Adaptec 2400A and kernel I2O drivers

[Vlad]

Hi guys,

Quite some time ago, I purchased an Adaptec 2400A IDE RAID card. The card works fine, but the in kernel management drivers (in the I2O Support section of the Device Drivers section) cause my machine to hard lock if I dare insmod them.

I've seen this with every kernel I've used of the 2.6 series (I haven't tried the 2.4 series), ranging from vanilla to gentoo to morph-sources. Google has turned up nothing and searching the forums has turned up some interesting odds and ends, but nothing that seems to address my exact issue (and certainly nothing with a solution to this problem). Does anyone have any ideas? Dare I harass the LKML? Thanks for any feedback.

[haven]

I've excactly the same issue mate - I keep trying newer kernel builds as and when they are released in the hope that an updated I2O driver is included, but so far I've had no luck and I get the same hard locks that you mention.

The good news is that there is one kernel that works fine (I'm running it now) and thats the 2.6.3-gentoo-r2 kernel. Its the newest kernel I have ever found to work - if you find different then I'd love to know.

Regards

[Vlad]

Haven't found one yet, but I'll post back here if I ever do. Thanks for letting me know about 2.6.3-gentoo-r2. Don't suppose you could email a copy of that ebuild to me?

[fleabag]

I assume you guys have fixed this by now?

I have been running 2.6.x on 2 x 2400A cards for over a year, using the DPT_i2o drivers. I've just upgraded to 2.6.12-r6 and moved over to the newer i2o drvers in the kernel. They seem to work fine, though the machine has only been up for a few hours on this kernel. I've done a 100 Gb bonnie benchmark to stress test the cards before mounting serious data.

The only weirdness is that the mounts:

/dev/i2o/hda1

are fine...

whereas the old /dev/sda.... mounts I used to use are absolutely all over the place. I assume I should be using the i2o devices?

[haven]

Yep if you get an i2o card to work then use the i2o devices

*wanders off to try that kernel for himself*

[Vlad]

Fixed for me at least. I didn't realize you couldn't have the old (dpt) I2O drivers at the same time as the newer I2O drivers from shadowconnect (I didn't realize they were two drivers for the same thing). I had no problem switching my system from the old dpt-i2o driver to the newer ones simply by replacing references in my /etc/fstab from /dev/sdax to /dev/i2o/hdax and updating my kernel appropriately.

The FAQ over at shadowconnect (http://i2o.shadowconnect.com/faq.php) makes it sound like the /dev/sda is for monitoring only. Infact it explicitly states not to use it to mount the partitions. I'd say that means you should DEFINITELY be using the /dev/i2o/hdax devices.

[haven]

Vlad if I ever meet you in person I'll buy you a beer

I'm finally upgraded from my old 2.6.3 series kernel thanks to that link you provided and the additional info. For anyone else interested I did the following:

* I removed the SCSI low level drivers for the adaptec i2o (they arent needed and dont work anway)
* I then added all the drivers in the drivers/i2o class
* updated fstab i.e. changed all references from /dev/sdxx to /dev/i2o/hdxx
* updated grub.conf i.e. re-pointed "root=" to the same as shown above i.e. /dev/i2o/hdxx

Rebooted and it worked (not first time but I also did an upgrade from devfs to udev which caused additional erm ... interest).

So now I'm on a spangly new kernel that actually supports nptl which is what I've wanted for a while. The kernel I'm running atm is 2.6.13-rc5-mm1.

Thanks again, without that link I'd have never figured it out.

[CptPajamas]

Please update the subject of your thread to [solved] so people know that there is a resolution contained here.

Thanks.
_________________
=[ Nate Metheny
=[ Director of Technology
=[ Santa Fe Institute