Option to boot other slice?

Efonnes

The serial console does not really have a concept of "connected" or "not connected" at all. If you are using one of the nanobsd images and don't see the choices on the serial console, then the computer just didn't send it or you didn't start your terminal on the other end soon enough.

survive

Hi jimp, Efonne and all,

First thing, just to clarify I am running an embedded i386 build…I was thinking FreeNAS, my other embedded system, when I was describing my environment in my post last night.

That said, if you look at my previous post (and assuming I'm actually looking for the right thing) it appears that how you execute the "boot other slice" option isn't nearly as obvious as it should be...especially if you find yourself in a situation where you really need to boot the other slice.

So a couple of questions because there seems to be some confusion about this:

Is the "Hit [Enter] to boot immediately, or any other key for command prompt." when the system is booting the right place to choose the other slice?
If so, what is the proper syntax for the command to boot the other slice at the resulting "OK" prompt?

Efonne,

I had a putty session consoled into the pfsense box and across several reboots last night did not see any other prompts other than the "Hit [Enter]…" message shown in the boot sequence in my message from last night. I don't have to connect or disconnect the serial session, so timoing isn't an issue...putty just displays whatever comes across the port.

All that said, is there any thoughts on my suggestion to at least add a "boot other slice" option to the console setup menu?

-Will

jimp

Even when I setup a NanoBSD-based build in a VM, I get the 1/2 boot prompt on the (virtual in that case) serial terminal via PuTTY.

It's before the kernel loads, yes, it's immediately after the boot loader kicks in. It pauses for a couple seconds for a response, then continues to boot. If you are at the "OK" prompt, it's too late.

Every NanoBSD setup I've done on 1.2.3 or 2.0 does this properly.

survive

Hi jimp,

Fair enough, as you can see by my serial log my system doesn't.

Any idea how to fix?

Any thoughts on adding "boot other slice" option to the console menu?

-Will

jimp

Take a backup, rewrite the drive/media from a NanoBSD image, and restore your config.

survive

Hi jimp,

That's what I did when I can into the problem that prompted me to need to boot the other slice.

This was back in the end of august when the snapshots were being troublesome upon reboot, I don't remember the exact error.

I can certainly give your suggestion another shot.

-Will

jimp

Make sure you are writing out a complete NanoBSD image to the drive, and not just an upgrade slice (those can only be used through the pfSense upgrade process, not with dd or similar utils)

survive

Hi jimp,

I'm pretty sure I did.

I'll give it another shot soon though.

what about adding this as an option to the console menu?

-Will

jimp

For NanoBSD you can switch slices at the console with /etc/rc.nanobsd_switch_boot_slice

But if your NanoBSD install is actually working properly, you will have the 1/2 options at boot time.

survive

Hi jimp,

Will I just tried writing out an image to a different CF card and still didn't see the menu.

I used this file:

pfSense-2.0-BETA4-1g-20101002-1743-nanobsd.img.gz

and wrote it out with the physdiskwrite.exe\physGUI.exe combo of utilites on a freshly wiped CF card.

The results were the same as what I posted previously, there was no menu or option to boot the other slice, the only choice I saw was the option to "Hit [Enter] to boot immediately, or any other key for command prompt." which I'm pretty sure we have established is not where I want to go to select the other slice.

Other than that the system seemed to boot correctly. So now what? What can I do to help you help me to get this option working?

Also what about adding "boot second slice" added as an option to the console menu, which seems to be much easier than (editing, running) some file located in /etc?

-Will

jimp

A menu option can be added, one that only shows up on NanoBSD, but that doesn't help your situation overall though, often when you need to boot the other slice by hand, you do so because you cannot boot the current slice at all for whatever reason.

survive

Hi jimp,

Sure it won't help in all cases, but in the situation I found myself in…I think it was this one:

http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,28032.0.html

it might have.

Either way, any idea what I can do to help resolve why I don't get the menu that lets me select the slice at bootup?

I'm booting from a CF card in a SATA <-> CF adapter. I don't get (and don't recall ever seeing) the menu you see that allows you to select to boot single user like you see in the rest of the FreeBSD family.

-Will

jimp

The NanoBSD images don't have that menu with safe mode and such.

I'm not sure why you aren't seeing that message, but it shows up for me on ALIX, on my VMs, and anywhere else I've put NanoBSD.

As a test, can you try the 1.2.3-RELEASE NanoBSD image on a spare CF just to see if that shows you the menu?

I suppose it may be that the menu only shows up for a second, perhaps something particular to your hardware/BIOS is skipping it somehow… If anyone else was having or reporting the issue I might suspect something had happened to the builder that made them disappear.

jimp

I just wrote out a fresh snapshot from this morning to a CF on my ALIX and I get the menu still. Here is what the first part of my boot output looks like:

1  pfSense
2  pfSense

F6 PXE
Boot:  1 
/boot.config: -h
Consoles: serial port  
BIOS drive C: is disk0
BIOS 640kB/261120kB available memory

FreeBSD/i386 bootstrap loader, Revision 1.1
(sullrich@FreeBSD_8.0_pfSense_2.0-snaps.pfsense.org, Mon Oct  4 00:14:46 EDT 2010)
Loading /boot/defaults/loader.conf 
/boot/kernel/kernel text=0x88055c data=0x3c9594+0x9bd20 /
\
Hit [Enter] to boot immediately, or any other key for command prompt.
Booting [/boot/kernel/kernel] in 2 seconds...

survive

Hi jimp,

Ah, so that's where I should be looking!

I do get an unusual accented letter "a" at the start of the "/boot.config: -h" line in the serial output that doesn't appear to have been copied over in my prior message…

I don't get the first 5 lines of your output, I assume they are the cause of the odd "a" character...maybe this is a problem with term settings more than anything.

I'll try some other term programs & see if one of those seems to work better. If I have no luck there I'll try a fresh 1.2.3 install.

Also, I think post #3 in the thread has one other person seeing the same problem.

-Will

jimp

It's possible that it may be coming in at a different speed, if your BIOS does any kind of serial redirection you might check the speed settings there, dial them down to 9600.

kew

@survive:

Hi jimp,

Ah, so that's where I should be looking!

I do get an unusual accented letter "a" at the start of the "/boot.config: -h" line in the serial output that doesn't appear to have been copied over in my prior message…

I don't get the first 5 lines of your output, I assume they are the cause of the odd "a" character...maybe this is a problem with term settings more than anything.

I'll try some other term programs & see if one of those seems to work better. If I have no luck there I'll try a fresh 1.2.3 install.

Also, I think post #3 in the thread has one other person seeing the same problem.

-Will

With version 1.2.3 the same thing happens, do not see the option
shift slice

jimp

Something I just had remembered, if you have a keyboard plugged in, it might cause some ambiguity in where the boot choice menu is displayed. If no keyboard is found, it should definitely be printing to the serial port.