[WBEL-users] aarich SATA/RAID driver ?

[Raymond Lillard]

Kirby Bohling wrote:
> 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.

I downloaded the floppy image from the Adaptec ( or maybe Intel, it is
an Intel motherboard ), and booted from the WBEL CDROM with the command
line: linux dd

> 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?

I worked through the WBEL install menus to a point where I was asked
for my driver disk.  When the disk is actually read, no drivers are
read.  The dialog boxes will identify all drivers that are recognized
when this feature actually finds a module it can use.

> 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.

Well, I have since discovered the source to a driver from Adaptec.

http://www.adaptec.com/worldwide/support/driverdetail.jsp?sess=no&language=German&cat=/Operating%20System/Linux&faq_id=10597

In looking through the Changelog, it appears to be recently
maintained.  "aacraid.o" is one of its targets.

> 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.

Not an option.  My client is all proud and stuff of his new hot box.

> 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.

Well, I installed RH9 last night.  There was no joy when I hit the
red update icon in the task bar.  What I haven't done, is to go
directly to the RedHat website and try to download the rpms manually.

Thanks,
Ray