Re: Question of installing over SAS controller and USB flash

On Tue, Oct 10, 2023 at 2:36 PM azathanai@icloud.com <azathanai@icloud.com>
wrote:

> Hi all,
> a newbie in FreeBSD here trying to install a RAIDZ2 on a server with mps
> SAS controller with drives which are not visible in the boot order in BIOS.
> So, I cannot install directly on the drives, despite that the installer
> "sees" them, because the BIOS does not see the controller and its drives as
> option.
>

Have you enabled the BIOS on the mps card itself? Otherwise it won't
install a BIOS fragment to run at boot, and the drives won't be seen.

On the other hand, I have a card reader with a flash card on it (4gigs)
> from which I can boot and where I can have my /boot partition with the
> kernel.
> I've a lot of questions and I still cannot find the answers to most of
> them, despite going through the handbook, the boot process explanation, the
> installation process handbook and a lot of more reading.
>
>
>    - How should the flash card be partitioned and with what mountpoints?
>    The server is BIOS capable.
>    - How should the rest of the drives be partitioned with ZFS and the
>    mountpoints? The standard configuration from the installer on RAIDZ2 is
>    good for me.
>
> I've experience with Linux but is not helping a lot here. The setup looks
> quite different .... probably because of the ZFS.
>
> Any help, links, ideas and comments will be much appreciated!
>

That's a workaround, but you should be able to enable the BIOS part of the
mps/mpr cards and boot off them. I've done that before.

Warner


>
> Cyberly yours,
> deragoth
>
>
>