[CentOS] Re: 3Ware 9690SA

[Ruslan Sivak]

Scott Silva wrote:
> on 6-6-2008 10:48 AM Ruslan Sivak spake the following:
>> Victor Padro wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Jun 6, 2008 at 12:20 PM, Ruslan Sivak <russ at vshift.com 
>>> <mailto:russ at vshift.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>>     Jeff wrote:
>>>
>>>         On Fri, Jun 6, 2008 at 11:58 AM, Ruslan Sivak <russ at vshift.com
>>>         <mailto:russ at vshift.com>> wrote:
>>>                     Tim Verhoeven wrote:
>>>                               On Fri, Jun 6, 2008 at 6:51 PM, Ruslan 
>>> Sivak
>>>                 <russ at vshift.com <mailto:russ at vshift.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>>                                         I successfully installed 
>>> CentOS on 3ware 9650SE
>>>                     controller.  Due to some
>>>                     issues with compatibility with my motherboard, I
>>>                     replaced it with a
>>>                     9690SA.
>>>                     Now the system won't boot (although interestingly
>>>                     enough, it find the
>>>                     boot
>>>                     menu fine, just won't boot past a certain point in
>>>                     the bootup phase.
>>>
>>>                     I thought I would reinstall, but anaconda doesn't
>>>                     find the raid array.
>>>                     3ware does have drivers on their site, but I'm not
>>>                     too sure how to get
>>>                     them
>>>                     on my system?
>>>
>>>                                           That controller requires a 
>>> newer version of the 3ware
>>>                 driver. I'm
>>>                 pretty sure the 5.2 will have that driver. So if you
>>>                 can wait a bit
>>>                 longer...
>>>
>>>                 Regards,
>>>                 Tim
>>>
>>>
>>>                                 For production use, I can, but 
>>> currently we are testing
>>>             these servers, and I
>>>             would like to get them up and running.  Is there a way to
>>>             load a driver on
>>>             an already running system, or load it for anaconda?
>>>              Something similar to F6
>>>             in windows?
>>>              
>>>         Yes, anaconda supports the concept of a driver disk.
>>>
>>>         
>>> http://www.centos.org/docs/2/rhl-ig-as-x86-en-2.1/ch-driverdisk.html
>>>
>>>         And 3ware offers a disk image download for 9690SA/RHEL5.
>>>
>>>             Thank you.  I noticed that they said in the docs to 
>>> install by
>>>     using linux dd.  3ware provides a zip file with the drivers, not a
>>>     disk image, AFAIK.  I burned the contents of the zip to a cd, but
>>>     anaconda fails to recognize it.  It keeps complaining about not
>>>     being able to find a fat or a ext3 filesystem on the driver disk.
>>>
>>>     I don't have a floppy drive, only a cdrom and a flash drive.  Do I
>>>     need to get a floppy drive in order for this to work?
>>>     Russ
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>     _______________________________________________
>>>     CentOS mailing list
>>>     CentOS at centos.org <mailto:CentOS at centos.org>
>>>     http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Perhaps you can download RHEL 5.2 from Red Hat Network, if you are a 
>>> customer there will be no problem but if you're not, maybe you can 
>>> sign out for 30 day trial and then download the ISOs, burn it and 
>>> test your box and share your results, it will be enough time for 
>>> CentOS 5.2 to be available, so then you can be sure to run a 
>>> production system.
>>>
>>> https://www.redhat.com/wapps/sso/rhn/login.html?redirect=http%3A%2F%2Frhn.redhat.com%2Frhn%2Fsoftware%2Fchannel%2Fdownloads%2FDownload.do%3Fcid=6949 
>>>
>>>
>>> I got almost the same issue with an Asus mainboard...that's my 2 cents.
>>>
>>>
>>> Cya.
>>>
>>> Victor.
>>
>> It's probably a good idea for me to know how to do this from 
>> scratch.  Plus I want to see if there's a difference in performance 
>> between the stock driver and the 3ware driver. I'm going to try 
>> giving 3ware a call to see how to install this.  Their support is 
>> usually excellent.
>>
>> Russ
> I don't think their driver is better, as they regularly refresh their 
> driver to the kernel maintainers. It is just that the newer cards take 
> a bit of time to get to the disk images.
> Another thing you might be able to do is install to a drive that is 
> not on the raid card and install their driver and migrate to the array.
>
> I just looked at their website, and they do have a driver disk image. 
> If you don't have a floppy, you can usually do a network install and 
> get the driver disk image also from the network.
> It is in the install docs I believe.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------

The ones on their standard download page are not compatible with Xen 
kernels according to the release notes.  The ones to be used for Xen 
kernels on x64 is this one: http://www.3ware.com/KB/article.aspx?id=15257

That only has a zip file, not an image file.

Russ