Suse 8.1 aacraid hang on PE 2650 with 3/Di RAID

[Michael James]

On Fri, 10 Jan 2003 11:47 pm, Andrew Margis wrote:
> Upgrade Your kernel to k_smp-2.4.19-163.i586.rpm.
> 
> Will work fine!!!!!!

With that encouragement I tried again.

Installing the new kernel package
 is the only thing nessessary to get a bootable system.

IE: grub is fine,
 acpi seems fine,
 tg3 ethernet drivers seem fine.
We'll see if they all run stably overnight.

So, to get Suse 8.1 working on a PowerEdge 2650 booting from a 3/Di RAID:

Boot from CD1
Catch it before the install starts

If you don't, you'll get to the install
 and "No disks will be found"
Just say "Yes" till it gives you an "Abort Installation" button.
This will take you back to a screen where you can load drivers.

Go to Manual Install
Select language and keyboard
Go to Kernel Modules
Load IDE/Raid/SCSI
Load the "aacraid" module,  no parameters.
If you have the 3/DC Megaraid load that too,  no params.
Go to Load Network
Load bcm5700,  no parameters
tab, Back
Start Installation/System
Install the system as you require.
When it comes time to re-boot after the first CD is finished
 it will tell you to remove the CD, Don't!
Re-boot, catch it,  go to manual Install and load the drivers again.
You will actually need the ethernet drivers this time.

During the reboot you will need to set a root password
 and configure up a useable network interface.

Once the system is up, have a look at the kernel,
 get a root command window and:

cat /proc/version
this tells you you have a 64Gig SMP kernel but not what version.

rpm -q k_smp
tells you what build it is, it needs to be 163,
 maybe soon it will be bigger still.

If you have just built the machine you won't care to save the old kernel
 but if the machine has been in production save a copy of:
	/boot/vmlinuz	as	/boot/vmlinuz.old
and	/boot/initrd		as	/boot/initrd.old

Ftp to your nearest Suse mirror
 and get .../i586/k_smp.rpm

rpm -Uvh k_smp.rpm

rpm installs the new kernel and does the mk_initrd stuff.

Once it completes sucessfully
 init 6

Remove the CD and watch it boot sucessfully off the disk.
If you have spent a week watching it hang
 each time it got to "Loading aacraid"
 then it's time to celebrate.

Thanks again Andre,
Michaelj

-- 
Michael James				michael.james at csiro.au
System Administrator			voice:	02 6246 5040
CSIRO Bioinformatics Facility	fax:		02 6246 5166