We received a number of the new HP Proliant DL360p G8 servers and aimed to give them a test run with multiple OS’. My goal was to install FreeBSD 8-STABLE (same as we’re testing on the Dell PowerEdge R620s).

Our provisioning platform utilizes a traditional PXE method with Linux and FreeBSD integrated. On my first attempt to PXE boot and install FreeBSD, the kernel panic’d when the network interface was brought up within sysinstall.

Turns out that the neither the BCM5719 nor BCM5720 ethernet controllers are fully supported in FreeBSD 8-STABLE as of this writing. However, the FreeBSD community is currently working on resolving this.

As of this writing, the DL360p G8 ships only with a daughtercard based on the BCM5719. An Intel option is not yet available. So we ordered a PCIe NIC based on the Intel 82571 and removed the daughtercard from the motherboard then inserted the PCIe Intel NIC. We modified the BIOS settings to ensure the Intel NICs were bootable devices. This allowed us to PXE boot and build FreeBSD.

FreeBSD also supports the HP NC361T/Intel i350T2, both based on the Intel i350 controller. The downside with using a PCIe NIC is that a slot is removed as an expansion option.