Not enough USB2.0 ports to install FreeNAS

[Chamrajnagar]

I've recently finished my first FreeNAS build, as follows:

Supermicro A1SAI-2750F-O
1 x 8GB Kingston KVR16LSE11/8 ECC RAM

I am attempting to install FreeNAS on a 16GB SanDisk USB3.0 flash drive. Initially I was hoping to use the motherboard's internal USB3.0 port for the flash drive, but I ran into a mountroot issue. Moving the flash drive to a USB2.0 port avoided the mountroot issue, but I quickly figured out that I cannot boot from and install to the same flash drive.

I've since set up a second flash drive on which to mount the ISO, however my motherboard only has two USB2.0 ports, and this seems to be preventing me from continuing the install.

I need to have three USB devices connected during the install;
1) flash drive with ISO mounted
2) flash drive on which to install FreeNAS
3) keyboard

The flash drive with the ISO must be connected to one of the two USB2.0 ports to avoid the mountroot issue.

The flash drive I want to install FreeNAS on must be connected to a USB2.0 port. If I use a USB3.0 port, it will not show as a destination drive for the install.

The keyboard must be connected to a USB2.0 port. If I use a USB3.0 port, the keyboard functions in the GRUB menu but not in console setup.

That leaves me with three devices which must be connected to USB2.0, and only two USB2.0 ports.

I could connect an optical drive to the NAS temporarily, but would prefer not to because my only optical drive is in use in another computer. Do I have any other options?

Any input appreciated, thank you.

 

[danb35]

Do I have any other options?

Mount the ISO remotely via IPMI?

 

[fracai]

USB hub?
Or install on another machine using a virtual machine?

 

[Chris Dawalt]

USB hub?
Or install on another machine using a virtual machine?

You beat me to it - that is exactly what I was going to say.

 

[Ericloewe]

Mount the ISO remotely via IPMI?

OP, you have IPMI. USE IT!

Trust me, you'll feel like you'll never be able to go back.

 

[Z300M]

I've recently finished my first FreeNAS build, as follows:

Supermicro A1SAI-2750F-O
1 x 8GB Kingston KVR16LSE11/8 ECC RAM

I am attempting to install FreeNAS on a 16GB SanDisk USB3.0 flash drive. Initially I was hoping to use the motherboard's internal USB3.0 port for the flash drive, but I ran into a mountroot issue. Moving the flash drive to a USB2.0 port avoided the mountroot issue, but I quickly figured out that I cannot boot from and install to the same flash drive.

I've since set up a second flash drive on which to mount the ISO, however my motherboard only has two USB2.0 ports, and this seems to be preventing me from continuing the install.

I need to have three USB devices connected during the install;
1) flash drive with ISO mounted
2) flash drive on which to install FreeNAS
3) keyboard

The flash drive with the ISO must be connected to one of the two USB2.0 ports to avoid the mountroot issue.

The flash drive I want to install FreeNAS on must be connected to a USB2.0 port. If I use a USB3.0 port, it will not show as a destination drive for the install.

The keyboard must be connected to a USB2.0 port. If I use a USB3.0 port, the keyboard functions in the GRUB menu but not in console setup.

That leaves me with three devices which must be connected to USB2.0, and only two USB2.0 ports.

I could connect an optical drive to the NAS temporarily, but would prefer not to because my only optical drive is in use in another computer. Do I have any other options?

Any input appreciated, thank you.

An alternative to the other suggestions is to try disabling USB 3.0 in the motherboard BIOS; the USB 3.0 port should then operate in USB 2.0 mode. It works on my X10SL7-F.

 

[hugovsky]

I can't remember exactly but I think I had to use the back usb plugs when I disabled usb 3.0 in my A1SAI-2750F-O. Solution was to use back usb and mount iso thru ipmi. Easiest way, really.

 

[pirateghost]

Wait, what happened to just putting the OS on the USB from another computer? I've never had to boot from an install media to install to USB.

 

[danb35]

You can't just image the OS to the USB stick with 9.3.

 

[pirateghost]

You can't just image the OS to the USB stick with 9.3.

Dammit.

Why ix gotta ruin everything I love about Freenas with 9.3?

Im going to be stuck on 9.2.1.9 forever...

 

[cyberjock]

Wait, what happened to just putting the OS on the USB from another computer? I've never had to boot from an install media to install to USB.

Starting with 9.3 you MUST install to the media you intend to boot from. There is no image anymore because FreeNAS now uses the entire boot device (yay). So you must do an install to the boot device you intend to use no matter what.

Nothing stops you from installing to a USB stick on another computer and then moving the boot device to your FreeNAS machine later though. ;)

 

[rhdd]

According to this ticket https://bugs.freenas.org/issues/7286 you can enable booting from USB3 with a loader variable.

 

[cyberjock]

According to this ticket https://bugs.freenas.org/issues/7286 you can enable booting from USB3 with a loader variable.

You are behind the times bro. You were able to do it all the way back to 9.2.0. In 9.1.x it was enabled by default and was disabled by default starting with 9.2.0 (which came out in Dec 2013) because the USB3 drivers in FreeBSD are somewhat unreliable. In fact, it's been documented in our manual how you can enable USB3 for quite a long time. ;)

Check out page 10 of http://www.freenas.org/images/resources/freenas9.2.0/freenas9.2.0_guide.pdf.

Someone didn't RTFM. ;)

 

[cyberjock]

And just to keep things interesting, USB3 hardware *should* be backwards compatible with USB 2 ports. That's not to say they are bootable or 100% compatible, but the hardware *should* be compatible.

 

[Chamrajnagar]

Thanks for all the responses!

If I understand correctly, I can try to enable USB3 by creating a tunable xhci_load. I think I will try this first, and see if I can then make use of the USB3 ports.

A USB hub is a good suggestion. I don't own one, but I can probably track one down if all else fails.

I'm also interested in trying the install via IPMI. Is there any documentation on how to do this? I can't seem to find much. I'm guessing I need one of these Supermicro utilities here.

 

[danb35]

You don't need any of the SuperMicro utilities. Using a web browser, browse to the IP address of your IPMI interface (which you should be able to pick up from your router if you don't know it), log in with ADMIN/ADMIN unless you've changed the password (which you should do--and yes, they're case-sensitive and in caps by default), the go under the menu to something like "remote control". You'll get a Java applet with a KVM for your machine. One of the menu items there is for "virtual media", and that's where you can mount an ISO and it will work just like an attached CD/DVD. This is from memory, but should get you very close.

 

[rhdd]

You are behind the times bro. You were able to do it all the way back to 9.2.0.

I used the USB3 port with 9.2 all the time (even on UI update to 9.3). Grub (and the need to set a loader variable on fresh installation) is new with 9.3.

 

[Chamrajnagar]

You don't need any of the SuperMicro utilities. Using a web browser, browse to the IP address of your IPMI interface (which you should be able to pick up from your router if you don't know it), log in with ADMIN/ADMIN unless you've changed the password (which you should do--and yes, they're case-sensitive and in caps by default), the go under the menu to something like "remote control". You'll get a Java applet with a KVM for your machine. One of the menu items there is for "virtual media", and that's where you can mount an ISO and it will work just like an attached CD/DVD. This is from memory, but should get you very close.

Thanks for the tutorial. I have the FreeNAS box connected to my router via the IPMI port and powered on. I've tried the IP of all the router's clients that I don't recognize, but none is taking me to the IPMI interface. I haven't been able to determine if IPMI requires a compatible router. If it does, it's possible my router doesn't support IPMI and that's why I can't access the IPMI interface.

 

[danb35]

There's nothing special about IPMI as far as your router is concerned. You can download the IPMIView utility and have it scan your network for IPMI interfaces, but I haven't found its virtual console app to work to mount a remote ISO like the browser-based one.

 

[Chamrajnagar]

I've downloaded IPMIView but I'm not tech savvy enough to figure out how to run it without an executable. Seems like IPMI may be beyond the scope of my capabilities, so I think I'll give enabling USB3 a shot.

edit - Never mind, looks like IPMI is up and running. It would appear that with this particular motherboard, IPMI will only function if you plug in the ethernet cable after powering on the box. My first couple attempts had the box connected to the router via the IMPI port before turning the box on, and it wasn't accessible.