After being away from OpenBSD for about 2 years, I recently decided to
take another look at it for a server I am deploying. The machine is a
8-way amd64 (Intel quad Xeon x 2) with 16GB ram. The BIOS and bootloader
correctly see all 16gb, but the kernel only sees 4.00GB (a very
non-random amount, indicating to me an artificial limit is being imposed
somewhere). Just for comparison purposes, amd64 Windows and amd64 Linux
also both see 16gb, but these are not being considered for deployment.
I've tried both 4.2 and -current from a week or so back, and have the
same problem on both. I also went through the -GENERIC config and
GENERIC-MP config and tried to see if any options in there were
applicable, but did not see anything that seemed appropriate to fix this
issue.
A few notes:
1. I am using the amd64 platform release, not i386 (in case someone
thought I was trying to do some PAE-related stuff). I verified that it
really is the amd64 kernel and not a rogue i386 one that slipped in
there accidentally (which would explain the 4GB limit without PAE).
2. Both GENERIC and -MP only see 4gb, but -MP _does_ correctly see all 8
cores.
3. I checked the archive and noticed that some people have had no issues
with similar configurations, so I'm probably doing something wrong or I
might be missing a config option. (Most of these success stories are
using Sun hardware - the machine in question is not, but I'm not sure
why the system would be picky in that respect).
4. The memory ranges reported by the bootloader are correct - typical
mappings up to 4gb, followed by a large 12.8GB range starting at
physical 5GB. All the ranges are enabled.
5. It's a Dell server, in case that matters to anyone.
Any thoughts or specific reason why I _should not_ expect this
configuration to work (with all 16gb usable) ?
-ml
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
