Re: Boot from disk, serial console over IPMI help for DL160 G6

[Tobias Nygren <tnn%NetBSD.org@localhost>]

On Mon, 19 Jul 2021 09:58:30 -0700
Jeff Rizzo <riz%tastylime.net@localhost> wrote:

> I have an HP Proliant DL160 G6 (probably about 10 years old) installed 
> with -current as of last week and sort-of working; I'm hoping someone 
> can clue me in on the best way to fix the stuff that's not working 
> (remotely, so that I don't lock myself out and require a site visit)
> 
> 
> I'll start by expressing frustration with this system - the POST takes 
> almost five minutes, after which there's about 15 seconds to get into 
> the BIOS config/bootloader/whatever before the power cycle dance has to 
> be done all over again. So, I've spent several hours over the last few 
> days just waiting for this thing to boot. (UGH)
> 
> Anyway, I have an IPMI setup over which I can power cycle the box, and 
> get to the BIOS setup screen using serial-over-IPMI. And, I have the box 
> able to PXE boot. So... I feel pretty safe from an "emergency" 
> standpoint, but the long reboot cycle makes me super paranoid that every 
> time I try to fix boot-related stuff (like I'm trying to do) means I 
> need to spend a full hour booting-and-rebooting, so ideally I'd like to 
> figure out what's going on and how to fix it with a minimum of retries.  
> :)   The box itself has a NetBSD 9.99.86 install booting from a raid1 
> (two disks, two spares) configured on the first 110GB of wd0-wd3, which 
> are 4TB SATA drives.  Being 4TB, they're partitioned with GPT, and 
> there's a "RAID" partition on each drive and root is set to "force".  
> What _doesn't_ work (or I haven't gotten it to work yet) is booting from 
> disk;  I used sysinst to install, but either the bootblocks didn't 
> install correctly or "something else".  If this were an MBR/disklabel 
> system, I'd know exactly how to fix it, but...  This is complicated by 
> the fact that I *think* this machine doesn't actually support UEFI boot 
> (I could be wrong there - I don't actually *understand* EFI boot, and 
> would love a pointer to the nitty-gritty of how it works).  So, I've 
> been loading the kernel with a special PXEboot dance (which is working, 
> mostly, now that I've figure out that the IPMI serial console is both 
> "com0" and "com1" but at separate times in the boot cycle).  I'd love to 
> get some help loading the kernel _from disk_ which would greatly 
> increase my confidence in this entire setup. I can boot an install 
> kernel easily enough (with 5-minute round-trips) if I get stuck, but I'm 
> not entirely sure how to approach fixing this by hand - I knew the old 
> MBR routine well enough, but things have changed enough in the last 
> couple releases that I no longer feel like I understand how it works.
> 
> (Aside - I wish the pxe bootloader knew how to boot from disk! or at 
> least load bootxx_ffsv2! - would make testing things faster in a case 
> like this)
> 
> In case it clarifies anything, here's what the GPT looks like on all the 
> disks (more or less):
> 
>         start        size  index  contents
>             0           1         PMBR
>             1           1         Pri GPT header
>             2          32         Pri GPT table
>            34   230686720      1  GPT part - NetBSD RAIDFrame component
>     230686754  7583350381      2  GPT part - ZFS
>    7814037135          32         Sec GPT table
>    7814037167           1         Sec GPT header
> 
> 
> Anyone care to help?  :)  Thanks in advance!

You don't want to align your paritions to offset 34 on modern
disks. That is bad for performance. Disks internally use 4k sectors
even if they expose the 512b interface so you want to either use a
smaller GPT header so you can start at offset 32, or start at offset
64. (Linux and Windows installers typically add the first partition at
offset 1024 or even 2048 which is a bit overkill.)

To install boot loader for this non-UEFI(*) system:

gpt biosboot -A -i 1
installboot -v /dev/rdk0a /usr/mdec/bootxx_ffsv2
and ditto for the other raidframe component

(*) You don't have an EFI System Partition so this installation can't
support EFI unless you wipe everything and start over.

If you want to try EFI boot you must create a gpt partition
with type efi, format it as msdosfs, mount in on /mnt and
copy /usr/mdec/bootx64.efi to /mnt/EFI/boot/bootx64.efi.

Kind regards,
-Tobias