[WBEL-users] aarich SATA/RAID driver ?

[Kirby Bohling]

On Tue, May 18, 2004 at 04:50:40PM -0700, Raymond Lillard wrote:
> 
> Dear Whitebox-users,
> 
> I have been handed a brand new 1U high server and asked to
> load it up with some flavor of Open Source *nix.
> 
> The problem is that it has the motherboard requires the
> aarich.o driver.  I have successfully loaded RH9 with a
> dd floppy, but WBEL-U1 doesn't recognize it.

Okay, I'm not sure what to say.  Neither my RedHat 9, or my WBEL has
a driver for aarich (searching in /lib/modules/* for aarich.o).
Under WhiteBox 3.0, I can't find the *aarich* as the name of any file
in the kernel source.

What did you do to create the disk image that you dd'ed to make it
work under RH 9.0.  If you are literally using the same disk, you'll
probably have problems with kernel symbols.  You probably won't be
able to load the RH9.0 module into a WBEL3.0 kernel.

Now if you followed the same process to construct both disk images
(at some point, that should involve re-compiling a module), knowing
what steps you followed would be handy.  Also, can you be a bit more
specific about "WBEL-U1 doesn't recognize it"?  Something I could
type into google and hits from the LKML lists?  You must be seeing
some type of error.  If not, what's the last thing you did see, the
BIOS, GRUB or what?

What I have found on google about this, is that it seems aarich is a
binary only driver (that is, the source isn't available from the
vendor, I believe that is Adaptec in this case).  If that's the
case, you are probably just stuck.  You can probably only safely run
the kernels that it was designed to run under.  I thought that the
RHEL/WBEL was enough different that modules had to be compiled
special for them.  I wouldn't run it the EL kernels with a RH kernel
module.  That's just me.  

It'd be cheaper to just go buy a card that has the right type of
internal connector, and the appropriate cables.  Just use an
interface card that you know works under Linux.  I think this is
SATA card.  I have no idea what to recommend as I've never used SATA
for anything.

If you post more information (specifics on where the disk image came
from), I might be able to be more helpful.  My guess is, that you
are stuck, without source to the driver.

> 
> I will not expose my client to the dangers of an unpatched
> RH9 box (RH has apparently pulled the RH9 updates), so I'm
> still looking for a solution other than paying the big bucks
> for RHEL which is not in the budget.

If it's not in WBEL it's probably not in RHEL.  They should work
functionally identical.  (At least that's the goal).  RedHat hasn't
pulled any of the patches for RH9.0, they just aren't putting any
new ones out since the product was EOL'ed a while back.  It's been
public knowledge about them stopping patches for at least 12-14
months.

Thanks,
	Kirby