SOLVED: 1.2.3-RC3 embedded not booting on alix 1c/ alix 1d/ alix3c3

jimp

When they stop, are they completely unresponsive on serial?

Does pressing ctrl-T show anything on the screen?

PeeZee

Sorry for the delayed answer, there was another project that required my attention the last 2 days.

Just tested what you asked, when the "Starting device manager (devd)…" appears and the boot process stops, I can still press RETURN on the serial console and line feeds appear. So the OS is not frozen, it is apparently waiting for that boot step to finish.

When I press Ctrl-T, it prints the line
load: 0.11 cmd: php 131 [nanslp] 0.89u 1.10s 0% 20028k

Hope this helps :-)

PeeZee

Some more info, based on input from jimp on irc:

I booted the cf card in an alix 2c3, and edited /etc/rc.bootup commenting out start_devd:

        echo "Starting device manager (devd)...";
        mute_kernel_msgs();
//        start_devd();
        set_device_perms();
        unmute_kernel_msgs();
        echo "done.\n";

After this, I put the cf card back in my alix3c3 and it boots up just fine.

However, I have no idea what I broke by doing this, so for all readers out there DO NOT DO THAT YOURSELF if you don't know what you're doing (like me :-) )

Could anybody tell me what start_devd() does and why I would need it ?

jimp

It starts devd

/rimshot

Really if you look in /etc/inc/config.inc it really just exec's /sbin/devd

PeeZee

This is getting stranger by the minute

I wanted to find out which step in start_devd it was getting stuck on, so I edited /etc/rc.bootup and /etc/inc/config.inc to echo some output after each line of code executed in start_devd()

The last command which is started is sleep(1); in start_devd() in /etc/inc/config.inc
After that the boot process is stuck, it seems the sleep command never returns…

???

PeeZee

So there is really not a single person out there running pfsense on an alix1c / alix1d / alix3c3 ?

Cool, I always wanted to be special and unique in some way… :-)

PeeZee

2 weeks and no further response… And RC3 is in prerelease now apparently

Can I stress again that pfSense 1.2.3 nanobsd DOES NOT work on the above mentioned alix boards.

1.2.2 worked perfectly on them so this is definately a HUGE step backwards !

What do I have to do to get some attention to this issue ?
I tried debugging myself but got nowhere with my limited BSD knowledge

Please, could someone at least test this themselves so the issue is at least confirmed and just maybe someone can take a look at why this is happening ?

My apologies if I sound irritated, I know this is a forum ran by volunteers, and I know pfSense is a free product. I've been very happy with pfSense over the last few years that I've been using it.
It just astonishes me that this bug seems to get no attention when I discover such a big problem, a real show stopper for using pfSense on these alix boards, and definately a regression from the previous version.
If the forum is not the place to discuss this, please let me know where to go.

Thanks!

Perry

You could fill out a bug report http://redmine.pfsense.org/

Also if it's possible to get remote access to your box, you could join ##pfsense on IRC and ask for help.

jimp

There was a thread on the FreeBSD-stable list a week or two ago about the issue.

http://www.mail-archive.com/freebsd-stable@freebsd.org/msg106186.html

(We already have the patch mentioned in the thread, by the way)

Part of the problem is that this appears to be a FreeBSD issue, not necessarily a pfSense issue. There may not be anything that we can do about it, it may need to be fixed upstream:

http://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Policy_on_FreeBSD_issues

keylevel

I've installed 1.2.3-RC3 on an Alix 3D3 (updated 3C3) and have had exactly the same problem.

I found that selecting the "no acpi" boot allowed the system to boot.

I then set the power management mode in the BIOS to APM and then re-installed (not sure if that was needed, but I changed the install media as well). This also boots ok.

PeeZee

@keylevel:

I've installed 1.2.3-RC3 on an Alix 3D3 (updated 3C3) and have had exactly the same problem.

I found that selecting the "no acpi" boot allowed the system to boot.

I then set the power management mode in the BIOS to APM and then re-installed (not sure if that was needed, but I changed the install media as well). This also boots ok.

Confirmed ! This solves the issue, alix3c3 boots right up with BIOS power management set to APM.

(I'll test on the 1c1 and 1d1 later and confirm whether fix works on those boards as well)

Thanks !