Come here to send your rotten tomatoes at my first build ;)

[DrZombi]

But the second step of the PDF I sent you has this (http://www.napp-it.org/doc/downloads/flash_lsi_sas.pdf ):

...
2. reflash SAS controller from IR raid 1/10 mode to IT mode without raid. - download IT firmware from ftp://ftp.supermicro.com/driver/SAS/LSI/3008/Firmware/IT/ - extract file and copy the files from the EFI folder to an USB stick
...

3008 is in the path so I am assuming it is for the 3008 LSI chip, of course that could be a clever ruse my supermicro to brick boards. :)
Of course, I don't understand their motive; except if it was for pure hysterical mendacity, which seems like short term fun, but long term bad for business. :p

Or maybe I don't understand something, or I am missing something, super probable given that my icon is BOZO.

Well tried @Bozon , do you work for the SuperMicro Board brickers ? ;)
I of course visited the link in the .pdf but it points only to the P16 version that I already have. This is why I asked if someone knows where to find a P20 for the Broadcom/Avsgo/LSI SAS 3008 SW :)

 

[DrZombi]

Hi everyone !

Just a little update for those interested about my build.
Yes, I know that it's been a long time but I preferred to wait and get the good parts instead of rushing to my zDoom ^^

---- Concerning the Build ----

The case Silverstone CS380 was unavailable when I was about to order it so I've been somewhat fucked up for a couple of months until Silverstone announced the magical CS381B !! I was pretty happy to have waited because it's a very welcome improvement over the old CS380. The case is nice except for 1 or 2 cables which are a bit short but nothing that prevents the installation of the other parts. I'll have to admit though that I find the provided fans a bit noisy so I've ordered 2 x Noctua NF-S12A PWM to replace them and I hope it will be better after.

With the change of the case, I had to also change my PSU since I now needed an SFX or SFX-L form factor. I went with one of the Silverstone recommended with the case which is the SST-SX700-LPT. And also I changed the cooling for the CPU to the Silverstone SST-TD02-Slim v2 for which I also ordered 2 x Noctua NF-A12x15 PWM because ALL IN !! :D

And finally, I listened to the forum and did not buy any slog device at all for the moment. Could not afford something serious and don't have the need for it right now.

---- Concerning the Software ----

I'm now beginning to discover FreeNAS and the wonderfull world of the SuperMicro IPMI (totally sarcastic). I'll let some warnings here that will give a free laugh to the experienced admins around here and (I hope) will be helpful for FreeNAS newbies like me :)

1) Please, do yourself a favor and unlock the advanced features of your SuperMicro IPMI card with a license. It's so easy to update the BIOS and firmware of the IPMI through it instead of having to create a bootable DOS USB stick. And installing the system by mounting an ISO to the virtual CD is also a must have when you don't have a spare/external optical drive accessible. My opinion of course.

2) Be aware though that SuperMicro's IPMI is faaaaaaaaaaar from what you may know of Dell's iDRAC, HP's iLO or IBM's iMM. It's simple (in the bad way), does just the bare minimum, and is a little buggy. For example, if you want to change the ADMIN password for something more complex than the default password, and if the IPMI does not like your nice and complex password generated by KeePass, IT WON'T TELL YOU !!! It will change the password for something you have no idea what, and you'll be locked out of your motherboard's IPMI like an idiot . The Supermicro support was not even sure of what happened. They told me that I may try with 18 characters max and no special character but were not really sure and this is definitely not what was in the documentation. So don't be an idiot like me and create a second user before you try to modify the ADMIN password.

Show : How I got out of this stupid situation (for a good laugh).

So... When you're locked out of the IPMI, you cannot access the remote control of the server anymore, so you're basically fucked up if you don't have any spare part useful to this scenario. Like a FUCKING VGA PORT ON YOUR MONITOR for example. Because Internet (or the Supermicro Support) will tell you that you can use IPMICFG or ipmitools to reset the IPMI password but that means that you need to be able to interact with the server (lol).

Luckily, I found a VGA/DVI cable in my basement (all those years of stocking crap have finally paid !!! ;)), and also an old DVD burner. Perfect ! So I decided to went on with this solution. So I burnt quickly an image of ALT Linux Rescue CD which contains the ipmitools.

Of course I did not want to have to unmount everything in the so tight CS381 (cause I'm a lazy ass) to be able to access a SATA power connector so I just did a Frankenstein intervention by plugging the SATA power on my personal computer and the SATA data on the SuperMicro board (they are on the edge of the board so very accessible :p).

Oh and also of course, the command mentionned in the post above does not work. You have to go through the comments to find someone to tell you that the real command you want to go with is:

Code:

ipmitool -I open user set password 2 ADMIN

This resets the password for user 2 (ADMIN) to "ADMIN".

3) It seems that the password is not the only item which has problems with special characters as I've not been able to configure email alerts in the IPMI for the moment (while it works perfectly for the FreeNAS itself).

---- Concerning the firmware of the SAS 3008 chipset on motherboard ----

I finally got the answer around the internet with a nice confirmation here.
So all these problems and recommendations concerning the firmware P20 and drivers P20/21 etc, concern ONLY THE SAS 2008 chipsets !!!!
When running a card/motherboard with a SAS 3008 chipset, the P16 is definitely the most recent firmware you can get (and this is the one provided by SuperMicro so all is good !). I can confirm that I flashed my SAS 3008 with the IT version of the P16 given by SuperMicro (it seems that I had to create this Bootable DOS USB key eventually ) and all is good. FreeNAS does not trigger any warning so I'm all set. I wanted to confirm that my driver/firmware matched (just to be sure) so I went with a

Code:

dmesg | grep mpr

and it confirmed the exact same thing that what's said in the post above. Driver 18 and Firmware 16 so I can go on with the rest of the configuration tasks now :)