Good afternoon to everyone. Question about PERC 4Di on Dell poweredge 1750

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Dell Moderator: I Subscribed to the linux-scsi mailing list in order to send this message maybe it should be sent to another list _please_ help me and send it to the porper list if this is not the one.
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Good afternoon to everyone. As in the info on the http://linux.dell.com says: Ask questions to the mailing list, I have a question to you.

I hope someone can help me!

Please bear with me, this is a quite looong message.

If you just want to help me please see the "The scenario" and "The Questions" parts.

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The scenario.
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I have a Dell Poweredge 1750 with the PERC 4Di SCSI controller.

I HAVE to install redhat 7.3 on this platform.
Now, for now I have no option but to install Redhat 7.3 o 7.2 on this server. This is because a software product requires the kernel version included in this distribution version. So, until I have the proof that it is not possible to install the product on this platform I cannot go to the vendor to upgrade its product to work in another kernel version.

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What I have done:
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I have downloaded the DKMS megaraid2-2.10.1 driver. I have managed to compile it with the kernel version 2.4.18-3.
Now I am not a programmer :-( just a sysadmin so what I did in order to the driver to compile, was to apply the patch for the RH 8 Kernel (I guess it was 2.4.18-20 or something). I apply this patch because by trying to generate the driver just with the 2.10.1 source code as included on the megaraid2-2.10.1 package the build just breaks.

So after I managed for the driver to compile, I mkdriverdisk with dkms, created the driver disk and I tried to make the driver to work with "linux dd". The driver diskette was "incompatible with this version of RedHat". I found out that there was missing the "- rh73" at the end of the modinfo an disk-info line which state the driver name... With this modification I managed to make RedHat 7.3 to "accept" the driver disk. But the module is not accepted.

I looked on the logs, the problem is RedHat knows that the Megaraid Driver needs a "Hardware SCSI" driver (I do not know how to call this) which is one of aacraid, aic7xxx then it looks for the megaraid2.o !!! driver on the BOOT Image of the redhat 7.3 Installation... Or so I think. (please correct me if I am wrong but I guess this is what happens on the boot sequence). Obviouly this driver will never be found because the megaraid driver included in RH7.3 is the 1.18a version which is named just as megaraid.o. So I cannot go any further :-(. Just to be sure, I tried to insmod the bare megaraid2.o driver to the kernel on the RH7.3 install image I mean when the Installation drops a shell. But I get a lot of Unresolved Symbols. I gues this is because the aacraid nor the aic7xxx driver does not work so It cannot resolve the symbols it needs.

Now what I have is this.
I have to make a Dell poweredge 1750 to work with the stock kernel of RH7.3. I have a driver diskette with the Megaraid2.o (Ver 2.10.1) compiled (I don't know if it's safe to use it with the patch of the 2.4.18-20 Or something) But the driver cannot load because nor the aacraid nor the aic7xxx driver cannot see the PERC 4Di device.

So what do I need? I have to do another aacraid or aic7xxx driver? (which by the way I wouldn't know how to do it because I haven't seen a method to make this driver using DKMS Nor that I have searched a lot ;-))

By the way I just notied today that there is a 1.18f megaraid driver version which I haven't tested (because the server is in another physical location). Maybe that could be my answer but Again, I haven't tested it on the Server. (I do not know if the aacraid or the aic7xxx driver will now work but i have to test it to know).

so after all of this information here are my questions PLEASE HELP!!!

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The questions
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I KNOW that RH7.3 IS NOT SUPPORTED for the Dell 1750 but I REALLY need to know if it is possible to get it to work.

Please tell me. A sysadmin without any programming ability has the option to get it to work?

If yes, please send me a clue on how to do it!!! Do I need to recompile the megaraid2 driver with special options? Do I have to recreate the accraid driver? aic7xxx driver??? A special patch not publicy disclosed??? :-S

If not. Please tell me. Is it not possible to get RH7.3 to work with the Dell poweredge 1750 because there is no driver for "..." and It is not possible to create it. So I can go to the vendor and ASK him to make his product to work in another kernel version.

ANY help would be REALLY appreciated!!!

Thanks in advance to all of you for the answer.

Best regards,

David Ramírez Joya.

Ing. David Ramírez Joya	
Security Consultant
C I T I
Tel. (52) 81 82 89 32 00 x 135
Fax. 82 89 32 01
e-mail: [email protected]
web: http://www.citi.com.mx

linux-scsi is appropriate for general megaraid driver questions. This is more related to a particular hardware platform and OS combination, and as such, [email protected] (subscribe at http://lists.us.dell.com)
is probably more appropriate. But I'll answer best as I can here.

OK, and thanks for buying Dell. :-)

Given that the OS vendor no longer officially supports these versions, you may wish to have your vendor reconsider on those grounds.

Cool. Glad you were able to make DKMS work for you.

Here's the interesting part.
a) Which kernels did you compile the driver for? If you didn't include the -BOOT variant (dkms -k 2.4.18-3BOOT) in the list you built it for, then the driver disk won't work of course. You'll want to build it for the 2.4.18-3smp too I expect, then mkdriverdisk will put all you built on the disk.

b) on what system (OS version, compiler) did you build this? You must use the same compiler, gcc 2.96 era from RHL7.3, to compile kernel modules for 7.3. You can't use gcc 3.x and have it work.

It should be looking for that on the floppy, which I expect you didn't build it.

No, megaraid2 is appropriate. You're pretty close... and I'm glad you're using DKMS as it's intended to be used, exactly for backporting newer drivers to older kernels.

On your build system, do a 'dkms install -m megaraid2 -v 2.10.1 -k 2.4.18-3BOOT' (you've got that kernel installed on your build system, right? Depmod will tell you if that fails, and then you can fix it up before making the driver disk.

Good luck.
-Matt

Matt Domsch
Sr. Software Engineer, Lead Engineer
Dell Linux Solutions linux.dell.com & www.dell.com/linux
Linux on Dell mailing lists @ http://lists.us.dell.com