Bug 42977

Summary: request: document the fact that the FreeBSD installer doesn't probe past EISA slot 10.
Product: Documentation Reporter: Julian Plamann <bofh>
Component: Books & ArticlesAssignee: freebsd-doc (Nobody) <doc>
Status: Closed FIXED    
Severity: Affects Only Me    
Priority: Normal    
Version: Latest   
Hardware: Any   
OS: Any   

Description Julian Plamann 2002-09-20 05:10:02 UTC 
The FreeBSD sysinstall only probes to the 10th EISA slot during hardware
detection. This presents a problem with systems (notably HP NetServer)
that have an on-board SCSI controller. Often these controllers have slot
numbers of 11-16. This causes the sysinstall to not be able to see the
controller and therefore any attached disks.

Presently, this can be fixed by entering into CLI kernel config mode and
typing something along the lines of "eisa 16". It would be nice if the
installer could be made to probe this high automatically. I'm sure there
are lots of NetServers in active use even in this day and age.

Best Regards,
Julian
Comment 1 Kris Kennaway freebsd_committer freebsd_triage 2003-07-19 00:06:22 UTC 
Responsible Changed
From-To: freebsd-bugs->qa

Assign to qa group
Comment 2 John Baldwin freebsd_committer freebsd_triage 2003-07-21 22:30:45 UTC 
On 18-Jul-2003 Kris Kennaway wrote:
> Synopsis: FreeBSD installer doesn't probe past EISA slot 10. Causes issues with NetServers.

This is a feature to avoid conflicts with PCI.  The bset resolution for
this might be to add a FAQ that explains how to increase the number of
slots from the kernel config in 4.x and from the loader on 5.x.

-- 

John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org>  <><  http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/
"Power Users Use the Power to Serve!"  -  http://www.FreeBSD.org/
Comment 3 Kris Kennaway 2003-07-21 22:42:27 UTC 
On Mon, Jul 21, 2003 at 05:30:45PM -0400, John Baldwin wrote:
> 
> On 18-Jul-2003 Kris Kennaway wrote:
> > Synopsis: FreeBSD installer doesn't probe past EISA slot 10. Causes issues with NetServers.
> 
> This is a feature to avoid conflicts with PCI.  The bset resolution for
> this might be to add a FAQ that explains how to increase the number of
> slots from the kernel config in 4.x and from the loader on 5.x.

And corresponding text to the install guide?

Kris
Comment 4 Andy Farkas 2003-07-21 23:23:16 UTC 
This is mentioned in LINT/NOTES already:

# By default, only 10 EISA slots are probed, since the slot numbers
# above clash with the configuration address space of the PCI subsystem,
# and the EISA probe is not very smart about this.  This is sufficient
# for most machines, but in particular the HP NetServer LC series comes
# with an onboard AIC7770 dual-channel SCSI controller on EISA slot #11,
# thus you need to bump this figure to 12 for them.
options         EISA_SLOTS=12

Maybe it should be mentioned in the Harware Notes for current releases,
including the workaround.

--

 :{ andyf@speednet.com.au

        Andy Farkas
    System Administrator
   Speednet Communications
 http://www.speednet.com.au/
Comment 5 John Baldwin freebsd_committer freebsd_triage 2003-07-22 04:23:09 UTC 
On 21-Jul-2003 Kris Kennaway wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 21, 2003 at 05:30:45PM -0400, John Baldwin wrote:
>> 
>> On 18-Jul-2003 Kris Kennaway wrote:
>> > Synopsis: FreeBSD installer doesn't probe past EISA slot 10. Causes issues with NetServers.
>> 
>> This is a feature to avoid conflicts with PCI.  The bset resolution for
>> this might be to add a FAQ that explains how to increase the number of
>> slots from the kernel config in 4.x and from the loader on 5.x.
> 
> And corresponding text to the install guide?

Sure, but I think this should be classed as a doc bug now and probably
handed off to doc@.

-- 

John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org>  <><  http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/
"Power Users Use the Power to Serve!"  -  http://www.FreeBSD.org/
Comment 6 Mark Linimon freebsd_committer freebsd_triage 2004-09-08 22:27:12 UTC 
Responsible Changed
From-To: qa->freebsd-doc

Reclassify this as a doc PR, since the Audit-Trail claims that the 
code is doing The Right Thing (in general).
Comment 7 Gavin Atkinson 2004-09-15 17:52:33 UTC 
This issue has been documented in the Troubleshooting section of the
i386 notes for a while now and can therefore probably be closed.

e.g. section 4.3.12 of
http://www.freebsd.org/releases/4.6R/installation-i386.html
Comment 8 Mark Linimon freebsd_committer freebsd_triage 2004-09-16 17:32:17 UTC 
State Changed
From-To: open->closed

This information is now documented in the Troubleshooting section.