illumos gate

We've been hearing reports of general problems with mpt_sas FW > 18.

I also wonder, maybe, if #5017 (not in r151012, BTW) may cure this problem as well?

In the meantime, please check your BIOS to see if you have 64-bit DMA enabled (may be called "4G limit" or something).

Mainboard is a Supermicro X10SLM-F.

Above 4G decode was disabled during installation. It's the BIOS default to have it disabled.
I didn't see any change in the LSI boot process during POST with >4G decode enabled. It seems to have triggered some PCI device reordering? Could be a coincidence.

I'll see if it changes the install behavior.

Now I'm getting "Unsupported 64 bit prefetch memory on PCI-PCI bridge [0/1/1]" at boot time with >4G enabled. The message (and boot slowness) disappears when >4G is disabled.

From: https://community.oracle.com/thread/2460366 mentions a limitation with devices mapping memory above 4G. Apparently this is a known issue. I see why you suggested it.

The "reordering" problem was just the "Lynx Point lose your USB chipset after soft reboot" bug.

I've also noted that if BIOS/OS boot is disabled in the LSI BIOS, the card will not be found by the installer. It will be found by the installed OS, however.

I've been unable to locate a changelog for the LSI firmware releases, and the references I have found pointing the Illumos/OmniOS mpt driver being the best open-source option.

Apparently, in order to get Solaris 11 to work on ESXi with device passthrough enabled, you need to replace the Oracle driver with the open source one:
http://www.abisen.com/lsi2308-with-solaris11.1.html

So it seems that there is something specific in how the mpt driver is/is not implemented in the installer process.

I'm making these notes here in order to help others through installation troubles. This would probably make a good install note, even if the installer is not updated.