Loss of installation cdrom after installing controller driver

Nitemare · 11-14-2006, 05:09 PM

Trying to install Suse 9.3 on a Sun x4200. Officially Sun will only support Suse 9.0 with their "install assistant". Below is the system details, and directions that I am following. Basically, after step #4 below, the system can't find the Suse installation dvd that started this whole process. My steps of insmod'g the driver for the SAS controller disables the dvd drive on the fly. I know the driver insmod is working because I can find the partitions for the hard drive using "cat /proc/partition".

Any thoughts??

Thanks!!!

*** Below are system details and directions.

Hardware Details
vendor_id : AuthenticAMD
cpu family : 15
model : 37
model name : AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 254
stepping : 1
cpu MHz : 2792.119
cache size : 1024 KB

The appliance used had the following listed for lspci

0000:00:01.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-8131 PCI-X Bridge (rev 13)
0000:00:01.1 PIC: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-8131 PCI-X IOAPIC (rev 01)
0000:00:02.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-8131 PCI-X Bridge (rev 13)
0000:00:02.1 PIC: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-8131 PCI-X IOAPIC (rev 01)
0000:00:06.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-8111 PCI (rev 07)
0000:00:07.0 ISA bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-8111 LPC (rev 05)
0000:00:07.1 IDE interface: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-8111 IDE (rev 03)
0000:00:07.2 SMBus: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-8111 SMBus 2.0 (rev 02)
0000:00:07.3 Bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-8111 ACPI (rev 05)
0000:00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
0000:00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
0000:00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
0000:00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
0000:00:19.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
0000:00:19.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
0000:00:19.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
0000:00:19.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
0000:01:01.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82546EB Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper) (rev 03)
0000:01:01.1 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82546EB Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper) (rev 03)
0000:01:02.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82546EB Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper) (rev 03)
0000:01:02.1 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82546EB Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper) (rev 03)
0000:02:01.0 Fibre Channel: QLogic Corp. ISP2422-based 4Gb Fibre Channel to PCI-X HBA (rev 02)
0000:02:01.1 Fibre Channel: QLogic Corp. ISP2422-based 4Gb Fibre Channel to PCI-X HBA (rev 02)
0000:02:03.0 SCSI storage controller: LSI Logic / Symbios Logic SAS1064 PCI-X Fusion-MPT SAS (rev 02)
0000:03:00.0 USB Controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-8111 USB (rev 0b)
0000:03:00.1 USB Controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-8111 USB (rev 0b)
0000:03:03.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Rage XL (rev 27)
0000:04:01.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-8131 PCI-X Bridge (rev 13)
0000:04:01.1 PIC: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-8131 PCI-X IOAPIC (rev 01)
0000:04:02.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-8131 PCI-X Bridge (rev 13)
0000:04:02.1 PIC: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-8131 PCI-X IOAPIC (rev 01)
0000:06:01.0 Fibre Channel: QLogic Corp. ISP2422-based 4Gb Fibre Channel to PCI-X HBA (rev 02)
0000:06:01.1 Fibre Channel: QLogic Corp. ISP2422-based 4Gb Fibre Channel to PCI-X HBA (rev 02)

LSI SAS RAID Controller

The LSI controller, LSI Logic / Symbios Logic SAS1064 PCI-X Fusion-MPT SAS, was updated with the latest firmware at the time: 6.06.06.00 from the SUN site featuring the x4200 server.

The local disks (2) are RAID 1 and mirrored. This is a typical practice for setting up IPStor appliances.

Driver configuration

Since Sun Microsystems doesn’t officially support Suse Pro 9.3 on Sunfire X4200. So there is no driver for on board LSI SAS 1064 controller from either Suse 9.3 installation DVD or Sunfire X4200 installation CD for Suse Pro9.3. We have to compile UP and SMP driver from driver source cod first. Then install Suse Pro 9.3 with following steps.

1. Get driver source code form Sunfire X4100 and X4200 servers resource CD.
2. Compile UP and SMP drivers in Suse Pro 9.3 server with kernel 2.6.11.4-21.7-smp and 2.6.11.4.21.7-default installed (mptbase.ko and mptscsih.ko)
3. Configure RAID 1 setting on a disk pair during booting on LSI SAS controller BIOS
4. Connect a USB floppy with compiled UP and SMP driver sets

SUSE installation

1. Insert Suse Pro9.3 installation DVD, start installation procedure
2. After see License agreement screen, press “Alt+Crtl+F2” to switch to command line console
3. Apply LSI controller UP driver
1. Mount USB floppy

#mkdir /floppy
#mount /dev/sda /floppy
(check USB floppy device file with #cat /proc/partitions)

2. unload all LSI drivers if already loaded

#rmmod mptscsih
#rmmod mptbase

3. load UP drivers

#insmod /floppy/2.6.11.4-21.7-default/mptbase.ko
#insmod /floppy/2.6.11.4-21.7-default/mptscsih.ko

4. Press “Ctrl+Alt+F7” to switch back to installation screen and continue installation
5. Press stop to stop system rebooting after installation finished files copy and ask a reboot or stop
6. Make a ram disk with SMP driver
1. copy SMP drivers

#cp /floppy/2.6.1.4-21.7-smp/mptbase.ko /mnt/lib/modules/2.6.11.4-21.7- smp/kernel/drivers/message/fusion/mptbase.ko
#cp /floppy/2.6.1.4-21.7-smp/mptscsih.ko /mnt/lib/modules/2.6.11.4-21.7-smp/kernel/drivers/message/fusion/mptscsih.ko

2. if there is a separate boot or usr partition

# mount /dev/sdxx /mnt/boot
# mount /dev/sdxx /mnt/usr
# mount -o bind /proc /mnt/proc
# mount –o bind /sys /mnt/sys
# chroot /mnt

3. Set system automatically load LSI drivers. Add mptbase and mptscsih into

# vi /etc/sysconfig/kernel
[before] INITRD_MODULES="amd74xx reiserfs”
[after] INITRD_MODULES=”amx74xx mptbase mptscsih reiserfs”

4. make a new ram disk

# mkinitrd
(driver mptbase and mptscsih should be listed)

5. modify mount table and grub entrance since using floppy disk

# vi /etc/fstab, and modify all the /dev/sdjx to /dev/sdax for all system disks
# vi /boot/grub/menu.1st, and modify all the /dev/sdjx to the /dev/sdax

7. Press “Ctrl+Alt+F7” to switch back to installation screen
8. Unplug any USB floppy device and apply a system reboot

Nitemare · 11-30-2006, 12:51 PM

Just to clean this one up, we found the DVD drive on the Sun server to be a little choosy on working or not working. For some reason, the DVD was good enough to kick the installation process off, but there was a bad sector found that must have been accessed later and thus stopped me from moving forward. I am thinking it is as much related to the Sun DVD drive since the same DVD worked fine on a generic Intel m/b server. Live and learn, and move forward. I would suggest anyone reading this post to try an external DVD drive if you encounter same problem, or network install for that matter. Or additionally booting off USB flash drive.

Nitemare