LiveCD Not Booting pfSense 1.2.3 and 2.0 beta 3

ddurvaux

Dear all,

I have a strange and difficult problem to solve. I received a new machine for installing pfSense as firewall (will support high load: HPC Computing). When I insert the CD in my machine, the BIOS is going fine then he try to boot the CD. After a while (black screen for a few seconds) the machine reboot.

The same CD could be installed without any problems on other machines but with a different hardware configuration. The machine having such troubles has the following hardware configuration:

Motherboard: Tyan S8230GM3NR
CPU: AMD OpteronTM 6128 2,0 GHz (Eight Core) Socket G34
NICs: Intel Pro Dual Giga server adapter PCI-Express + 4 on-board NICS
DDR3 @1333Mhz RAM

The machine seems not be defective as long as I can boot a Scientific Linux 5 (Red Hat 5 based) without any problems. I also tried pfSense 1.2.2 and pfSense 2.0 beta 3 (6th july snapshot) and I experience the same problems.

I would be glad to receive suggestions and idea if you have somes.

Thanks!
Best regards,

David

scoop

That's quite a beast you got there. AFAIK at least the chipset should work, so it might still be a BIOS issue. You can try booting FreeBSD 7.2-RELEASE (equivalent to 1.2.3) or 8.1-RC (equivalent to 2.0) and see where that takes you. I guess the result will be the same and thus it is not a pfSense specific problem.

Perry

The general advice

Find and turn off the Plug-and-Play OS, and any ACPI/APM options. Disable any unnecessary onboard devices, such as sound cards, parallel ports and internal modems.

Sometimes a BIOS update is needed.
Alternative testing with
http://www.pcbsd.org/content/view/166/11/
or a freebsd snapshot
ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/snapshots/201006/

ddurvaux

@Perry:

The general advice

Find and turn off the Plug-and-Play OS, and any ACPI/APM options. Disable any unnecessary onboard devices, such as sound cards, parallel ports and internal modems.

Done but doesn't help.

@Perry:

Sometimes a BIOS update is needed.

BIOS is up to date.

@Perry:

Alternative testing with
http://www.pcbsd.org/content/view/166/11/
or a freebsd snapshot
ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/snapshots/201006/

The machine boot with Linux but not with FreeBSD 7.3-RELEASE i386

@scoop:

That's quite a beast you got there. AFAIK at least the chipset should work, so it might still be a BIOS issue. You can try booting FreeBSD 7.2-RELEASE (equivalent to 1.2.3) or 8.1-RC (equivalent to 2.0) and see where that takes you. I guess the result will be the same and thus it is not a pfSense specific problem.

It seems to be a more "generic" FreeBSD problem indeed.

ddurvaux

Same problem than here: http://forums.freebsd.org/archive/index.php/t-3778.html
But not this option in the kernel ;).

More or less, still the same there: http://bugzilla.xensource.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=622

It seems that booting from an USB key could help (with GRUB bootloader?) but how to build a USB stick bootable for pfSense? I have tried a few stuff (GRUB to boot ISO, …) nothing successfull yet :'(.

jimp

When you tried 2.0, did you try both an i386 and amd64 snapshot?

ddurvaux

@jimp:

When you tried 2.0, did you try both an i386 and amd64 snapshot?

I tried the amd64 version. From what I saw, the problem is due to BSD bootloader.
I achieve to go a little further using UnetBootin and FreeBSD 7.3. Maybe that it's possible to install using an USB boot. Is their any howto or alternative procedure to install? Like booting from CF version then installing on local HDD?

jimp

You might try again with a snap from yesterday or today, and try both i386 and amd64. There were some OS updates then (up to FreeBSD 8.1-RC2) so it's worth another shot.

The amd64 version doesn't have many packages yet anyhow, it's not ideal to use yet.

generic

Hi. I have the same problem, pfsense wont boot, i have tried 1.2.3 Livecd and the latest 2.0 beta 30 july livecd. Both are i386 versions.
Hardware: IM-945GSE9

Pfsense 1.2.3 freezes at:

configured irq 10 not in bitmap of probed irqs 0
port may not be enabled
<16550A-compatible COM port> port 0x2e8-….......
sio2: Type 16550A

Pfsense 2.0 freezes at:

lpt0: interrupt-driven port
...
uart2: <16550 or compatible> port 0x3e0-..... irq 10 on acpi0
uart2: (FILTER)

???

jimp

Try to disable anything unused in the BIOS, like firewire, printer ports, audio, etc.

ddurvaux

I have tried the snapshot of this night (1st august 2010). And also tried the latest FreeBSD (8.1 amd 64). Always the same error.

When I build a usb bootable stick with FreeBSD 7 or 8 i386/amd64 with unetbootin, in each case, I go further. I added a picture of the screen at this step. Expect it could help.

errorBSD.jpg_thumb

ddurvaux

I have maybe a workaround. My motherboard use native RAID (RAID1). This seems to be badly recognized by FreeBSD. If a disable the RAID and swith to "Native IDE" on a single disk, everything seems nice. The LiveCD boot and installation is possible. Further tests are required to confirm that problem is "solved". Next step, how to use RAID? ;-).

jimp

Most "RAID" offered by motherboards is just glorified software raid with poor driver support.

You can setup a gmirror (look in the doc wiki, linked in my sig) if you want to mirror two drives.

Psycho77

@generic:

Hi. I have the same problem, pfsense wont boot, i have tried 1.2.3 Livecd and the latest 2.0 beta 30 july livecd. Both are i386 versions.
Hardware: IM-945GSE9

Pfsense 1.2.3 freezes at:

configured irq 10 not in bitmap of probed irqs 0
port may not be enabled
<16550A-compatible COM port> port 0x2e8-….......
sio2: Type 16550A

Pfsense 2.0 freezes at:

lpt0: interrupt-driven port
...
uart2: <16550 or compatible> port 0x3e0-..... irq 10 on acpi0
uart2: (FILTER)

???

Disable the four internal serial ports fix that bug.

Im stuck my usb cdrom now doesnt load but that's another bug, not a lucky day.