Complexe installation : install only grub on little internal disk in order to boot USB key

[Igor873]

Hello,
I have searched a lot in order to find a solution, but nothing since 3 years ago. I have 2 Nas Seagate STDD200 in stock :/ because I prefer to put my data on freenas than seagate OS (cf my 1st message)

Two possibility : install Freenas on bay disk (not possible with freenas apparently) or block the hidden physical button (Recovery button) in order to always boot on the recovery internal usb key (246Mb) & from this internal recovery usb key, boot the real big external usb key.

But I didn't find any details on how to do manual install of grub in the manual. could you please help me :) ?


(It's not possible to boot on usb external port, & even when I arrive to view the bios (with serial interface) I cannot change the boot menu to boot usb, & even if I use AMI_Aptio_AMIBCP in order to decompile/changer/update the bios )

Thank in advance for your help :p

 

[Igor873]

So I have installed FreeNas on a big external usb key.
Now with the help of systemrescued, I have just mounted the internal usb key. The challenge is to hack configuration of this internal usb key in order to boot USB external key with Freenas EFI inside !

root@sysresccd /mnt/sdb1]# ls -la
total 21144
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 16384 Mar 24 21:52 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 100 Mar 24 21:42 ..
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 21581088 Dec 17 11:27 bzImage
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 678 Dec 17 11:27 description.xml
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root root 37888 Aug 4 2014 ldlinux.sys
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Dec 17 11:28 rescue
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 173 Dec 17 11:27 syslinux.cfg
[root@sysresccd /mnt/sdb1]# ls -la rescue/
total 94292
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Dec 17 11:28 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 16384 Mar 24 21:52 ..
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 379 Dec 17 11:28 nexus.map
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 96525012 Dec 17 11:27 product_image.tar.lzma
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 48 Dec 17 11:28 versions


An other solution is to create a little system (max 200Mb) (grub ?) in order to chainload boot external USB key with Freenas EFI installation


Have any idea please :)

Thanks in advance
Best regards

 

[Igor873]

OK with the help of GRUB of systemrescuecd, I just arrived to to launch directly my freenas USB key directly from my NAS:p

Command in grub in order to boot usbkey (for me hd0)

Code:

chainloader (hd0,gpt1)/efi/boot/BOOTx64.efi
boot

So now I'm on freenas but WHITOUT ANY automatic boot installed in my internal usb key :( (my NAS doesn't boot on USB external key, only from internal little usb key )

The Freenas web interface is on, the ssh too.
Could you please help me, how to install booting tool in my internal usb key ?

Thanks in advance !

 

[styno]

You may be able to pull this off by installing a 3th party bootloader on the device the nas boots from and have that pointed to the actual installation.
But.. even if you got this running it will most likely break with every update you do. Will not be supported and nobody will be able to help you out as you'll be the only one running that setup.
Additional remarks: grub is deprecated on freenas in favor of the bsd bootloader and 6gb ram is not enough according to the freenas specs.

 

[Igor873]

Thank you for your response styno ! I agree it's should be a little bit insane ..

But apparently it's possible to manage boot environment from /ui/system/bootenv directly ?
the only thing to do, is to attach/format the internal usb key in it ??
/ui/system/bootenv/attach/freenas-boot
I'm not very sure about it ?
But if I arrive to install boot environment in the internal usb key, next, I'm able to force the boot on this internal key, in order to launch big freenas usb key :)

Thank you for your information, but I have one socket avalaible so I will put 8Go SDRAM inside, I think that it should be good !

 

[Igor873]

So I tried my suggestion, but my internal usb key is too little !!! ,
[EFAULT] The new device (USB DISK 3.0, 0.24 GB, 499,712.0 blocks) does not have enough space to to hold the required new partitions (efi, 532,480 blocks, total of 532,480 blocks). New mirrored devices might require more space than existing devices due to changes in the booting procedure.

Do you have any manual possibility, to have only bsd bootloader & no kernel please ?