[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: DAC960 Alpha support (was: Re: Redhat 7.2 on a DEC ALPHA 2100)

Jay,

You will have to patch the DAC firmware to version 2.70.
The DAC driver that comes with RH7.2 checks for V2.73.

I hacked a custom RH7.2 CD where i pulled apart the CD
pulled apart the initial ram disks searched for any instance of DAC960.o
and modified the string 2.73 to 2.70 in the module.
I then reassembled the CD and made a new ISO.

It booted OK found the controller and installed OK.
The only problem was RH installed a different DAC960.o file from
a kernel rpm that i didn't patch and left the system un bootable (root raid)

I had a another copy of RH7.2 on another disk so I was able to mount the
raid partition and install a patched kernel with a modified DAC960 driver built into the kernel 

If your interested I can send you the relevant bits from my custom CD

Also see my posts on the debian-alpha-list

Cheers
Rick


At 11:52 AM 26/02/2003 -0500, Jay Estabrook wrote:

On Wed, Feb 26, 2003 at 01:43:28PM +1100, Ryder, Craig M. wrote:
>
> Am trying to get Redhat 7.2 running on a DEC ALPHA 2100 (A500MP)
> machine.  The machine is fitted with 8 EISA slots and 3 PCI slots.
> All interface cards (ADPTEC1740 and DAC960 etc) are installed in the
> EISA slots.  I can boot from the installed CDROM drive and every
> thing progresses nicely to the disk partioning stage, at which point
> I receive a 'no devices detected' alert and installation terminates.
>
> I am reasonably certain the problem lies with the RAID controller
> cards which are MYLEX DAC960LB (P/No D040315-4 and firmware Ver
> 2.16).

Unfortunately, I believe that that particular DAC960 may not be
supported on Alpha by the Linux driver even with updated ROM(S), or
even if it can be updated with newer ROM(S). I have had trouble with
later PCI DAC960s with P/No D040340, even when updated to DEC custom
firmware 2.70 (see below); the driver just doesn't seem to work
correctly. Unfortunately, I've not had time to look more closely at
the problem.

One can download from the following HP site firmware upgrades (to DEC
custom version 2.70, ie single EEPROM) for some of the older DAC960
cards (see table below), along with documentation and the RAID
Configuration Utility (RCU) that can be run from ARC/AlphaBIOS
consoles on our Alphas.

  http://h18002.www1.hp.com/alphaserver/products/storage/ra230/index.html

Several small tweaks must be made to current Linux sources to allow:

1. the Linux DAC960 driver to work with DEC custom version 2.70 firmware,
2. using DAC960-based RAID disks as root.

To this purpose, find attached at the end patches against 2.4.21-pre4,
based on some patches posted by Richard Muratti <rmurat@attglobal.net>
to the debian-alpha-list. These will most likely apply reasonably well
to other kernel 2.4.x versions, but are not intended for 2.5.x.

WARNING!!!

There may be, occasionally, "misleading" messages from the DAC960
driver when used with the DEC custom firmware version 2.70.  I've seen
some that claimed that existing drives were "DEAD", but they worked
just fine. There may be more, so - YOU ARE WARNED!!!

If a RAID volume is initialized using "fdisk" to BSD-style partition
table, leaving ~5MB unused space at the beginning (for the "aboot"
bootstrap to be installed, via "swriteboot"), our SRM consoles will be
able to boot from that volume.

The following DAC960 models have been successfully used with the
modified Linux driver and the updated custom firmware version 2.70:

        Part No         MYLEX name      DEC name
        -------         ----------      --------

        D040347         DAC960PD-1      KZPSC 1 channel
        D040348         DAC960PD-2      KZPSC 2 channels
        D040349         DAC960PD-3      KZPSC 3 channels

        D040395         DAC960PU-1      KZPAC 1 channel
        D040396         DAC960PU-2      KZPAC 2 channels
        D040397         DAC960PU-3      KZPAC 3 channels

Note that KZPSC is Fast/Wide, while KZPAC will run Ultra/Wide, IIRC.

Good luck, and please let me know of any problems.

 --Jay++

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jay A Estabrook                            HPTC - LINUX support
Hewlett-Packard Company - MRO1-2/K15       (508) 467-2080
200 Forest Street, Marlboro MA 01752       Jay.Estabrook@hp.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reply to: