Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2008 06:36:41 -0700 From: Jeremy Chadwick <koitsu@FreeBSD.org> To: Andrew Snow <andrew@modulus.org> Cc: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: console access Message-ID: <20080608133641.GB61781@eos.sc1.parodius.com> In-Reply-To: <484BD615.2020702@modulus.org> References: <3cc535c80806080217m413995dej4037fd2aac22ef4b@mail.gmail.com> <484BAC1C.8080300@modulus.org> <20080608121234.GC50122@eos.sc1.parodius.com> <484BD615.2020702@modulus.org>
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On Sun, Jun 08, 2008 at 10:52:37PM +1000, Andrew Snow wrote: > Jeremy Chadwick wrote: >> Supermicro IPMI cards are notoriously buggy. A few of the system >> engineers at Yahoo! who I know continually bitch and moan about how >> horrible they are. My advice: do not install the IPMI card which is >> causing your problems. > > The remote KVM control feature was an important requirement so the card is > staying. Luckily it uses the Intel gigabit NIC which seems to work well in > 7-STABLE, I have no complaints so far. Every feature works well except > virtual media. > >> Booting FreeBSD off of USB devices is known to be broken; see "BTX, >> boot2, and loader" section at the below URL: >> >> http://wiki.freebsd.org/JeremyChadwick/Commonly_reported_issues > > Thats interesting - I regularly use USB sticks to boot freebsd as its > easier for installation on cluster machines/routers that lack CDROM drives. > I've used it on, I think, half a dozen different > motherboards/architectures and its worked well on all of them, the > Supermicro box was the only broken one. Okay, so then your original comment ("The same thing happened when trying to use a USB CDROM drive, so I suspect USB boot support is at fault somehow") might actually not be caused by FreeBSD at all? The reason I say that: > Because virtual media emulates a USB device I'm pretty sure thats why it > wasnt working - the USB problem, not a problem with the IPMI card. What Supermicro box is having USB booting problems? I'm currently in a battle with Supermicro regarding the PDSMi+ not properly booting certain models of USB flash drives: http://koitsu.wordpress.com/2008/04/05/supermicro-pdsmi-bios-bugs/ http://koitsu.wordpress.com/2008/04/26/supermicro-pdsmi-bios-bugs-part-2/ Supermicro currently has both of my USB flash drives which I reported (two different) problems with, and they have confirmed the bug, but are "unsure what's causing it". The last time I heard from them was 3 weeks ago, stating "we're still working on it". (I'd really like my USB drives back......) I would not be surprised if the same problem affected USB CDROMs. -- | Jeremy Chadwick jdc at parodius.com | | Parodius Networking http://www.parodius.com/ | | UNIX Systems Administrator Mountain View, CA, USA | | Making life hard for others since 1977. PGP: 4BD6C0CB |
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