My Dream System (I think)

[Frallan]

Well the virtualization is as important or more than the NAS to me, but I will try it out with jails and VirtualBox for now.

I'd love it if you post some about your experience with ESXi though, Joe.

 

[jgreco]

Which Joe are you referring to?

 

[anodos]

Which Joe are you referring to?

Why don't you just do a massive brain-dump of everything you know about esxi in a separate thread? Put a sticky in the "off-topic". :D

 

[Rand]

@joeschmuck (or anyone else who has the opportunity) - could you maybe test to pass the onboard C236 Sata Ports through to a VM ?
O/c that would mean have the datastore on a seperate controller (PCI-e card, M2 SSD(?), USB HDD) ....

There should be a disk on it and the disk needs to be reckognized in the VM to ensure actual functionality...
Found some discouraging info which I am not sure applies to this generation of boards/ESX

Thanks:)

 

[joeschmuck]

My intentions are to use an add-on card for the ESXi OS, and the FreeNAS VM, and pass-thru the onboard SATA ports for direct FreeNAS control. I will post my results but it will include more than just setting up ESXi and FreeNAS. It should include what a pain in the rear the iKVM is for me. I'll create a new thread to document it all and try to be as descriptive as possible. I might even include a few photos but really, you've seen one computer, then you've seen just about all computers.

 

[Rand]

In my case basic functionality test would be sufficient, just need to know if that works or not (as that basically decides whether I can use the -CTF board while FreeNas10 is not available yet), but if thats not good for you thats fine too:)

What are your issues with the iKVM? Is that still Java based? Thats somewhat painful...

 

[joeschmuck]

iKVM is still Java based and I cannot use the Virtual Storage, so I cannot mount an iso image. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, I'm not sure. I am reading the manual but no luck. My OS is Win 7 and I of course have the latest version of Java. I had to set the IMPI software to run as administrator to get the iKVM screen to work. Eh, more to play with soon. There is a firmware upgrade to which I'll do in a few minutes, one I read all the instruction on how to do it safely.

 

[joeschmuck]

In my case basic functionality test would be sufficient

Just to see if FreeNAS will boot from a USB Flash drive or SATA drive? I believe there is one user running FreeNAS on this board but booted it from SATA.

 

[Rand]

iKVM is still Java based and I cannot use the Virtual Storage, so I cannot mount an iso image. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, I'm not sure. I am reading the manual but no luck. My OS is Win 7 and I of course have the latest version of Java. I had to set the IMPI software to run as administrator to get the iKVM screen to work. Eh, more to play with soon. There is a firmware upgrade to which I'll do in a few minutes, one I read all the instruction on how to do it safely.

You might have to add the url (http/s) to the secure sites (security) and potentially add properties \lib\security\java.policy (eg to C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre1.8.0_73\lib\security\java.policy)

Just to see if FreeNAS will boot from a USB Flash drive or SATA drive? I believe there is one user running FreeNAS on this board but booted it from SATA.

Boot/detect from passed-through SATA ports - i.e. verify that SATA pass-through will work (whole controller level)

 

[joeschmuck]

Boot/detect from passed-through SATA ports - i.e. verify that SATA pass-through will work (whole controller level)

I will hopefully be able to test this on the weekend where the onboard SATA controllers will pass through for ESXi.

And thanks for the Java help, I'll give it a shot soon.

 

[Frallan]

I also struggled with iKVM but finally got it working as I expected.

Virtual media worked for me when I mounted them via the Java applet thingy. And by worked I mean they would boot as expected but the FreeNAS installation hung (due to USB issues I suppose).

Another gotcha I discovered was that the onboard graphics needs to be enabled for the applet to receive any video output. I had disabled it to use a graphics card to setup the BIOS and did not re-enable it afterewards. Took me an hour or so to find a forum post somewhere which explained the issue.

I seem to be able to access the IPMI even from other network ports which kind of surprises me. Is there some way to disable this?

 

[Rand]

Another gotcha I discovered was that the onboard graphics needs to be enabled for the applet to receive any video output. I had disabled it to use a graphics card to setup the BIOS and did not re-enable it afterewards. Took me an hour or so to find a forum post somewhere which explained the issue.

I seem to be able to access the IPMI even from other network ports which kind of surprises me. Is there some way to disable this?

@Graphics - Onboard graphics as in Processor graphics or onboard VGA? The latter is expected (because that is handled by the same chip that does IPMI), the former would be an issue since atm the processor graphics seem to cause FreeBSD to hang ie should be disabled.

@IPMI: There should be a bios option to disable IPMI sharing - at least if you have a dedicated interface for it. If its shared then hopefully there is an option to only share it with the single interface and not all of them... But that would be something to ask the vendor for-

 

[Frallan]

@Graphics - Onboard graphics as in Processor graphics or onboard VGA? The latter is expected (because that is handled by the same chip that does IPMI), the former would be an issue since atm the processor graphics seem to cause FreeBSD to hang ie should be disabled.

I ment onboard VGA. Sorry for the confusion.

@IPMI: There should be a bios option to disable IPMI sharing - at least if you have a dedicated interface for it. If its shared then hopefully there is an option to only share it with the single interface and not all of them... But that would be something to ask the vendor for-

The motherboard has a dedicated port for IMPI which I want to use. I'll take a look once my badblocks run has finished. Thank you!

 

[Ericloewe]

On X10 boards, at least older IPMI versions only allowed failover and shared modes.

I believe I did see a third, dedicated-only, option on X11.

 

[joeschmuck]

The Failover works fine and I'm using LAN 1 port. My issue was and still is with IPMIViewer, it works like crap. I was able to just enter the IP address of the IPMI port in my web browser and things started working fine. The screen is of course different than the IPMIVeiwer but that's fine. I can mount virtual devices but so far I haven't done much. More testing later today I hope. All the RAM testing is complete, 14 passes using Memtest86 v6.3.0 (free) with zero errors. now it's time to install a few hard drives and install ESXi, and I'll try that over IPMI for the heck of it.

 

[jgreco]

If you think IPMIViewer works like crap, then it is probably working as designed. I always thought the Web stuff worked a little better even with the kludgy Java handoff. That, of course, is all being screwed to hell with recent browser changes for Java support. >:-(

 

[joeschmuck]

While using ESXi, the virtual keyboard is crap too. Eh, that is what a real keyboard is for.

 

[jgreco]

Discovered F2, huh.

 

[Rand]

How about getting a proper KVM over IP switch?;)

 

[jgreco]

How about getting a proper KVM over IP switch?;)

Same problem.