In my personal experience with relatively recent Dell servers with OpenBSD,
I've found that the Dell BIOS faults a lot with OpenBSD. I own a pair of
r730xd, and its hell. Faulty buffers, faulty electric management, it just
freezes after 6GB of consecutive data transfer from disk to disk or disk to
network. I wouldn't be surprised if it had something to do with the Dell BIOS
looking to talk to the Dell Linux Drivers (but you ain't got them on OpenBSD,
right ?).
I think they're dead-man-switch devices that Dell implemented at a software
level between the BIOS and kernel drivers.
But I haven't had anybody at Dell confirm this. Ya know? Their only
recommendation is "install the penguin".
It used to be that Dell was more supportive of OpenBSD, I fear that time has
passed.
Also; the symptoms you mention can't be related to the "reboot" application. By
the time the hardware is rebooted, the reboot app is long gone from memory.
The system is fresh and reloaded from disk/network/memory. That reboot could
cause a glitch in the USB keyboard & mouse is quite ... hardware ? The glitch
would need to be introduced in the BIOS/Boot stack to mess around with you
before the BIOS loads, and I don't think there are such facilities under
OpenBSD, not out of the box at least.
The issue is super probably between the hardware, the BIOS & the EUFI drivers.
Or just plain hard disk corruption; I've seen that on the r730xd in fact. With
so many hardware freezes, the firmware drivers ended up as garbage on the disk.
Same could/should happen with the EUFI drivers on disk.
But Dell won't help much... try them at least, but don't get your hopes up.
We need to pressure them in considering OpenBSD is a customer want. ☹
-Original Message-
From: owner-b...@openbsd.org On Behalf Of
ir...@unix-world.org
Sent: Sunday, August 1, 2021 7:06 PM
To: bugs@openbsd.org
Subject: Ref: Details on OpenBSD bug on system reboot with XHCI and UEFI
Hi,
For details look at my previous message on this issue.
After digging more this bug appear to be very old.
I tried with older OpenBSD 6.6 and the same:
USB keyboard and mouse work ok on cold-start boot.
USB keyboard and mouse get frozen if I type the "reboot" command in OpenBSD,
then OpenBSD boots and crashes before assigning the xhci keyboard and mouse.
I think the problem is with the reboot command which is not compatible with new
UEFI like bioses.
This is because after reboot command from OpenBSD the keyboard and mouse are
frozen even at the bios level when trying to enter the bios setup
(F2) or boot selection (F12).
I am not sure what executes the reboot command in OpenBSD and why the USB
keyboard and mouse freeze after reboot. The reboot command in Debian Linux 10
works perfectly. Also on Ubuntu, Alpine Linux or Windows 10.
I installed several operating system to test:
1. Windows 10
2. Debian Linux 10
3. OpenBSD 6.9
First two work perfectly on reboot.
If I type reboot from OpenBSD console will reboot the system and will freeze
the USB keyboard and mouse. After Debian EFI GRUB 2 (or Windows
10 EFI) boot start any of them will unfreeze the USB Keyboard and Mouse.
I also tested like this:
Boot the install image of OpenBSD 6.9 (or 6.6) in UEFI mode on a new Dell Bios
that have no option to enable the legacy modeat all !!
When the message appear on OpenBSD:
"Select (i) to install, ... (S) for shell", just type "s" to enter the shell.
Then type "reboot" + ENTER.
The system will reboot normally, but the USB Keyboard and mouse is no more
working (I tried on different machines with different BIOS versions
v.2.0 or later of the Dell Bios).
Ex: Optiplex 3080 (desktop) or Optiplex 3080 SFF (small factor desktop).
After reboot if I press F12 will enter the prompt to choose the boot device or
even F2 to show the Bios Setup, but actually neither keyboard or mouse are
working. Mouse will be frozen if you choose Dell Bios Setup. Or you can't
choose any option if press F12.
Actually after reboot cannot even type "boot -c" when OpenBSD boot prompt
appears.
Then after reboot OpenBSD will start and will crash before setting the XHCI
devices which I suppose are somehow locked from the previous boot, I am not
sure exactly what is going on.
PS:
Another issue, maybe it is related.
Even on normal boot (cold-start boot), I am able to type "boot -c" will boot
and to UKC console.
But UKC console is not usable because the USB keyboard and mouse are not yet
initialized.
Also if crashing after reboot. It gives the DDB console but I am not able to
use it because like in the case above the keyboard and mouse xhci are not
initialized yet.
Conclusion:
The OpenBSD 6.6 ... 6.9 "reboot" command on new Dell Bios 2.x (which have no
more option for legacy boot or legacy keyboard/mouse) is freezing the USB
keyboard and mouse.
This is not happening with Linux "reboot" or Windows "restart".
OpenBSD 6.9 I can only install with UEFI boot since new Dell BIOS have no
option to MBR
