FreeBSD 11.1 on Soekris NET4501. Storage issue

Tue Dec 12 17:53:20 UTC 2017

Hi,

I'm trying to bring back to life an old Soekris NET4501 board. It
served last as networking bridge running FreeBSD 9.0.

I created a small FreeBSD 11.1 image with nanobsd, using GENERIC + 
CPU_ELAN/SOEKRIS stuff as kernel. The board boots from internal CF 
but fails to mount the root partition it seems there are no 
suitabile devices to mount the root partition from.
The problem seems CAM related but I'm unable to investigate it further.

This NET4501 is equipped with just 64MB of RAM: I built a custom kernel
without the unnecessary devices and options, even without SMP and ACPI,
but the boot process fails as usual mounting the root partition.

Here's a session record:

POST: 0123456789bcefghipajklnoq,,,tvwxy[2J
comBIOS ver. 1.27  20041122  Copyright (C) 2000-2004 Soekris Engineering.

net45xx

                                         CPU 80486 133 Mhz 

Pri Mas  Hitachi XX.V.3.4.0.0            LBA Xlt 993-32-63  1001 Mbyte

Slot   Vend Dev  ClassRev Cmd  Stat CL LT HT  Base1    Base2   Int 
-------------------------------------------------------------------
0:00:0 1022 3000 06000000 0006 2280 00 00 00 00000000 00000000 
0:18:0 100B 0020 02000000 0107 0290 00 3F 00 0000E001 A0000000 10
0:19:0 100B 0020 02000000 0107 0290 00 3F 00 0000E101 A0001000 11
0:20:0 100B 0020 02000000 0107 0290 00 3F 00 0000E201 A0002000 05

   Seconds to automatic boot.   Press Ctrl-P for entering Monitor.

1  FreeBSD
2  FreeBSD

F6 PXE
Boot:  1 
-/boot/config: -h -S19200
BIOS 639kB/64512kB available memory

FreeBSD/x86 bootstrap loader, Revision 1.1
Hit [Enter] to boot immediately, or any other key for command prompt.
Booting [/boot/kernel/kernel]...               
Copyright (c) 1992-2017 The FreeBSD Project.
Copyright (c) 1979, 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994
	The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
FreeBSD is a registered trademark of The FreeBSD Foundation.
FreeBSD 11.1-RELEASE-p5 #0 r326470: Sat Dec  9 19:34:25 CET 2017
    francesco at avalon.thwn:/usr/obj/nanobsd.NET4501/i386.i386/usr/src/sys/SOEKRIS i386
FreeBSD clang version 4.0.0 (tags/RELEASE_400/final 297347) (based on LLVM 4.0.0)
VT(vga): resolution 640x480
CPU: AMD Enhanced Am486DX4/Am5x86 Write-Back (486-class CPU)
  Origin="AuthenticAMD"  Id=0x494  Family=0x4  Model=0x9  Stepping=4
  Features=0x1<FPU>
real memory  = 67108864 (64 MB)
avail memory = 33566720 (32 MB)
taskqgroup_adjust failed cnt: 1 stride: 1 mp_ncpus: 1 smp_started: 0
taskqgroup_adjust failed cnt: 1 stride: 1 mp_ncpus: 1 smp_started: 0
random: entropy device external interface
kbd1 at kbdmux0
module_register_init: MOD_LOAD (vesa, 0xc1012410, 0) error 19
ACPI BIOS Error (bug): A valid RSDP was not found (20170303/tbxfroot-369)
ACPI: Table initialisation failed: AE_NOT_FOUND
ACPI: Try disabling either ACPI or apic support.
vtvga0: <VT VGA driver> on motherboard
cryptosoft0: <software crypto> on motherboard
sysctl machdep.i8254_freq=1189161 returns 0
Timecounter "ELAN" frequency 8333333 Hz quality 1000
pcib0 pcibus 0 on motherboard
pci0: <PCI bus> on pcib0
sis0: <NatSemi DP8381[56] 10/100BaseTX> port 0xe000-0xe0ff mem 0xa0000000-0xa0000fff irq 10 at device 18.0 on pci0
sis0: Silicon Revision: DP83816A
miibus0: <MII bus> on sis0
nsphyter0: <DP83815 10/100 media interface> PHY 0 on miibus0
nsphyter0:  none, 10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, auto
sis0: Ethernet address: 00:00:24:c4:53:fc
sis1: <NatSemi DP8381[56] 10/100BaseTX> port 0xe100-0xe1ff mem 0xa0001000-0xa0001fff irq 11 at device 19.0 on pci0
sis1: Silicon Revision: DP83816A
miibus1: <MII bus> on sis1
nsphyter1: <DP83815 10/100 media interface> PHY 0 on miibus1
nsphyter1:  none, 10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, auto
sis1: Ethernet address: 00:00:24:c4:53:fd
sis2: <NatSemi DP8381[56] 10/100BaseTX> port 0xe200-0xe2ff mem 0xa0002000-0xa0002fff irq 5 at device 20.0 on pci0
sis2: Silicon Revision: DP83816A
miibus2: <MII bus> on sis2
nsphyter2: <DP83815 10/100 media interface> PHY 0 on miibus2
nsphyter2:  none, 10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, auto
sis2: Ethernet address: 00:00:24:c4:53:fe
cpu0 on motherboard
isa0: <ISA bus> on motherboard
pmtimer0 on isa0
orm0: <ISA Option ROM> at iomem 0xc8000-0xd0fff pnpid ORM0000 on isa0
ata0: <ATA channel> at port 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 irq 14 on isa0
ata1: <ATA channel> at port 0x170-0x177,0x376 irq 15 on isa0
atrtc0: <AT realtime clock> at port 0x70 irq 8 on isa0
Event timer "RTC" frequency 32768 Hz quality 0
attimer0: <AT timer> at port 0x40 on isa0
Timecounter "i8254" frequency 1189161 Hz quality 0
Event timer "i8254" frequency 1189161 Hz quality 100
ppc0: parallel port not found.
uart0: <16550 or compatible> at port 0x3f8 irq 4 flags 0x10 on isa0
uart0: console (19200,n,8,1)
uart1: <16550 or compatible> at port 0x2f8 irq 3 on isa0
Timecounters tick every 6.666 msec
Elan-mmcr driver: MMCR at 0xcc25e000. PPS support.
Elan-mmcr Soekris net45xx comBIOS ver. 1.27 20041122 Copyright (C) 2000-2004
usb_needs_explore_all: no devclass
nvme cam probe device init
(aprobe0:ata0:0:0:0): SETFEATURES SET TRANSFER MODE. ACB: ef 03 00 00 00 40 00 00 00 00 0c 00
(aprobe0:ata0:0:0:0): CAM status: ATA Status Error
(aprobe0:ata0:0:0:0): ATA status: 51 (DRDY SERV ERR), error: 04 (ABRT )
(aprobe0:ata0:0:0:0): RES: 51 04 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0c 00
(aprobe0:ata0:0:0:0): Retrying command
(aprobe0:ata0:0:0:0): SETFEATURES SET TRANSFER MODE. ACB: ef 03 00 00 00 40 00 00 00 00 0c 00
(aprobe0:ata0:0:0:0): CAM status: ATA Status Error
(aprobe0:ata0:0:0:0): ATA status: 51 (DRDY SERV ERR), error: 04 (ABRT )
(aprobe0:ata0:0:0:0): RES: 51 04 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0c 00
(aprobe0:ata0:0:0:0): Error 5, Retries exhausted
Trying to mount root from ufs:/dev/ada0s1a [ro]...
mountroot: waiting for device /dev/ada0s1a...

Does anyone have suggestions, please?
Thanks,
f.