Trying to install NeBSD on bare metal through a Linux distro

[tlaronde%polynum.com@localhost]

Hello,

I'm testing the use of a bare metal dedicated server.

The provider (in this case OVH) presents some pre-built OS images to
install, but NetBSD isn't one of them (in my case, even the FreeBSD
installations that exist on other offers aren't proposed).

Following the instructions found on:

https://wiki.netbsd.org/tutorials/how_to_install_netbsd_on_OVH/

(which was a great help)

I tried installation, but the result never booted.

There is one main difference from the example: the server comes with
three disks, not only one. The distributions proposed have mainly soft
raid with the three disks but it should be possible to use the three
disks as independent ones.

The failure I suspect is simply that the numbering of the disks done
by Linux and NetBSD is not the same, and that using qemu installing in
one (Linux named) disk is perhaps writing on a disk that is indeed not
the disk the system boots on.

So I could try to install on one of the three disks in turn, but is
there a way (under Linux) to find what physical disk the system did
really boot from ? and is there a known mapping between ata enumeration
under Linux and ata enumeration and naming under NetBSD? (Even if in
this case, in /etc/fstab I can more safely use the ROOT.a etc. syntax
to abstract it from the disk it really boot from).

For what is worth, here is the excerpt about the disks from Linux
(Debian) dmesg:


[    1.351723] ata5: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
[    1.351835] ata6: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
[    1.351930] ata4: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
[    1.352029] ata3: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
[    1.355304] ata4.00: ATA-9: HGST HUS726020ALA610, A5GNT920, max UDMA/133
[    1.355392] ata4.00: 3907029168 sectors, multi 16: LBA48 NCQ (depth 32), AA
[    1.355830] ata2: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
[    1.355918] ata1: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
[    1.363322] ata4.00: configured for UDMA/133
[    1.364930] ata3.00: ATA-9: HGST HUS726020ALA610, A5GNT920, max UDMA/133
[    1.365003] ata3.00: 3907029168 sectors, multi 16: LBA48 NCQ (depth 32), AA
[    1.367533] ata5.00: ATA-9: HGST HUS726020ALA610, A5GNT920, max UDMA/133
[    1.367611] ata5.00: 3907029168 sectors, multi 16: LBA48 NCQ (depth 32), AA
[    1.372907] ata3.00: configured for UDMA/133
[    1.373221] scsi 2:0:0:0: Direct-Access     ATA      HGST HUS726020AL T920 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
[    1.374085] scsi 3:0:0:0: Direct-Access     ATA      HGST HUS726020AL T920 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
[    1.375485] ata5.00: configured for UDMA/133
[    1.375696] scsi 4:0:0:0: Direct-Access     ATA      HGST HUS726020AL T920 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
[    1.377408] e1000e 0000:00:19.0 eno1: renamed from eth0
[    1.381831] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] 3907029168 512-byte logical blocks: (2.00 TB/1.82 TiB)
[    1.381840] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] 3907029168 512-byte logical blocks: (2.00 TB/1.82 TiB)
[    1.381908] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[    1.381980] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
[    1.382032] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
[    1.382045] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] 3907029168 512-byte logical blocks: (2.00 TB/1.82 TiB)
[    1.382055] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is off
[    1.382056] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
[    1.382070] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[    1.382090] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
[    1.382169] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[    1.382226] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[...]
[    1.416490]  sda: sda1 sda2 sda3
[    1.420607]  sdc: sdc1 sdc2
[    1.423472]  sdb: sdb1 sdb2
[    1.437471] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk
[    1.437492] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk
[    1.437948] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI removable disk
[    1.610311] md/raid1:md1: not clean -- starting background reconstruction
[    1.610378] md/raid1:md1: active with 3 out of 3 mirrors
[    1.653360] md1: detected capacity change from 0 to 1999723560960
[    1.745318] tsc: Refined TSC clocksource calibration: 3192.745 MHz
[    1.745400] clocksource: tsc: mask: 0xffffffffffffffff max_cycles: 0x2e058438076, max_idle_ns: 440795259866 ns
[    1.745539] clocksource: Switched to clocksource tsc
[    2.041290] raid6: sse2x4   gen() 15829 MB/s
[    2.109288] raid6: sse2x4   xor()  9628 MB/s
[    2.177290] raid6: sse2x2   gen() 18129 MB/s
[    2.245288] raid6: sse2x2   xor()  9932 MB/s
[    2.313289] raid6: sse2x1   gen() 14987 MB/s
[    2.381290] raid6: sse2x1   xor()  8824 MB/s
[    2.381359] raid6: using algorithm sse2x2 gen() 18129 MB/s
[    2.381417] raid6: .... xor() 9932 MB/s, rmw enabled
[    2.381476] raid6: using ssse3x2 recovery algorithm
[    2.382233] xor: automatically using best checksumming function   avx       
[    2.382880] async_tx: api initialized (async)
[    2.592431] md: resync of RAID array md1
[    3.628006] EXT4-fs (md1): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Opts: (null)
[    4.052521] Not activating Mandatory Access Control as /sbin/tomoyo-init does not exist.
[    6.184942] md: md1: resync done.


TIA,
-- 
        Thierry Laronde <tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com>
                     http://www.kergis.com/
                    http://kertex.kergis.com/
                       http://www.sbfa.fr/
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