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Date:      Sat, 11 Jan 2025 07:21:15 +0000
From:      Abu Hussain Al Mukhtar <abuhussain@secure.mailbox.org>
To:        Justin Hibbits <jhibbits@freebsd.org>
Cc:        Abu Hussain Al Mukhtar <abuhussain@secure.mailbox.org>, Alexey Dokuchaev <danfe@freebsd.org>, freebsd-ppc@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Netbooting an xserve G5?
Message-ID:  <Z4Ib1Ubfhd3xDyhv@dragonfly.nameserver.nu>
In-Reply-To: <20250110142044.0fa100b5@ralga.knownspace>
References:  <Z4D_T3yepueYI91r@dragonfly.nameserver.nu> <Z4EpF2nAIVLpGYLz@FreeBSD.org> <Z4FxTOJ-IkFGty6W@dragonfly.nameserver.nu> <20250110142044.0fa100b5@ralga.knownspace>

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Hi Justin,

sysctl hw.ncpu shows 2, so I would assume that the former is the case.

Unfortunately, there must be something else going on here.

I tried

set kern.smp.disabled=1

at the loader prompt. It doesn't matter if I then 'boot -s' or simply 'boot',
in both cases, the system never reaches the stage where I am prompted for the
shell - it just hangs. If I detach and reattach peripherals, such as the keyboard,
the console tells me so, but there is nothing else.

I remember something (probably) similar happening a couple of years ago while trying to
netboot NetBSD from the same box, and M. Dillon from DFly giving me the advice of setting
the '-2' and '-r' mountd flags in rc.conf - which worked like a charm for NetBSD but didn't
help at all in this case so I am kind of out of ideas.

Does this sound remotely familiar and/or do you have any other suggestions?

Thanks a lot,

BR.-

* Justin Hibbits <jhibbits@FreeBSD.org>:
> Is this an SMP XServe, or a single CPU?  If SMP, you can try disabling
> SMP with "kern.smp.disabled=1" at loader prompt, and see if that
> improves things.  It sounds counter-intuitive, but if there's a bug in
> the clock sync that could explain the problem.  I recall a PR opened
> about something related.
> 
> - Justin
> 
> On Fri, 10 Jan 2025 19:13:16 +0000
> Abu Hussain Al Mukhtar <abuhussain@secure.mailbox.org> wrote:
> 
> > Hi Alexey,
> > 
> > Thank you very much - I totally missed that guide.
> > 
> > It worked, and I am able to boot single user now.
> > 
> > The only problem: the host runs e x c r u c i a t i n g l y slow -
> > not as in 'it lags!', but as in 'I have to wait for minutes until
> > what I type on the keyboard appears on the screen', so the system
> > really isn't usable in this state.
> > 
> > My NFS server is a DragonFly box. It has netbooted, as I stated
> > before, NetBSD and OpenBSD seamlessly. I checked the FreeBSD docs,
> > specifically the 'Advanced Networking' section which describes PXE,
> > but there is no mention of specific/preferred flags to be passed to
> > NFS/mountd.
> > 
> > Has anyone seen this behaviour before and/or could you share the
> > relevant portion of your rc.conf so I can check it against mine?
> > 
> > Alexey: Thanks again for the useful hint!
> > 
> > BR.-
> > 
> > * Alexey Dokuchaev <danfe@freebsd.org>:
> > > On Fri, Jan 10, 2025 at 11:06:55AM +0000, Abu Hussain Al Mukhtar
> > > wrote:  
> > > > Hi all!
> > > > 
> > > > As the subject line implies, I am looking for a way to netboot an
> > > > XServe G5 using the ppc64 port. This server I got for close to
> > > > nothing is on an excellent state, though unfortunately, the CD
> > > > drive is not really working (it ejects every CD/DVD I have ever
> > > > tried to feed it), and there are conflicting accounts on whether
> > > > or not these machines can boot from an USB stick.  
> > > 
> > > I've never bothered to boot my macs from removable media, and always
> > > preferred netbooting, esp. given how easy it is to setup.  This is
> > > the first option recommended by grehan@ in his guide* and that's
> > > how I've installed FreeBSD on all my G4/G5 machines.  HTH,
> > > 
> > > ./danfe
> > > 
> > > *) https://people.freebsd.org/~grehan/install.html
> > >   
> > 
> 
> 



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