All the guides I find are for setting up something you know you want/need. I am new enough to the scene, that I don’t what things are desirable which I am not thinking of.
What I want to be able to do is access my server remotely, manage network resources, robust firewall (know I want pfSense), access media from other devices, maybe host game server, and also allow printing. I jack up my client enough that I want to experiment with virtualization. I have a client computer, phones, smart devices which all need access to internet. I have MyQ which also needs internet access.
My server is: Dell Powedege R730 w/ 256 GB ram, and 10 TB storage (16 600 GB drives) running MS Server 2019 Datacenter.
My goal is to go from internet to model to server to router so all traffic goes through server
Now the questions.
I have MS server installed. Do I start a VM now to install pfSense? Should I subnet or VLAN between trusted & untrusted devices? Is Hyper-V what I should be running? Is ESXI necessary? Should I be running an email server? How do the VMs work together? Through virtual switch? Where do you get started and where to get answers?
So many questions, so little knowledge. That’s OK, everybody has to take that first step into the unknown. But yours looks positively huge!
For starters, I’d suggest using a preconfigured OS that meets your requirements, like Proxmox or TrueNAS. Only when you’ve mastered that can you think of setting stuff up on your own on a Win-OS based product. Chances are, you’ll never actually want to as the aforementioned OS-es do their job just fine
I did manage to get ProxMox up, but saw that I was using the Perc raid controller. As I wanted to try out ZFS, I tried to re-install, but now am in no mans land.
I can’t access anything during boot up, no system bios, no lifecycle controller, no boot disk. I get the same error and don’t gave a clue what to do next.
Managed to get iDrac up and running. Shows I can no physical drives, no virtual drives, and no controller.
I’ve reset iDrac. No luck.
Then opened server box and removed/reinstalled all hard drives and Perc card. No luck.
Did you attempt to flash the raid controller to a IT mode? If so none of the drives will populate till you get a os running using a sata connected hdd or ssd… or at least that was my experience with my Dell t420…
Have you attempted to boot into the lifecycle controller (f10 if the same as mine) and let the server do a system inventory?
I don’t know how to flash the raid controller. Already flashed bios & iDRAC/lifecycle controller from inside iDRAC interface. Nothing has worked yet. None of the F keys work during boot up. It goes straight to RSoD.
Ouch, definitely seems bios didn’t take. The bios is built in, idrac uses its output. I hope someone can help you more than me. Have you tired perc disconnected and a sata connected drive? If idrac is working hopefully you can get it to boot correctly using updates with that tool.
May be able to find some documentation or help via the Dell website for your server. It really helped me to get a handle because enterprise gear has stuff that is sooooo different from consumer gear.
I posted this on the Dell forum too. They had me remove all but 1 ram, all cards, all but 1 drive then start up. I passed post and had control again. But I don’t know why that worked.
May have messed up system inventory. The Dell server relies on knowing what’s inside the machine. If bios update and idrac update both got messed up its a way to recover. Glad you got control back.
It’s definitely related to the PERC settings. Once I changed back to raid mode from HBA, everything is ok again. I am running hardware raid5 now with ext4 file system. Maybe if I get a new node I can try again. I just don’t know enough about the PERC settings to get it set correctly.
Yeah I had to have a hard drive connected directly to my motherboard to boot from. Then I flashed the PERC H310 I had to IT Mode to do a pass through of the whole harddrive to use it for zfs, but then all the drives connected to the raid controller are not able to be booted from… You’ll get there. It just takes time. Dell has a lot of built in things that complicate its use because it’s only officially supported to work with a few hypervisors. I have a Dell myself I’m working on. I’m no expert but if I can help feel free to msg me anytime. I’m on alot and I’ll try and help or point you the right direction if I can.
