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http://www.owlriver.com/tips/driver-modules/
garble67 came into the #centos channel at irc://irc.freenode.net/ with a
problem with an Intel RAID Controller SRCS16. The technique for using
custom or updated [as by an upstream vendor, pending inclusion in a later
rolled update by CentOS] kernel modules,
particularly for very recent hardware, such as hardware SATA drivers, raid
drivers for niche hardware, and the like often provoke questions in that
channel.
The questions always
seem urgent to the person asking, because
they [or perhaps more likely, the Pointy Haired Boss to whom they are
beholden] have not verified that the shiny new hardware they want to (or have
already) install on
is supported, and they always seem to be under a deadline; sometimes, a
silent kernel upgrade followed by an unattended reboot has occurred,
and they need to get a critical server working, which will
now not boot with a later kernel and a incomplete initrd. The
critical module is not loaded. We leave for another day, consideration of
where a PHB's head has been placed to attain those lovely points.
12:32 garble67> orc_orc: ok well i did some searching on
Intel's site, and I found a driver. I had not used a driver disk
before, so I guess I mis-interpreted what you were asking. What info
do you need to help me with the initrd line?
12:32 wyleyrabbit> orc_orc, I just had a look at the Intel
site for Garble67's card (http://tinyurl.com/qyv32) and it looks
like there is a driver.
So ... as wyleyrabbit helpfully noted, we can retrive the driver .img
That tinyURL expands (over four lines) to this:
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/scripts-df-external/
filter_results.aspx?strTypes=all&ProductID=1657
&OSFullName=Red+Hat*+Enterprise+Linux+4.0&
lang=eng&strOSs=129&submit=Go%21
To quote Donald Rumsfeld, "Goodness". We do not include a local copy
here, because there is mention
of a License restriction to click through, and the driver will go stale
over time. If you want to follow along, retrieve the file. We discuss
setting up the burn to a 'dd' CD in the sidebar at the end of this
note.
RAID Driver for 32bit and 64bit Red Hat* Linux, Includes Source Code
[ir2_rhel3-rhas2.1_v2.10.10.2-1_rhel4_v2.20.4.6-1.zip]
The terms of the software license agreement included with any software you
download will control your use of the software.
The expanded, post click URI (broken over two lines) is:
http://downloadmirror.intel.com/df-support/10120/eng/
ir2_rhel3-rhas2.1_v2.10.10.2-1_rhel4_v2.20.4.6-1.zip
2:32 orc_orc> garble67: IF that is the issue in play, man
mkinitrd would apply; I mention it only because you
confirmed using a driver disk
12:35 wyleyrabbit> orc_orc, I've (so far) never had to use a
driver disk for real hardware raid. Sounds like it's perhaps only a
matter of time for me. Out of curiosity, I downloaded the RHEL4 drivers for
that card to have a look. What would a guy have to do to get those RPMs
loaded ?
12:37 orc_orc> wyleyrabbit:
http://www.centos.org/docs/4/html/rhel-ig-x8664-multi-en-4/ap-driverdisk.html
12:39 orc_orc> wyleyrabbit: I customarly have a custom burned
CD with the drivers, and use the 'linux dd' method of a
TUI install,
and insert the driver in question; once installed, I copy them onto the
new local machine so I don't lose the driver, putting it at a (to me, well known) new
directory of /lib/modules/drivers/ , so I can then move the driver
around as needed as new kernels come down the pike
12:40 wyleyrabbit> excellent
12:40 garble67> thank you orc_orc
12:41 orc_orc> then as a new kernel is issued and added, I
copy it to:
/lib/modules/`uname-r`/updates/
and rerun the proper mkinitrd command
12:42 orc_orc> as mkinitrd looks there for needed add on
modules, it works --- also there was mention in channel of the Dell
module management tool yesterday, the name of which eludes me at the
moment
12:43 orc_orc> garble67: probably needs to take that driver,
and follow the same course, and his problems may be solved, IF it is
module related
Sadly for our story, the PHB answer turned out to apply to
garble67's case. It did provoke an interesting interchange, though.
And it provided yet another demonstation of the adage wrapup:
Oh, well, it can always serve as a bad example.
Sidebar -- Getting a driver disk ('DD') .img onto a CD (as for a machine
without a Floppy drive)
Newer servers can be tricky to get driver disk content onto -- the modern
units tend to have no floppy drive, and the size of installation,
recovery images and such are larger than a floppy can comfortably
handle within the standard sizes, anyway.
The need for a driver disk only is much simpler than making a bootable image,
and may be done thus, with just the regular CentOS tools and
the cdrecord command.
[herrold@centos-4 Desktop]$ mkdir unzip
[herrold@centos-4 unzip]$ cd unzip
[herrold@centos-4 unzip]$ wget http://downloadmirror.intel.com/df-support/10120/eng/ir2_rhel3-rhas2.1_v2.10.10.2-1_rhel4_v2.20.4.6-1.zip
[herrold@centos-4 unzip]$ cp ir2_rhel3-rhas2.1_v2.10.10.2-1_rhel4_v2.20.4.6-1.zip ..
[herrold@centos-4 unzip]$ unzip ir2_rhel3-rhas2.1_v2.10.10.2-1_rhel4_v2.20.4.6-1.zip
Archive: ir2_rhel3-rhas2.1_v2.10.10.2-1_rhel4_v2.20.4.6-1.zip
inflating: ir2-v2.10.10.2-1-rhel21-all.img
inflating: ir2-v2.10.10.2-1-rhel30-all.img
inflating: ir2-v2.10.10.2.dkms.spec
inflating: ir2-v2.20.4.6-1.noarch.rpm
inflating: ir2-v2.20.4.6-1-rhel40-all.img
inflating: ir2-v2.20.4.6.dkms.spec
inflating: Web License.rtf
inflating: ir2_RHEL3-RHAS2.1_v2.10.10.2-1_RHEL4_v2.20.4.6-1_readme.txt
inflating: ir2-v2.10.10.2-1.noarch.rpm
extracting: v2.20.4.6-src.zip
[herrold@centos-4 unzip]$ sudo /usr/bin/cdrecord -v dev=ATAPI:1,0,0 \
-eject ir2-v2.20.4.6-1-rhel40-all.img
... and we are ready to go. If we wanted to inspect the contents of what we
just burned, we might do so thus:
[herrold@centos-4 unzip]$ cp ir2-v2.20.4.6-1-rhel40-all.img /tmp
[herrold@centos-4 unzip]$ cd /tmp
[herrold@centos-4 tmp]$ mkdir loop
[herrold@centos-4 tmp]$ sudo mount -o loop ir2-v2.20.4.6-1-rhel40-all.img loop
[herrold@centos-4 tmp]$ ls -l loop/
total 351
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 19 Jan 23 2006 disk-info
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 68 Jan 23 2006 modinfo
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 353919 Jan 23 2006 modules.cgz
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 0 Jan 23 2006 modules.dep
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 539 Jan 23 2006 modules.pcimap
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 539 Jan 23 2006 pci.ids
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 539 Jan 23 2006 pcitable
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 31 Jan 23 2006 rhdd
[herrold@centos-4 tmp]$
It turns out that the content of many of these files may be inspected
in the usual fashion.
[herrold@centos-4 tmp]$ cat loop/disk-info
megaraid v2.20.4.6
[herrold@centos-4 tmp]$ cat loop/modinfo
Version 0
megaraid
scsi
"LSI Logic megaraid Driver ver v2.20.4.6"
[herrold@centos-4 tmp]$ cat loop/rhdd
megaraid-v2.20.4.6 driver disk
[herrold@centos-4 tmp]$
Note: There is an interesting naming of the .spec file: ir2-v2.10.10.2.dkms.spec
present, in that it carries a '.dkms.' component. Why is left for
the reader, but consideration of the Other voices section, infra,
may offer a hint. Also, the
ir2_RHEL3-RHAS2.1_v2.10.10.2-1_RHEL4_v2.20.4.6-1_readme.txt is full
of good advice, to help you avoid some pitfalls and to help you get the
driver working properly. Please read them.
Other voices:
Dell's dkms
(check out the other neat stuff at http://linux.dell.com/projects.shtml
We make this available for non-commercial and individual use.
Please respect our copyright, and consider contacting us for
all your Open Source and *nix design, architect / systems analysis, and
administration needs.
rev 061010 RPH
http://www.owlriver.com/tips/driver-modules/
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Last modified: Tue, 10 Oct 2006 17:59:02 -0400
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