2.4.21-pre4: PDC ide driver problems with shared interrupts
A message that is not in the archive (sent off-list or not yet received): [email protected]
John:
Quick fix to the problem is remove devfs -- it appears that the devfs code doesn't like to have the raid layered on top of it, and it loses interrupts.
I've got two systems now running 4 200GB WD's connected to a single promise card (ATA100/TX2) with the booting drive (a 5th drive) attached to the motherboard. The raid works flawlessly and is fast -- I imagine there'd be a speedup by keeping all the drives as master (with 2 pdc's) and it would be more robust, but those aren't issues.
Hope this helps -- I'll post this to the mailing list to help anyone else with this problem.
- Ed
Quoted 11 lines · John V. Martinez
Hi Ed,
I found a linux-kernel post you made back in March about problems running two Promise IDE controllers in the same system. I have a similar configuration, (and a similar problem,) and I was wondering if you ever found a solution, or if one of the more recent 2.4.21-foo kernels solved it for you.
(I have two Promise ATA-100/TX2 (20268 chip) controllers, and I have one 200GB WD drive as a single master on each channel. The two controllers are sharing interrupts with othwer cards, but not with each other. I can access each disk individually, but when I tried to make them work hard: mkraid a RAID5 array using these four drives, the system freezes HARD until I hit the big red button. [Then it reboots, spots the raid superblock, tries to rebuild my RAID5 array, and freezes again, until I get a clue and unplug the drives in question while powered down :^))
Anyway, if you have any more insight into this problem than you did in March, and care to share, I'd be much obliged.
Cheers,
-(-- John
Hi Ed,
Thanks for the quick reply. Sadly, I think I have a different (possibly related?) problem, as I am not currently using devfs.
(clarification: my kernel does have devfs support compiled in, but it is not mounted on my system -- you don't think just having it compiled in makes any difference, do you? I can't see why it would, but stranger things have happened -- to me, at least :^) -- I'm currently running a Debian 3.0 system with their 'Pentium Classic' 2.4.18 kernel (2.4.18-586tsc) flavor, but the problem was still present when I tried switching to the 2.4.20 kernel currently in testing. I guess I'll try building 2.4.21 when I get a chance - trouble is, it's (supposed to be) a 24x7 server, so I can't afford too much downtime for these experiments. (Which is why I was searching the web, hoping to find a definitive checkin comment somewhere that said "John's problem with two promise controllers locking up his system when he rebuild his RAID array is fixed now in 2.4.21-cheesewhiz" but no such luck.
:^)
I guess if all else fails, I'll use the setup you have: 4-drive RAID on one controller. My concern was not so much the performance hit of using both master&slave, but the possibility of a bad drive hosing the connection to both drives on that controller, thus taking down 1/2 of my RAID5 array at once.
Do you happen to know if anybody makes a (Linux-friendly) IDE controller card with more than two channels? All the cards I have found which will connect more than 4 drives are hardware RAID controllers, (or faux-hardware raid, like Promise.)
Anyway, thanks again for your time,
-(-- John V. Martinez
Quoted 45 lines · Edward King
John:
Quick fix to the problem is remove devfs -- it appears that the devfs code doesn't like to have the raid layered on top of it, and it loses interrupts.
I've got two systems now running 4 200GB WD's connected to a single promise card (ATA100/TX2) with the booting drive (a 5th drive) attached to the motherboard. The raid works flawlessly and is fast -- I imagine there'd be a speedup by keeping all the drives as master (with 2 pdc's) and it would be more robust, but those aren't issues.
Hope this helps -- I'll post this to the mailing list to help anyone else with this problem.
- Ed
Quoted 24 lines · John V. Martinez
Hi Ed,
I found a linux-kernel post you made back in March about problems running two Promise IDE controllers in the same system. I have a similar configuration, (and a similar problem,) and I was wondering if you ever found a solution, or if one of the more recent 2.4.21-foo kernels solved it for you.
(I have two Promise ATA-100/TX2 (20268 chip) controllers, and I have one 200GB WD drive as a single master on each channel. The two controllers are sharing interrupts with othwer cards, but not with each other. I can access each disk individually, but when I tried to make them work hard: mkraid a RAID5 array using these four drives, the system freezes HARD until I hit the big red button. [Then it reboots, spots the raid superblock, tries to rebuild my RAID5 array, and freezes again, until I get a clue and unplug the drives in question while powered down :^))
Anyway, if you have any more insight into this problem than you did in March, and care to share, I'd be much obliged.
Cheers,
-(-- John
Do not compile the devfs -- I beleive if you compile it, it will be used (it can't be compiled as a module).
I caught the error because partimage didn't find /dev/hda1 but found the path devfs uses natively (don't remember, something like bsd, not important) which I beleive (and could be really off base here) that the /dev/hda1 actually pointed to if devfs code was compiled in (I _think_ -- big stress on not being sure -- that devfs makes itself transparent.)
Compile without devfs and try it. It doesn't matter how many ide controllers you use, where you put the drives, DMA settings, etc. I found with devfs the raid would crash in a heartbeat but single drives would respond without a hiccup -- even running bonnie on each drive simultaneously for hours.
As for more ide ports, no idea. Maybe the new SATA will help there but I haven't played with them.
- Ed
Quoted 74 lines · John V. Martinez
Hi Ed,
Thanks for the quick reply. Sadly, I think I have a different (possibly related?) problem, as I am not currently using devfs.
(clarification: my kernel does have devfs support compiled in, but it is not mounted on my system -- you don't think just having it compiled in makes any difference, do you? I can't see why it would, but stranger things have happened -- to me, at least :^) -- I'm currently running a Debian 3.0 system with their 'Pentium Classic' 2.4.18 kernel (2.4.18-586tsc) flavor, but the problem was still present when I tried switching to the 2.4.20 kernel currently in testing. I guess I'll try building 2.4.21 when I get a chance - trouble is, it's (supposed to be) a 24x7 server, so I can't afford too much downtime for these experiments. (Which is why I was searching the web, hoping to find a definitive checkin comment somewhere that said "John's problem with two promise controllers locking up his system when he rebuild his RAID array is fixed now in 2.4.21-cheesewhiz" but no such luck.
:^)
I guess if all else fails, I'll use the setup you have: 4-drive RAID on one controller. My concern was not so much the performance hit of using both master&slave, but the possibility of a bad drive hosing the connection to both drives on that controller, thus taking down 1/2 of my RAID5 array at once.
Do you happen to know if anybody makes a (Linux-friendly) IDE controller card with more than two channels? All the cards I have found which will connect more than 4 drives are hardware RAID controllers, (or faux-hardware raid, like Promise.)
Anyway, thanks again for your time,
-(-- John V. Martinez
Quoted 29 lines · Edward King
John:
Quick fix to the problem is remove devfs -- it appears that the devfs code doesn't like to have the raid layered on top of it, and it loses interrupts.
I've got two systems now running 4 200GB WD's connected to a single promise card (ATA100/TX2) with the booting drive (a 5th drive) attached to the motherboard. The raid works flawlessly and is fast -- I imagine there'd be a speedup by keeping all the drives as master (with 2 pdc's) and it would be more robust, but those aren't issues.
Hope this helps -- I'll post this to the mailing list to help anyone else with this problem.
- Ed
Quoted 13 lines · John V. Martinez
Hi Ed,
I found a linux-kernel post you made back in March about problems running two Promise IDE controllers in the same system. I have a similar configuration, (and a similar problem,) and I was wondering if you ever found a solution, or if one of the more recent 2.4.21-foo kernels solved it for you.
(I have two Promise ATA-100/TX2 (20268 chip) controllers, and I have one 200GB WD drive as a single master on each channel. The two controllers are sharing interrupts with othwer cards, but not with each other. I can access each disk individually, but when I tried to make them work hard: mkraid a RAID5 array using these four drives, the system freezes HARD until I hit the big red button. [Then it reboots, spots the raid superblock, tries to rebuild my RAID5 array, and freezes again, until I get a clue and unplug the drives in question while powered down :^))
Anyway, if you have any more insight into this problem than you did in March, and care to share, I'd be much obliged.
Cheers,
-(-- John