OpenBSD booting from SATA

[StickyPine]

Hi !

I would like to install OpenBSD (6.9 at the time of writing) on an encrypted RAID1 device.
After struggling for a very long time with a defective PCIe to SATA  card, I finally managed to finish the installation process. But I'm not able to boot from SATA.

I've flashed SPI with u-boot and put the dtb (and even u-boot) on 'i' partition of the disk, but didn't manage to have it boot successfully.

Is there a way to make it work ?

[MNtinkerer]

Hi !

I would like to install OpenBSD (6.9 at the time of writing) on an encrypted RAID1 device.
After struggling for a very long time with a defective PCIe to SATA  card, I finally managed to finish the installation process. But I'm not able to boot from SATA.

I've flashed SPI with u-boot and put the dtb (and even u-boot) on 'i' partition of the disk, but didn't manage to have it boot successfully.

Is there a way to make it work ?

I don't know enough about BSD boot processes and U-boot to give any solid advice, however anyone who can help you will need to know:

1. Version of U-boot (including link to source incase of custom build)
   
2. drive layout  and how it is formatted the printout of fdisk list command in a console (fdisk -l). This may need to be done by using a different computer to install the drive to view it's layout.
   
3. Encryption method such as what is described in this encryption tutorial
   
4. And very likely the printout of a console connection from UART when booting
   

1) The version of U-boot since to verify it is encryption capable, how so, and compatible with your drive layout. 
2) Layout and format for verifying compatibility.
3) Encryption method for verifying compatibility.
4) Using UART will tell you where your machine is hanging during the boot process.

I have only worked with LUKS on Linux and know GRUB2 is capable of decrypting LUKS encrypted drives and partitions, which is necessary when the OS boot instructions that GRUB points to are encrypted, or the last stages of boot instructions including user configuration files is encrypted. U-boot is capable of decryption if configured to do so.

Given how little activity happens in this forum for BSD, you may need to also ask your question on the official OpenBSD forum, and also the official FreeBSD.org. If you get it figured out, please share here as other users would probably find that helpful! Sorry I couldn't be more helpful, Good Luck!

[StickyPine]

Thanks for your reply, I'll indeed keep searching and will update this post if I find anything interesting !