SOLVED Loader.conf not applying?

[Chris Thompson]

I've been looking around and cannot find an answer to my issue. I've got a Dell Optiplex machine running FreeNAS 9.2.x, works great for what I need. When I initially installed I needed to add the following lines to the loader.conf in order to allow it to connect to the network.
hw.pci.enable_msi="0"
hw.pci.enable_msix="0"

Fast forward to this weekend, I attempted to load FreeNAS on a new USB stick. Made the tweak to the loader.conf and booted the system. The issues have returned!! I can not connect to the network again.

Looking deeper I ran "sysctl hw.pci" and find that the two values above are set to 1 and no matter what I put into the loader.conf it will not take effect. I've confirmed this to be a problem both on my NAS box and within my VMWare test (as well as an old laptop). Nothing I put into the loader.conf takes hold, at least not according to sysctl. Any ideas? Before anyone asks, I've confirmed multiple times that I do not have a typo.

 

[cyberjock]

And why the heck are you even touching loader.conf. The WebGUI lets you add values as necessary. Do it the way that it's supposed to be done.. from the WebGUI.

It's not surprising at all it's not working.. you aren't following our manual for adding sysctls and/or tunables.

 

[Chris Thompson]

I cannot get into the web interface, as I mentioned the network does not work. Using, for example sysctl hw.pci.enable_msi=0 it does not live beyond a reboot. How do you suggest this is done? This exact change has to be done in some virtual environments and I presume the same issue remains; you can't get to the web interface.

 

[dlavigne]

One way is to create a feature request at bugs.freenas.org asking that these be on by default (with why they're needed). If you do that, post the issue number here.

An alternate method is to interrupt the boot menu by pressing e, which will open the grub configuration file in vi. Enter the needed values, using the same syntax as the other loaders in this file. Once the system boots into the network, use the Tunables part of the GUI to make this change permanent as editing the config only works for that boot.

 

[Chris Thompson]

Interesting... So if I read between the lines, are you suggesting that the loader.conf is no longer used and Tuneables is the only way to effect this change? What is your thought to loading up the USB on a different computer (my laptop for example) and making the change? Is there a way to create a Tuneable from the console?

 

[dlavigne]

Not quite. The use of grub requires that loader.conf settings get written to grub. Tunables will automatically do this for you, but you have to do it manually when you can't get that far without a needed loadable.

Adding a tunable from the CLI menu might make a good feature request. The MSI thing is probably common enough to ask for on it's own.

 

[Chris Thompson]

That makes perfect sense now... That's the piece I was missing. Thanks!!!

I'll look into the feature request(s) after I play a little.