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    Supermicro X9SBAA-F

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Hardware
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    • S
      SkyNET
      last edited by

      Small update.

      I did bought a cheap VIA based chip PCI USB2.0 card. That did not work. Mailed with SuperMicro support.
      They told me to get an Belkin F5U219 2+1-port USB 2.0 PCI Controller Card.

      Found one secondhand. Not the exact same type but this one also works. Got an NEC controller chip.
      Not that you want to spoil such a good board running Windows, but no need for custom images to install Windows OS on this board.
      Tested Windows 7x64 and 2008R2. No problem getting it working.

      ESXi 4.1 and PfSense is are a different story.

      Error ESXi 4.1: unable to find a supported device to write the vmware esxi 4.1.0 image to
      (Tested hdd with ext2 ext4 and unformatted. All same error)

      Error PfSense: (well known error)
      vfs.root.mountfrom=cd9660:/dev/iso9660/pfsense
      vfs.root.mountfrom.option=ro
      mountroot>

      At this "mountroot>" i am not able to give any input. Keyboard was detected (Dell Multimedia keyboard)
      Had this problem on many other systems. Fixed the disk order (IDE master/slave or Sata port) and used GParted to format to UFS.
      No luck so far.

      So the story continues… I will dive in the BIOS to see what I can do.

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      • K
        kejianshi
        last edited by

        FreeBSD makes an update

        Then FPsense later uses that to form the Base for the release

        So, the FreeBSD OS version and hardware supported is, by necessity, always lagging behind the very newest release of FreeBSD and its hardware support.

        So, better hardware is only better if its supported for your purpose, otherwise its an expensive paperweight.

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        • C
          cmcologne
          last edited by

          Today is good news day!

          I used my other Supermicro Board (nas4free maschine) to boot with sata ODD and installed PFsense to a flashdrive and a Delock SATA DOM.

          I buyed a Delock SATA PCI USB card (has one internal port). And a Risercard. Now the following test results:
          Booting from onboard USB: Booting possible, but same mount error as we know.
          Booting from PCI USB card: No Boot support by BIOS - flashdrive ignored.
          Booting from SATA DOM and PCI USB card for keyboard worked!

          How can I capture an image of this Sata DOM for you all? Now I'm running ipfire from USB. It has got SSH access and IPMI. How can I capture an image of the sata dom using the ipfire started from usb flashdrive?

          DSC_0021.jpg
          DSC_0021.jpg_thumb

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          • B
            bigbird007
            last edited by

            I have received an answer from the FreeBSD form.
            It seems i was wrong in my first post. I will quote what was replied.

            SirDice Moderator: "If there is any chance of an update it'll be with the next pfSense. The latest pfSense is built on FreeBSD-8.3, and although that version is still supported (until April 2014) no new drivers or functionality will be added to it. It only receives security updates. Whatever the pfSense people do to it is beyond our control. "

            I suppose we need to wait and see what happens.

            I vote for hardware support for this board in the near future , I understand this is a big ask and I can accept that this may not happen for a while.

            cheers

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            • C
              cmcologne
              last edited by

              @bigbird007: Why don't you use my successful way to fix it?

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              • M
                mikeisfly
                last edited by

                I got the same error trying to install pfsense on an older Dell Optiplex 755. The fix was to burn a Live CD on CD-R media not DVD-R media and install it that way. I would think that you could hook up temporarily a CD-ROM drive to your Server.

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                • B
                  bigbird007
                  last edited by

                  @cmcologne:

                  @bigbird007: Why don't you use my successful way to fix it?

                  Was hoping to for native support and not having to rely on additional parts tbh.
                  It seems I will have to try your way.

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                  • D
                    dr.diesel
                    last edited by

                    Anyone try the pending 2.1.1 release on this board?

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                    • M
                      metalac
                      last edited by

                      @dr.diesel:

                      Anyone try the pending 2.1.1 release on this board?

                      Yeah I'd like to know that too.  I'm looking into getting this motherboard.

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                      • B
                        bigbird007
                        last edited by

                        I still have not got this to work, after trying countless pci usb cards ect …. still no luck.

                        I'll give it a go with untangle this weekend and see how i go

                        cheers

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                        • T
                          tirsojrp
                          last edited by

                          @bigbird007:

                          I still have not got this to work, after trying countless pci usb cards ect …. still no luck.

                          I'll give it a go with untangle this weekend and see how i go

                          cheers

                          AFAIK it is not possible to boot from an USB PCI/PCIe card, just integrated USB ports.

                          Have you read the Plop boot manager documentation? that might help.

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                          • D
                            DrCain
                            last edited by

                            Nobody tried the embedded build + serial console (maybe with SATA DOM)?

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                            • I
                              id88
                              last edited by

                              It is possible to run and install pfSense (2.1.3) on a Supermicro X9SBAA-F.

                              As others have pointed out, the problem is that this board only supports USB 3.0 and support for that is not (yet?) included in pfSense. However, pfSense 2.1.3 is based on FreeBSD 8.3 which does support USB 3.0. So what you basically need to do is to add the XHCI kernel module of FreeBSD 8.3 to pfSense and make sure it is loaded so that you can use a USB stick and USB keyboard.

                              This is what you need:

                              • pfSense 2.1.3 USB image

                              • FreeBSD 8.3 image (should be version 8.3!)

                              • Ability to mount UFS filesystem (a running FreeBSD instance is easiest)

                              • Memorystick

                              • FreeBSD 9.x or 10 image if you are going to install to disk.

                              Basically, the steps are as follows:

                              • Mount the pfSense and FreeBSD images.

                              • From the FreeBSD image, copy /boot/kernel/xhci.ko to /boot/kernel in the pfSense image.

                              • In the pfSense image, add xhci_load="YES" to /boot/defaults/loader.conf.

                              • Unmount the images and copy the pfSense image to USB stick.

                              • Boot from the stick. Before doing so make sure all USB settings in the BIOS are set to "Enabled".

                              • Choose to boot pfSense (the default).

                              • You can now run pfSense from the USB stick and run it as a live image. You can also install it to disk or SSD if you wish. I chose Custom Install and couldn't get pfSense to boot if when I installed a Bootblock, so I disabled that option. After installation to disk, you must make the modification to /boot/defaults/loader.conf again, as it is lost when the contents are copied from USB stick to disk. This is needed so that you can use a USB keyboard to complete the part of the configuration that must be done before the web GUI starts  To make this modification, you can boot a live image of FreeBSD 9.x or 10.0 d so that you can mount the partition (likely /dev/adxs1a) and edit the file. Then reboot from disk and finish the configuration.

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                              • stephenw10S
                                stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                last edited by

                                You should use loader.conf.local (create it) as that file is not overwritten by an update. However the xhci.ko module will be.

                                Steve

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                                • B
                                  bigbird007
                                  last edited by

                                  Who has got theirs working yet?

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                                  • O
                                    ocpistol
                                    last edited by

                                    this happend to me too on a A1SRI-2558F-O when i used a usb. I used a live cd and it worked perfect.

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                                    • B
                                      bigbird007
                                      last edited by

                                      I wish i could get mine working, not having any luck at all.

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                                      • O
                                        ocpistol
                                        last edited by

                                        Idk if this would work but can you use a different motherboard to install it on a the hard drive? Will bsd switch drivers?

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                                        • K
                                          kejianshi
                                          last edited by

                                          The newest latest greatest is always a bad idea when using pfsense.  Also with linux.

                                          2+ years old hardware is gold.

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                                          • B
                                            bigbird007
                                            last edited by

                                            I do feel like banging my head flat out.
                                            I think the x9sbaa-f is almost 1.5 years old now

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