Problem with updated driverdisk not being used

[Martin Sivak]

Hello Pat,

yes, your idea is right on. Anaconda needs to load the network driver to access your kickstart file and even to access the driver disc. And it is not possible to replace earlier loaded driver using driverdisc.

If you need to use updated NIC driver, avoid using network before the driver disc gets loaded. Which leaves you the options of "linux dd" or using driverdisc autodetection (just set the driverdisc's label to "oemdrv").

Martin Sivak
Anaconda team

----- "Pat" <patchu1 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Quick Summary: 
> 
> RHEL 5.2 is using the default driver rather than the updated driver I
> specified using the driverdisk option in my kickstart file.
> 
> 
> Detailed Description:
> 
> I have a system with a 3ware 9650SE RAID card which I'm installing
> RHEL 5.2 (x86_64) on. The system will be booting from this 3ware card.
> RHEL 5.2 comes with a default driver that can automatically detect and
> use this card. The driver is 3w-9xxx Driver version: 2.26.02.008.
> 
> I'm trying to use an updated driver from 3ware, 2.26.08.004, by
> specifying the driverdisk option in my kickstart file:
> 
> driverdisk --source=http://192.168.0.119/3waredriverdisk.img
> 
> BTW, I generated the img driver disk using the instructions from the
> page http://www.ruizs.org/archives/49:
> 
> #Create a blank, 20MB image
> dd if=/dev/zero of=/root/driverdisk.img bs=1M count=2
> #Format the image with ext2
> mkfs -t ext2 -q /root/driverdisk.img
> #mount it and copy the files over
> mount -o loop /root/driverdisk.img /mnt/tmp
> cp /root/3ware/* /mnt/tmp/
> umount /mnt/tmp
> 
> 
> However after the installation is complete, the default 3ware driver
> is still being used. I should note the rest of my kickstart directives
> were followed correctly.
> 
> I have an idea on what is going wrong. The kickstart command I use
> is:
> 
> linux ks=http://192.168.0.119/mykickstart.cfg
> 
> Right after I hit return, RHEL loads up the default 3w-9xxx driver. It
> did not even go on to the network to read my kickstart file, I know
> this since I'm prompted to choose which ethernet port to use by
> anaconda since there are two network ports on the system, the default
> 3w-9xxx driver loads before that. So I'm guessing my driverdisk option
> in my kickstart is ignored since a driver is already loaded. Perhaps
> anaconda would not have loaded the default 3ware driver if I had used
> the linux dd command at the prompt rather than specifying it in the
> kickstart? 
> 
> Does anyone have suggestions on a workaround? I can't use the linux dd
> command since I don't want to swap disk everytime. Thank for any
> assistance!
> 
> Regards,
> Pat
> 
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