Dell 2950 and/or Perc 5i issues [Possible solution]

[Langdon Stevenson]

Langdon Stevenson wrote:
> Daniel Jabbour wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I’ve recently acquired some Dell PowerEdge 2950 servers.  I loaded 
>> Fedora Core 6 on them fine, did a yum update and much to my surprise 
>> the box kernel panics on boot.  I haven’t loaded anything else on the 
>> box, other than a stock OS.
>>
>> I did some investigation and determined the issue only occurs with the 
>> latest (2.6.22.1-32) kernel.  It did not occur with 2.6.20 or 2.6.18.  
>> It seems that the drivers for the Perc 5i controller (megaraid_sas) is 
>> seeing through the BIOS of the controller and showing all 6 disks 
>> rather than one logical volume.  Since the volume is actually RAID 10, 
>> it cannot mount the root filesystem.
>> This problem seem very similar to one detailed in an older kernel on 
>> the Ubuntu bug tracker:
>>
>> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-source-2.6.15/+bug/55138
>>
>> I also noticed that the bug has a patch applied in Ubuntu:
>>
>> https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-source-2.6.15/+bug/57265
>>
>> Is this issue known in the Fedora world?  What do you suggest I do to 
>> resolve it?  Is this the appropriate list for this, or is there 
>> another one that would be more pertinent?  Why would the Ubuntu patch 
>> not be also applied to the FC6 kernel, wouldn’t it have patched the 
>> kernel.org kernel and shouldn’t it have made its way over to Fedora? 
>> Or, could this be a new issue?  Any help would be appreciated.  Thanks,
> 
> Hi Daniel
> 
> I have just gone through the same issue with a Dell PowerEdge 2300 with 
> a Perc2/SC controller.  F7 uses an updated version of the Megaraid 
> controller that nolonger supports my card.  Yours may have a similar 
> issue.  There are instructions on the net to help you revert to an older 
> version of the Megaraid controller.  This is the best resource I can 
> find for switching the driver:
> 
> http://www.tuxyturvy.com/blog/index.php?/archives/4-Installing-RHEL4-on-Systems-with-Legacy-Megaraid-Drivers.html 
> 
> 
> Sadly it doesn't help me as I can't even get the installer working (as I 
> am limited to an HTTP or FTP install, which seems to be broken on F7 
> (unless anyone can point out how to do it?  The installer always fails 
> to download stage2.img)
> 
> Hope this might help you with your server.  It is frustrating that 
> support for the older hardware is being dropped.  This equipment is 
> perfect for small/home offices.  It would be great if there was an easy 
> method of specifying the driver that you want to use during.  I have 
> read that one driver can't support all of these old Perc cards, so the 
> question is: why not supply both drivers?
> 
> My solution has been to install Debian on my Dell.  Apparently it has 
> the older megaraid driver in the installer and everything works fine.  I 
> am sad to have to dump Fedora on this machine, but couldn't justify days 
> of hassle to get it running.

Hi Daniel

An update that may help you.  I managed to get an install of F7 on my 
Dell PowerEdge 2300 this evenin.  Because this is with a Perc2/SC card 
it may not work for you, however I thought it worth posting.  This is 
what I did:

1. Boot up a Fedora installer to the install selection window
2. Add option: linux noprobe  to init string (this stops the installer 
trying to detect hard drives)
3. Work through installer until prompted to choose a driver
4. Choose the plain megaraid driver
5. The install should now proceed as per usual with you hard drive detected
6. When the system reboots enter the Perc card's utility (Ctrl-M for a 
Perc2)
7. Check that it is set for MASS STORAGE rather than I2O by going to: 
Objects > Adapter
8. Reboot

That should be it.  My system went through some wierdness working 
through all of the disks the first couple of times it booted and giving 
lots of ominous messages, but eventually it booted.

I am now fighting a problem with X freezing when I start it, but that is 
another story.

Hope this might be helpful to you.

Regards,
Langdon