LSI SAS9201-8i (SAS2008) passthrough to FreeNAS

[tdias]

Hello everyone,

I've been fighting this issue for the last day with no success. I've tried all of the methods I found in threads on this forum with no advances.

I'm trying to pass an LSI SAS9201-8i card to a FreeNAS VM. I've set the VM to q35 mode, the card to pcie, and tried all combinations of settings on the PCI device. I've also tried PCI mode, other versions of q35, all resulting in the same:

If I have rombar on, I get the following error on boot:

Unable to load LSI Corporation MPT BIOS
MPT BIOS Fault 0Ch encountered at adapter PCI(01h,00h,00h)

If I have rombar off, or I let it continue after this error, FreeNAS boot fails with the following error:

pci0: <multimedia, HDA> at device 27.0 (no device attached)
pcib1: <ACPI PCI-PCI bridge> irq 16 at device 28.0 on pci0
pci1: <ACPI PCI bus> on pcib1
mps0: <Avago Technologies (LSI) SAS2008> port 0x5000-0x50ff mem 0xfe8c0000-0xfe8cffff,0xfe880000-0xfe8bffff irq 16 at device 0.0 on pci1
mps0: IOC in fault state 0x0, resetting
mps0: Firmware: 11.00.00.00, Driver: 21.02.00.00-fbsd
mps0: IOCCapabilities: 1285c<ScsiTaskFull,DiagTrace,SnapBuf,EEDP,TransRetry,EventReplay,HostDisc>

I've also tried changing settings in the card itself, blacklisting it in the host, and everything else I could find. I didn't manage to change the card firmware because I can't find the card on the LSI website, as it seems to be an OEM type card. The card works fine if FreeNAS is installed directly.

Thanks in advance!

 

[r.jochum]

Did you try to boot the guest OVMF (UEFI) ? Not sure it fixes anything but you could try.

 

[apoc]

Regarding firmware: Search for "sas 9201 crossflash" via google and you will find plenty results. This might be valuable:
https://www.reddit.com/r/unRAID/comments/ayf6n7/lsi_sas_920116e_it_firmware/
Might not solve your boot issue though.

For that I first would try to disable the controller BIOS which is typically only needed if you want to boot from it. The first message indicates that the issue might be lying there.

Good luck!

 

[tdias]

Did you try to boot the guest OVMF (UEFI) ? Not sure it fixes anything but you could try.

Yes. I don't get the first error, but I get the same FreeNAS error

Regarding firmware: Search for "sas 9201 crossflash" via google and you will find plenty results. This might be valuable:
https://www.reddit.com/r/unRAID/comments/ayf6n7/lsi_sas_920116e_it_firmware/
Might not solve your boot issue though.

For that I first would try to disable the controller BIOS which is typically only needed if you want to boot from it. The first message indicates that the issue might be lying there.

Good luck!

Thank you for the first link! It indeed has a link to the broadcom driver page.
About the second part, I tried disabling the card booting in the settings and nothing changed.

 

[tdias]

I've tried installing ESXI and I get the boot stuck on the same error as well, without the "IOC in failed state" part. I'll try updating the card firmware and see if it changes anything.

 

[tdias]

After a firmware and BIOS update I finally have the BIOS loading in the VM and no more hangs, that said, FreeNAS is still not recognizing the card. This time with no errors.

 

[tdias]

It finally works! After the BIOS update, a change from q35 to pc-q35-3.1 makes FreeNAS recognize the disks!

 

[tdias]

Seems like it's not completely OK. On the first boot my card was detected and worked fine, after a reboot it hangs loading the card with the following error:

mps0: mps_wait_db_ack: failed due to timeout count(10000), int_status(c0000000)!
mps0: Doobell handshake failed : <mps_message_unit_reset>

Maybe because it wasn't a clean shutdown? Perhaps there's a way to reset the card? Maybe at this point this is a FreeNAS forum question as well, let me know what you think.

Also, this was the firmware I installed if anyone needs it: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/b...ckage_P20_IR_IT_FW_BIOS_for_MSDOS_Windows.zip

 

[apoc]

Try stopping and starting instead of a reboot and if that helps.
Iirc I have read that somewhere where people had issues passing through a graphics card