PSA: 9.10 installs on Skylake (+ How to install 9.3.1 on Skylake)

[Ericloewe]

Note: FreeNAS 9.10 (previously known as 9.3.10) has been released as a stable version.

Just to spread the message a bit more, I decided to start this thread.

tl;dr - XHCI is supported on 9.10.

Pictures here.

Disclaimers:
I haven't tested it thoroughly, but the installation went without a hitch. XHCI bugs are, naturally, possible - if you find any, please report them. Haswell system owners, please be sure to tell everyone if you begin suffering mysterious crashes or are unable to boot - the XHCI driver was disabled by default due to an incompatibility with the Lynx Point PCH.
And obviously, 9.10 is not yet a stable release. So don't just blindly trust it.

Now, some details:

• Yes, the installer loads the XHCI driver! Installing from a USB 2.0 device to a USB 3.0 device went without a hitch on my X11SSM-F.
• I did not test the IPMI virtual devices, but they should be working.

EDIT: FreeNAS seems to dislike "upgrading" from 9.10 to 9.3.1. It is recommended that you stay on 9.10 after installing it.
If possible, avoid the workaround specified below:
And finally, a workaround for installing FreeNAS 9.3.1 with relative ease on Skylake systems:

1. Download the 9.10 nightly.
2. Install 9.10 to a SATA device (or other, non-USB device).
3. Switch trains to 9.3.1 and run the updater
4. You should now have a 9.3.1 install on your SATA device. It should work normally except for the lack of USB support.

EDIT: This workaround is not recommended.

 

[MurrayS]

Could you dumb down step 3?

I'm running 9.3-STABLE off of a SATA drive on X11SSM-F, and I've experienced a few issues so far, related to DHCP.

 

[DrKK]

Yes, the installer load the XHCI driver! Installing from a USB 2.0 device to a USB 3.0 device went without a hitch on my X11SSM-F.

That is superb news. It has been embarrassing to tell people that FreeNAS doesn't support booting their USB 3.0 devices, and on Skylake, you don't have a choice. I'm glad this is behind us.

 

[Ericloewe]

Could you dumb down step 3?

I'm running 9.3-STABLE off of a SATA drive on X11SSM-F, and I've experienced a few issues so far, related to DHCP.

I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to achieve.

The possibility of some weird DHCP behavior in 9.3.1 is odd, since nobody's complained. Additionally, the short guide is only interesting for those who do not have 9.3.1 installed yet.

Anyway, step 3:
In the update menu, there's a drop-down list to choose which update train to use. This allows you to switch between nightlies, stable releases and whatever else.

 

[Ericloewe]

Please see the OP for a warning:

The workaround mentioned there is not recommended.

 

[tprelog]

Hello if it helps anyone to know, I was able to install FreeNAS-9.3-STABLE-201602031011 to SATA drive on Supermicro X11SSH-F. Trying to install from USB (2.0 device) would stop while waiting on what looked like FreeNAS cd or iso to mount. After a timeout period I was just dropped to a mountroot command line. I installed from CD also connected to SATA and FreeNAS installed with no issues. I'm not sure about the USB on this MB... I also tried the latest nightly (downloaded on 03/08/2016) and was still having the same issue during install as with the latest stable release.

 

[Ericloewe]

I installed from CD also connected to SATA and FreeNAS installed with no issues.

That much is expected, the problem is exclusively with USB.

I'm not sure about the USB on this MB...

Not sure about what? Everything's clearly documented on the forum.

I also tried the latest nightly (downloaded on 03/08/2016) and was still having the same issue during install as with the latest stable release.

Not at all my experience. It just worked, as described above.

 

[tprelog]

Not sure about what? Everything's clearly documented on the forum.

Im sorry I should have been more clear, I meant not sure about it's support or function in these early stages of XHCI support. Based on forum (yes I have read some!) I was not expecting any USB to work at this point. However after reading the OP and based on your experience, I was thinking that if I using the latest nightly build, I would be able to use a usb-stick or usb-cdRom to install FreeNAS. Although our motherboards are very similar and you have had early success (with XHCI), I was just noting that I did not.

 

[Ericloewe]

XHCI is supported with FreeNAS 9.10, which is in the nightlies.

You may want to try different USB devices and see what happens, but XHCI is definitely supposed to work with 9.10.

 

[solarisguy]

@tprelog, are you sure you are aware of the differences between 9.3.1 and 9.10 (formerly known as 9.3.10 9.3.2) ?

Please reference https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/9-10-is-now-in-nightlies-testing.41806/

 

[Ericloewe]

@tprelog, are you sure you are aware of the differences between 9.3.1 and 9.10 (formerly known as 9.3.2) ?

FTFY

I believe I called 9.10 9.3.10 a couple of times this morning, so do call out my mistakes - the last thing we need is more confusion with the versioning.

9.10 should probably get a more memorable name, like FreeNAS 9 Bender Bending Rodriguez Edition, FreeNAS 9.10 for Workgroups, FreeNAS 9.2016, FreeNAS 9 OSR2, FreeNAS Totally-Not-Millenium-Edition, FreeNAS who says Ni! or FreeNAS "10 was delayed so long we had to switch to a newer FreeBSD version!".

 

[solarisguy]

@Ericloewe, thank you for correcting me!

 

[tprelog]

@tprelog, are you sure you are aware of the differences between 9.3.1 and 9.10 (formerly known as 9.3.10 9.3.2) ?

I think I got it now! I'm pretty sure I was trying the wrong nightly build. I downloaded FreeNAS-9.3-Nightlies-201602260300 and now if I understand correctly I should instead be trying FreeNAS-9.10-MASTER-201603092038? My first mistake was thinking 9.1 (I guess that last zero just escaped me :() so was an older version. But I get it now 9.10 (ten) definitely higher than 9.3. But its now 9.10 because basically FreeNAS 9.X is being refreshed with some bits from the upcoming FreeNAS 10

 

[Ericloewe]

201602260300

Yeah, that's an old build. Look at the timestamp to see when it was built - nightlies should be nightly (so no more than a day old), as the name implies.