FreeBSD9 fails to install on HP Proliant (crash)

[Derek Ragona]

At 08:41 AM 5/31/2012, Ewald Jenisch wrote:

>Hi,
>
>I'm trying to install FreeBSD9 (64bit) on a HP Proliant server
>(ProLiant DL385 G1). Installation is done via remote-management
>("iLO") basically by mounting the Installation-ISO.
>
>However a couple of seconds after booting the box crashes.
>
>Here's what I tried already:
>
>o) Re-download the installation ISO - same checksum - same result
>
>o) Instead of booting directly I issued the following two commands
>on the loader prompt:
>
>set kern.eventtimer.periodic=1
>set kern.eventtimer.timer="LAPIC"
>
>followed by "boot"
>
>Neither of these helped.
>
>To cross-check I tried booting of a FreeBSD 8 installation media - no
>problems at all (besides that the machine is running FreeBSD8
>currently without problems)
>
>
>Any clue what could be wrong here and what I can do in order to make
>this box boot from the installation media?
>
>Thanks much in advance for your help,
>-ewald



You can try the boot options on the boot menu to try with ACPI disabled.

I have experienced some crashes and some hangs when trying to boot 
different hardware via an ISO virtually mounted and also booting via USB key.

I believe the issues come down to timing issues, where in the boot process 
the kernel expects to have some required /tmp space on physical disk.  You 
may need to create a RAID volume you plan to use for the filesystems 
first.  Also check compatibility with your hardware.

While it can be a pain, to debug something like this, I have booted systems 
at data centers where I have a console connected and using a CD or DVD 
drive (external USB if no internal device is installed.)

-Derek

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