IBM Netfinity and gentoo

[haximus]

I am going to preface this by saying that i have previously never worked with linux or scsi before attempting this project.

i recently picked up an IBM netfinity 5600 from '02 that was not being used anymore. I would like to install gentoo on it, but never having worked with linux in any way shape or form, this is proving extremely difficult.

first of all, the server has 5 20G scsi hard drives front mounted on it, as well as a 10G IDE HD that i added myself. the problem is that i can only see 3 drives total: one is around 18G, one is only 100M, and the other is 34G, but the last one doesn't work and can't be formatted. In the gentoo installation, i can only see the 18G drive, and if i try to run the install with doscsi enabled, the system just hangs at the progress bar screen, but the bar never moves and nothing happens.

apparently i am using an Adaptec AIC-7897 SCSI Bios Version 2.20 with an Ultra2 AHA-3950U2 Controller. Also, this is appartently working in conjunction with an IBM ServeRAID Bios Version 4.00.16 and an IBM ServeRAID-4H controller.

I do not want to use this machine as a server, i just want to use it as a desktop for gaming and storage.

ANY HELP AT ALL would be greatly appreciated as i have no idea what i'm doing. I can get the gentoo instal as far as building the kernel, following the handbook pretty much exactly, but genkernel has a bunch of errors when i run it and then the installation won't let me emerge coldplug. like i said, please help. thanks

[AchilleTalon]

Get/download the ServeRAID Support and Application CDs from the IBM Support site. The latest version is 7.10 if you really have a 4H ServeRAID adapter. I don't remember the URL, but you can do a search on the support web site.

Then, boot with the Support CD, make sure you have a mouse plugged in (you can do without, but since you are a newbie guessing key sequences for navigation will be a killer.

First thing, the microcode will be upgraded for the controller.

Second, I think you will have to reboot with the same CD and then you will be able to look at the logical drives and RAID layout. From there, you can remove everything and reconfigure for the number of logical drives you want and the RAID level you need. But, I suggest something else before proceeding. Remove all logical drives and do not use any raid level. then reboot your server without the CD, press F2 on the boot screen to enter diagnostics mode. Run diagnostics on all your drives to make sure they are all fine. Notice you won't be able to join different drives in a same array when defining your raid arrays and logical drives.

Once finished with the drives, reboot with the Gentoo livecd and depending on the number of drives you have they will be /dev/sda, /dev/sdb, /dev/sdc and so on.

I have three Netfinity 5000 servers, one with Redhat, one with Gentoo, the other in standby, I am waiting for three HD to install Gentoo on it and i will convert the Redhat one to Gentoo as soon as the others are up and running. All are ServeRAID servers.

If you don't want to use RAID, you can simply unplug the SCSI cable from the ServeRAID adapter (you can send it to me ) and plug the cable on the motherboard, I am not sure for your model where the SCA plug is located, but it should be easy to identify. You will then have a regular SCSI system where each drive will be seen separately (you can check this from the diagnostics). In this case, no need to download the ServeRAID CDs and configure the arrays. you can install LVM to see all drives as a big volume, but be warned you need to create a non-LVM /boot and / partitions.

So, hope this help you start your project.
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Achille Talon Hop!

[haximus]

Well i did download the ServeRAID CD, but it did nothing. When the cd booted, it loaded the ServeRAID manager, but said that there was no controller.

Having said that, i'm just going to try not using the controller like you suggested and see if that works. Thank you

[AchilleTalon]

First of all, open it and look what is plugged where. the drives you are seeing are emulated by the ServeRAID controller probably from a old configuration. The drives are not necessarily there, the controller is reporting the logical drives or something like that.

You can check to correctly identify your ServeRAID controller from the IBM site, there is a page about them and they provide all the details about them. Here it is.

For the Support and Applications CDs, here is the link and they are the last three files in the list. Just to make sure we are really talking about the same thing. So, you mean booting the Support CD doesn't report any ServeRAID controller, right?

Boot in diagnostics mode after that an run diagnostics on key parts to make sure they operate fine and are recognized.

What type and brand are the SCSI drives? The ServeRAID 4H is a Ultra 160 drives controller

Was this server fully operational as is (except the IDE drive you added) before you took it or is it something composed from parts taken here and there?

I strongly suggest you to not proceed with any installation before making sure the hardware is fine, it may be very frustrating to have something failing in the middle of an installation, or worst, after you are finished.

Oh! And don't use the doscsi flag. I never used it and it worked fine. Gentoo LiveCD 2004.3-r1, but 2004.2 will equally work.
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Achille Talon Hop!