Booting from a HBA drive

[Kalsan]

Hi! I have a ProLiant DL580 Gen8 with HP Smart Storage Administrator. Before I take the system into production, I'm testing various things on it. As the hard drives have not arrived yet, I took an old SATA SSD, tossed it into the server and installed Debian on it. Observations:

• When running the controller in RAID and the drive in RAID0 mode in Smart Storage Administrator (single disk) and installing Debian, UEFI boot works instantly
• When running the controller in HBA mode, Debian installs just as fine, but the server refuses to boot from it. The UEFI boot option is there, but selecting it brings me directly back to the boot menu. The "select from file system" option shows no available file systems.

This brings us to my question: How can I boot from a HBA drive?

Thanks in advance for any advise / references. I know my way around UEFI on desktops, but I'm new to servers and might lack some knowledge.

[shiva_jr]

Hi Kalsan, 
        This community post and this link may help you.
Regards,
Shiva_JR

[Kalsan]

Hi Shiva, and thank you for your reply.

I assume you're referring to the following line in the first linked article:

In UEFI Boot Mode please verify the boot controller order it should have H240 adapter on top,

You second link, I'm afraid, appears to simply post to the forum's homepage.

I will try again, checking the boot order, in the next weeks (since an OS re-install is required, but I currently need the test lab I've built).

Best,
Kalsan,

[Kalsan]

@shiva_jr 

The BIOS offers no HBA boot option. One time boot does not either. I guess I will have to boot in RAID.

[Vinky_99]

@Kalsan 

Good day!

Booting from an HBA drive can be a bit different from booting from a drive connected to a RAID controller because in HBA mode, the controller essentially passes through the drives directly to the operating system, without any RAID functionality. The server boots directly from the HBA device, which can sometimes require special configuration. Here are some steps to help you boot from an HBA drive on your ProLiant DL580 Gen8:

1. Verify HBA Mode>> Ensure that the controller is indeed running in HBA mode. This is typically set in the server's BIOS or firmware settings. If it's not set to HBA mode, switch it to HBA mode.

2. Make sure that the SSD you are using is compatible with the HBA mode. Some drives may not be recognized or bootable in HBA mode, so verify compatibility with your server model.

3. UEFI Boot>>Ensure that your server is configured to boot in UEFI mode, as UEFI is commonly used for booting in modern systems. You mentioned that the UEFI boot option is available, which is good.

4. Check the boot order in the BIOS settings to ensure that the HBA device (your SSD) is selected as the primary boot device. You may need to configure the boot order in the UEFI settings or BIOS, depending on your server.

5. Sometimes, the UEFI boot manager may not detect the bootable devices correctly. You can manually add an entry for your HBA SSD in the UEFI boot manager:

a. Go to the UEFI boot menu.
b. Look for an option to add a boot entry or select a file system.
c. Choose the HBA device where Debian is installed.
d. Navigate to the EFI partition on the SSD (usually a small FAT32 partition).
e. Select the bootloader file (usually located in the EFI/Debian folder).
f. Add it as a boot entry.

6. If Secure Boot is enabled in your UEFI settings, ensure that it's configured to allow booting from unsigned or self-signed bootloaders. Some systems require specific signing keys to boot in Secure Boot mode.

7. Ensure that your server's firmware, including the UEFI/BIOS and HBA card firmware, is up-to-date. Sometimes, firmware updates can resolve compatibility and booting issues.

8. If you encounter any issues, check the server's logs or error messages for more information on why the boot attempt fails. It might provide clues on what needs to be adjusted.

Remember that booting from an HBA device can be more complex than booting from a RAID controller, as there are fewer layers of abstraction. You might need to manually configure the UEFI boot manager to recognize and boot from the HBA device. If you're still facing issues, reach out HPE support for further assistance.

Hope this helps! Let me know... 

[Kalsan]

Hi Vinky_99 and thank you for your reply. I have tried all the steps configuring the BIOS, Boot order, EFI, or Storage Administrator. For independent reasons, I am currently unable to upgrade the controller firmware. So either this is a software bug or the SSDs are not compatible with HBA boot. For now, I will leave the disks in RAID.

Best,
Kalsan