cam.boot_delay="10000"
```


----------



## sixday (May 14, 2016)

Thanks, I gave it a try but unfortunately it didn't helped.
To be honest I was not surprised as I clearly see on the console that the mfid0 device successfully initialized before.


----------



## wblock@ (May 14, 2016)

When it fails to boot, what does it say, exactly?


----------



## sixday (May 14, 2016)

Here is a cut from dmesg:


```
mfid0 on mfi0
mfid0: 7625576MB (15617179648 sectors) RAID volume (no label) is optimal
uhub0: 2 ports with 2 removable, self powered
uhub1: 2 ports with 2 removable, self powered
ugen1.2: <vendor 0x8087> at usbus1
uhub2: <vendor 0x8087 product 0x0024, class 9/0, rev 2.00/0.00, addr 2> on usbus1
ugen0.2: <vendor 0x8087> at usbus0
uhub3: <vendor 0x8087 product 0x0024, class 9/0, rev 2.00/0.00, addr 2> on usbus0
uhub3: 6 ports with 6 removable, self powered
uhub2: 8 ports with 8 removable, self powered
ugen0.3: <Winbond Electronics Corp> at usbus0
ukbd0: <Winbond Electronics Corp Hermon USB hidmouse Device, class 0/0, rev 1.10/0.01, addr 3> on usbus0
kbd0 at ukbd0
ses0 at ahciem0 bus 0 scbus7 target 0 lun 0
ses0: <AHCI SGPIO Enclosure 1.00 0001> SEMB S-E-S 2.00 device
ses0: SEMB SES Device
SMP: AP CPU #19 Launched!
SMP: AP CPU #10 Launched!
SMP: AP CPU #10 Launched!
SMP: AP CPU #18 Launched!
SMP: AP CPU #9 Launched!
SMP: AP CPU #1 Launched!
SMP: AP CPU #16 Launched!
SMP: AP CPU #5 Launched!
SMP: AP CPU #17 Launched!
SMP: AP CPU #6 Launched!
SMP: AP CPU #22 Launched!
SMP: AP CPU #21 Launched!
SMP: AP CPU #2 Launched!
SMP: AP CPU #14 Launched!
SMP: AP CPU #3 Launched!
SMP: AP CPU #15 Launched!
SMP: AP CPU #7 Launched!
SMP: AP CPU #23 Launched!
SMP: AP CPU #4 Launched!
SMP: AP CPU #13 Launched!
SMP: AP CPU #11 Launched!
SMP: AP CPU #12 Launched!
SMP: AP CPU #8 Launched!
SMP: AP CPU #20 Launched!
Timecounter "TSC" frequency 2100044300 Hz quality 1000

Loader variables:

Manual root filesystem specification:
  <fstype>:<device> [options]
      Mount <device> using filesystem <fstype>
      and with the specified (optional) option list.

    eg. ufs:/dev/da0s1a
        zfs:tank
        cd9660:/dev/acd0 ro
          (which is equivalent to: mount -t cd9660 -o ro /dev/acd0 /)

  ?               List valid disk boot devices
  .               Yield 1 second (for background tasks)
  <empty line>    Abort manual input

mountroot>
```

What is totally missing here is the following line:


```
Trying to mount root from ufs:/dev/mfid0p2 [rw]...
```


----------



## Chris_H (May 18, 2016)

Just a wild hunch... but what are the permissions on the "problem" fstab(5) file? Are they any different that on the one that works? Just a _wild_ thought, in case it helps. 

--Chris


----------

