Opnsense 26.7/Freebsd 15.1 hp p440ar root mount waiting for: CAM

If you have tried to upgrade to opnsense 26.7 or freebsd 15.1 on a hp platform with a p440ar, you will be met with a boot stuck at “Root mount waiting for: CAM”. I have found that commit 45645518ea19ccb4761aee3a525aab2f323d37d4 is the cause of this bootloop and i have communicated this with both freebsd and opnsense maintainers. The fix will be available sometime in the future but for now you can follow these steps to workaround the broken commit.

The Workaround

First follow these steps to build a working custom kernel.

pkg install git
git clone --branch 26.7.3 --filter=tree:0 https://github.com/opnsense/src /usr/src

cd /usr/src
git revert 45645518ea19ccb4761aee3a525aab2f323d37d4

make buildkernel
make installkernel

For opnsense only

You should create a seperate kernel option for easy identification.

cp -r /boot/kernel /boot/kernel.custom

Then update through System>Firmware>Updates. When it reboots you need to select the custom kernel at the bootloader. And then when it boots you need to replace the updated kernel with the custom kernel.

rm -rf /boot/kernel
cp -r /boot/kernel.custom /boot/kernel

The fix

Opnsense 26.7.4 should carry the fix and a future release of freebsd 15.1 will to. Until then you will need to follow these steps for each kernel upgrade before the fixes.