Wake on LAN irritations

[Jost Wittmann]

Hi everybody,
I enabled WOL in the Bios-settings so I can remotely start my FreeNAS server. Seems to work fine in the beginning, since after the magic packet has been sent, the system starts at once. The funny thing is: After the "Press F12 for Bios.." messages, the screen remains black. Nothing happens.
Pressing the powerbutton, the system goes quiet at once. pressing the powerbutton again, the system boots as expected:

1. Bios-messages
2. Grub (few seconds countdown)
3. FreeNAS

Any idea why Grub doesn't show up? Since the initial WOL seems to work: what could cause the hang-up?
Thanks for helping!

 

[Jost Wittmann]

Nobody?
It's not a WOL problem really, as the computer starts.... or is it?
It's not a FreeNAS problem really, as the boot process interrupts before Grub/Freenas starts... or is it?

So this might be the wrong forum(?). Where to ask?
Thanks for any input!

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

So this might be the wrong forum(?).

It doesn't seem like a FreeNAS problem, but with so little information there's no way to tell. Have you tried WOL booting to a different OS?

Where to ask?

Maybe in the support forum for the motherboard?

 

[Jost Wittmann]

Hi Robert,

Good point, trying another OS! Shall give it a shot.

Here are the basics:

1. HP workstation xw4400,
   • Onboard LAN port.
   • 8Gbyte of RAM
2. Grub: v202 beta2
3. FreeNAS built: FreeNAS-9.3-STABLE-201506292130

Cheers!

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

The xw4400 doesn't look like an ideal platform for FreeNAS. You're maxed out at 8GB of RAM, hard drives are limited to 2TB, power consumption and performance will be sub-optimal. Depending on how you plan to use it, it may satisfy your needs.

 

[Jost Wittmann]

I agree - not a perfect match (Freenas and tthe HP xw4400), but for now I can live with it. 8Gbyte of Ram work fine for me, and I got 2 6TB harddrives in a Raid1 configuration in there (WD, red-series) - so you are mistaken with you hard drive limitation. However, I do definitively agree with the power consumption. For now, it's a price I am willing to pay.

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

you are mistaken with you hard drive limitation

Thought I saw it in the specs PDF on hp.com, but it was probably just the largest they could imagine at the time of publication (2008).

 

[SmallGuy]

Thought I saw it in the specs PDF on hp.com, but it was probably just the largest they could imagine at the time of publication (2008).

This is related to the grub. FreeNAS use gpt, so this limitation doesn't apply in that use case.