FreeBSD 6.0 RDM SAN Booting

[errr]

Hi,

We currently have 4 FreeBSD 6.0 servers, and 2 Windows 2k servers, and a few Linux servers running on some Dell PE servers. They are set to SAN boot. We recently got ESX 3.5 and have been moving those systems into ESX. We have been using RDM and it has worked great for the windows and linux systems. On the FreeBSD system it loads the boot loader and the kernel but fils trying to mount the root file system. Has anyone ever run into this problem before, and if so how did you fix it?

[Texiwill]

Hello,

Moved to Virtual Machine and Guest OS forum....

Looks like a possible driver issue. Remember it is either a LSIlogic or BUSlogic device, what is in the VMs and what is in use by the kernel?

Best regards,
Edward L. Haletky
VMware Communities User Moderator, VMware vExpert 2009
====
Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.
Blue Gears and SearchVMware Pro Blogs -- Top Virtualization Security Links -- Virtualization Security Round Table Podcast

[errr]

We have tried both LSI and BUS but neither make any difference. I am starting to think it is something specific to FreeBSD 6.0 because I have just tried to install 6.0 into ESX just using an ISO image and using RDM for my hard disk, and once you start the installer it does not see the disk. On FreeBSD 7.1 it does, and will install fine.

[Texiwill]

Hello,

Definitely a driver issue then. 7.1 has improved SCSI drivers over 6.0, perhaps someone has backported them for 6.0?

Best regards,
Edward L. Haletky
VMware Communities User Moderator, VMware vExpert 2009
====
Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.
Blue Gears and SearchVMware Pro Blogs -- Top Virtualization Security Links -- Virtualization Security Round Table Podcast

[oreeh]

This is a known issue. A workaround is available in FreeBSD 6.1.

With FreeBSD only use the virtual lsilogic SCSI HA.

Forgot to add: the main issue is a small problem in the virtual lsilogic implementation in the VMware products.

[errr]

Oreeh,

Do you know what causes the issue so we can backport the fix into 6.0. We have 4 systems that we cant really upgrade to anything newer due to vendors not supporting a legacy app that they run on anything newer with out us upgrading that app as well which we are not prepared to do at this time.

Thank you

[oreeh · Accepted solution]

The mptscsi driver (and maybe some other things as well) was updated (late June 2006).

The changes were backported all the way back to RELENG_4.

Therefore building a new kernel (using a current 6.0 kernel source) should fix your problem.

The problem has to do with accessing non-zero SCSI IDs. The virtual lsilogic SCSI adapter doesn't handle them correctly and FreeBSD isn't able to detect a device.

Since you are required to use FreeBSD 6.0: don't use the lance driver (virtual pcNet NIC) as it has a bug which leads to dropped packets.

Either install VMware Tools (the ones from Server / WS work fine) or use the virtual Intel E1000 NIC.

Forgot to add: avoid using vSMP as well!

Message was edited by: oreeh

[errr]

Thank you for the info. It has been very helpful.