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Date:      Thu, 21 Apr 2005 21:17:05 +0200
From:      Chris Zumbrunn <chris@czv.com>
To:        questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Stuck in bootstrapping hell - how do I troubleshoot?
Message-ID:  <f428b0f5d245cc46f5236416ba2b145c@czv.com>
In-Reply-To: <5af4153cc97abfa75d403f30eb8e9963@czv.com>
References:  <5af4153cc97abfa75d403f30eb8e9963@czv.com>

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I repeated the setup attempt on another machine with different hardware 
and got stuck with the same problem. Does anybody have a idea regarding 
the obvious that I could be missing in order to get these systems to 
boot?  Otherwise I'll get someone to sit in front of the machine and 
look at the screen during a boot attempt :-)

/czv

On Apr 17, 2005, at 8:31 PM, Chris Zumbrunn wrote:

> I'm having a hell of a time trying to get a new development server to 
> boot FreeBSD.
>
> The disk contents are an exact mirror from what I have running on a 
> production server, except for a different IP number in rc.conf. The 
> hardware is identical as far as I can tell.
>
> The server is in a datacenter and I can only access it via ssh and 
> boot either from the local disks or via network (freebsd or linux) - 
> no serial console, so I can't see where it gets stuck during the 
> bootstrap.
>
> Any attempt to boot from the local disks fails. I can't ping the 
> server for several minutes, until I give up and reboot again via 
> network. Nothing is written to /var/log/messages during the local boot 
> attempt.
>
> I've reinstalled the bootstrap code several times both using 
> sysinstall to install a standard mbr and using fdisk -B -b /boot/boot0 
> ar0 and disklabel -B -b /boot/boot1 -s /boot/boot2 ar0s1
>
> I seem to run into this same kind of problem over and over again. 
> Usually I somehow get it to work eventually, without being able to 
> tell anymore what fixed it because of the mass of stuff I tried before 
> it just suddenly works :-)
>
> How can I verify that I have a valid boot sector and mbr on that disk 
> (other than by attempting to boot)?  Any tips on how to troubleshoot 
> these kinds of bootstrapping problems without sitting in front of the 
> box or having console access?
>
> I'm happy to provide any additional infos regarding the details of the 
> setup. I'm mirroring a server that is running FreeBSD 4.11.
>
> chris@czv.com  +41 329 41 41 41
> Chris Zumbrunn Ventures - http://www.czv.com/
> Internet Application Technology - Reduced to the Maximum
>
>

chris@czv.com  +41 329 41 41 41
Chris Zumbrunn Ventures - http://www.czv.com/
Internet Application Technology - Reduced to the Maximum



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