TrueNAS SCALE Ignore misssing SN when creating new pool

[sybreeder]

I'm having problem with creating new pool when i want to create new pool

sda, sdb are virtual mirrored boot drives for booting from ESXi
fioa is Fusion-IO card that doesn't pass SN to OS. I've moved everything from physical environment and it worked without any issue but now when i want to create new pool it refuses to to it. I know that there is no SN. That's not an issue for me. Is there way to put some random characters to gui to see or is there a way to make it to ignore it completely? I'm planning to redo main pool ( i have 3 now)

 

[sretalla]

Create your pool at CLI. Export it at the CLI and import it with the GUI.

 

[sybreeder]

Create your pool at CLI. Export it at the CLI and import it with the GUI.with this method poool doesn''t shows in storage disks

it doesn't shows pool name in storage disks

I don't like that method at all.
Aren't there method to put SN manually ?

 

[artlessknave]

i am pretty sure that using virtual drives is not supported. at all. since you are outside the design, you are largely on your own.
ZFS on virtual drives, even for your boot drive, is not a very good idea, and TrueNAS generally makes things that aren't a good idea difficult to do.

 

[sybreeder]

i am pretty sure that using virtual drives is not supported. at all. since you are outside the design, you are largely on your own.
ZFS on virtual drives, even for your boot drive, is not a very good idea, and TrueNAS generally makes things that aren't a good idea difficult to do.

Virtualized truenas is supported now. It's in documentation
And since TrueNAS is virtualized i have to use vmdk for boot.

 

[artlessknave]

first, i didnt say virtualized truenas wasn't supported, i said that ZFS on virtual disks probably wasn't. but looking at "The documentation", I would, in fact, say that virtualized is still not supported. it's possible, but not a supported config.

I have the link to virtualized freenas in my signature.

CORE Hardware Guide

Describes the hardware specifications and system component recommendations for custom TrueNAS CORE deployment.

www.truenas.com

Virtually FreeNAS ... an alternative for those seeking virtualization

[---- 2014/12/24: Note, there is another post describing how to create a full-sized FreeNAS VM directly managing a bunch of disks. THIS post is aimed at people wanting to use FreeNAS to provide a little basic file sharing off of virtual disks on shared VM storage. ----] There's been a lot of...

www.truenas.com

there is a right way to virtualize truenas, and a great many wrong ways, and virtualized truenas is still not recommended, it's more like "if you insist on doing this despite recommendations against it, here is how to make it work the most correctly".

TrueNAS is an enterprise product designed, intended, and SUPPORTED on enterprise hardware. trying to run it on anything else is a "your mileage may vary" state, but running on the recommended hardware, with recommended configurations, is the most reliable. virtualized is not in this category. just because something is possible, doesnt mean it's a good idea, and one of the problems with virtualization is that you are abstracting the hardware out, and that can cause issues...issues like not having serial numbers.
most of the "TrueNAS developers virtualize TrueNAS every day as part of their work" I assume you are refereing to are going to be test systems to test the OS, where having it crash or not work doesn't matter.

since you haven't followed the forum rules, that I can see, we don't even know if you tried to virtualize it the correct way.

 

[sybreeder]

first, i didnt say virtualized truenas wasn't supported, i said that ZFS on virtual disks probably wasn't. but looking at "The documentation", I would, in fact, say that virtualized is still not supported. it's possible, but not a supported config.

I have the link to virtualized freenas in my signature.

CORE Hardware Guide

Describes the hardware specifications and system component recommendations for custom TrueNAS CORE deployment.

www.truenas.com

Virtually FreeNAS ... an alternative for those seeking virtualization

[---- 2014/12/24: Note, there is another post describing how to create a full-sized FreeNAS VM directly managing a bunch of disks. THIS post is aimed at people wanting to use FreeNAS to provide a little basic file sharing off of virtual disks on shared VM storage. ----] There's been a lot of...

www.truenas.com

there is a right way to virtualize truenas, and a great many wrong ways, and virtualized truenas is still not recommended, it's more like "if you insist on doing this despite recommendations against it, here is how to make it work the most correctly".

TrueNAS is an enterprise product designed, intended, and SUPPORTED on enterprise hardware. trying to run it on anything else is a "your mileage may vary" state, but running on the recommended hardware, with recommended configurations, is the most reliable. virtualized is not in this category. just because something is possible, doesnt mean it's a good idea, and one of the problems with virtualization is that you are abstracting the hardware out, and that can cause issues...issues like not having serial numbers.
most of the "TrueNAS developers virtualize TrueNAS every day as part of their work" I assume you are refereing to are going to be test systems to test the OS, where having it crash or not work doesn't matter.

since you haven't followed the forum rules, that I can see, we don't even know if you tried to virtualize it the correct way.

• Disable automatic scrub pools on virtualized storage such as VMFS, and never scrub a pool while also running storage repair tasks on another layer.
• Provide one or more 8 GB or larger boot devices.
  i've read docs before and done that.

I've also used before FreeNAS with older ESXi maybe 6.5 and also i've used passed through 9211-8i HBA

Supermicro X9DRH-7TH and ESXi 7.03 with passed through NIC through SR-IOV, 2308-IT mode HBA, Fusion-IO 3.2TB Flash Storage, and regular Kioxia 256GB NVME
This wouln't be a problem if Fusion-IO would just pass Serial Number to OS. It doesn't. With Single Boot device there would be no SN issues. All drives are physically connected HBA.

 

[artlessknave]

ok, that looks like you have it mostly the correct way then at least. it's been awhile, but I swear when I had my backup freenas virtualized (which I didnt like) that the disks got random serials. that would make your setup at least work, i think.
what if you created new VM disks in the VM, do they get serials? maybe if they do, you could replace the boot disks with serials, and get around the issue?
then you would only have the fioa thing with blank, and you could make your new pool (and move data from the fioa to it?)

if you had a single boot device, you would still have 2 drives with the same serial number, wouldn't you? since you would still have 1 boot and 1 fioa with blank serials.

on an tangential note...did you happen to ever try to boot from the onboard 2308? I just got my own x9srh-7f, and it doesn't, to my surprise; no entries in boot, no configuration prompt, nada :'(

 

[sybreeder]

ok, that looks like you have it mostly the correct way then at least. it's been awhile, but I swear when I had my backup freenas virtualized (which I didnt like) that the disks got random serials. that would make your setup at least work, i think.
what if you created new VM disks in the VM, do they get serials? maybe if they do, you could replace the boot disks with serials, and get around the issue?
then you would only have the fioa thing with blank, and you could make your new pool (and move data from the fioa to it?)

if you had a single boot device, you would still have 2 drives with the same serial number, wouldn't you? since you would still have 1 boot and 1 fioa with blank serials.

on an tangential note...did you happen to ever try to boot from the onboard 2308? I just got my own x9srh-7f, and it doesn't, to my surprise; no entries in boot, no configuration prompt, nada :'(

Hmm honestly i haven't trieed it yet. I did now

At first i used Vmware Paravirtualization - No SN
Then i've switched to LSI SAS on same drive - no SN
Now i've created completely new but i've connected it to SATA Controller - looks like some SN it there :D

In term of booting my 2308 doesn't have BIOS installed. I wanted to remove all overhead i could. It's LSI 2208 with 1gb cache converted to 2308-IT Mode using this instruction: https://mywiredhouse.net/blog/flashing-lsi-2208-firmware-use-hba/

Update
Unfortunately after switch to SATA It doesn't boot. I'll try to create backup of configuratyion and reinstall it on SATA drive. Maybe this will help

It boots only from single drive now. second boot-pool device with SN doesn't have grub.

Update2:
I was able to boot from SATA after all

Seems that i will be able to create pool from GUI without issues.

 

[artlessknave]

looks like some SN it there :D

hopefully that helps

In term of booting my 2308 doesn't have BIOS installed. I wanted to remove all overhead i could. It's LSI 2208 with 1gb cache converted to 2308-IT Mode using this instruction: https://mywiredhouse.net/blog/flashing-lsi-2208-firmware-use-hba/

hmm. mine has the bios, and I already flashed it to updated IT/Bios, hoping it was just missing the BIOS, but nope, stupid thing doesnt show up at boot anywhere. sigh. completely threw off my plans.

 

[sybreeder]

hopefully that helps

hmm. mine has the bios, and I already flashed it to updated IT/Bios, hoping it was just missing the BIOS, but nope, stupid thing doesnt show up at boot anywhere. sigh. completely threw off my plans.

Have you enter Bios of 2308? Many times there are boot confguration for controller. Unless It doesn't support boot from UEFI
Or it's note enabled

https://www.supermicro.com/manuals/other/LSI_HostRAID_2308.pdf

 

[artlessknave]

Have you enter Bios of 2308?

can't. there is no prompt to get there eg. "ctrl-C to enter configurator".
its like it doesn't have a bios.
I have a thread for it already, so if you have ideas, that's the better place for them.

x9srh-7f will not boot from onboard lsi/broadcom 2308

has anyone tried to boot from the onboard SAS on a x9srh-7f? I got it to go in a proprietary, old isilon chassis, thinking i could just put some reverse break-outs on it, but it will not boot from the sas at all, there is no sign of it in the BIOS, and it does not give the "press ctrl-C to...

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