ks pre script to determine hw raid drive to install to

[Rodney Mercer]

> > From: Bryan J Smith <bjs at redhat.com>
> > Reply-To: Discussion list about Kickstart
> > <kickstart-list at redhat.com>
> > To: Discussion list about Kickstart <kickstart-list at redhat.com>
> > Subject: Re: ks pre script to determine hw raid drive to install to
> > Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 14:24:57 -0500
> > 
> > On Thu, 2009-02-12 at 13:42 -0500, Rodney Mercer wrote:
> > > I just purchased a Sun Fire X2250 rack mounted server to use as a build
> > > machine. I have set it up to use the built in hardware raid to mirror
> > > the two 250 GB disks. I am using RHEL 5 update2 X86_64 ...
> > > This setup works great on the non hardware raid machines. With the
> > > raided Sun Fire X2250, it fails to determine the device name of the
> > > raided Volume but sees the individual disks, /dev/sda and /dev/sdb.
> > 
> > That's not hardware RAID.  That's Fake [Hardware] RAID (FRAID).  The
> > RAID is done 100% in software.  The only "additive" is that there is a
> > "trick" in the 16-bit BIOS so the functions write to the organization.
> > 
> > Once the OS starts, it sees the "real" drives and nothing more.  So a
> > "trick" must be done on the OS side as well.  In either case, whether
> > the 16-bit BIOS or 32/64-bit OS software, it's 100% software RAID.
> > 
> > Under Windows, this is some 3rd party licensed logic.  It's very
> > proprietary and non-portable.  Many times, I've seen it break and ruin
> > different volumes.
> > 
> > > Of course it fails the partition. Commenting out the part directives
> > > shows me that raided volume name
> > > is /dev/mapper/isw_dficaggeej_Volume0.
> > 
> > Under Linux, that's Device Mapper RAID (dmraid) mapping the /dev/sda
> > and /dev/sdb drives as /dev/mapper/isw_dficaggeej.  DeviceMapper can
> > read a number of the FRAID disk organizations and figure out how to map
> > appropriately for striping, mirroring, parity, etc..., leveraging more
> > generic RAID code in the Linux kernel.
> > 
> > It's actually much safer than the Windows driver.
> > 
> > The big problem though is rebuilding after a failure.  The tools don't
> > seem to be there for dmraid the last time I checked.
> > 
> > > If I hardcode "d1=isw_dficaggeej_Volume0" and restore the part
> > > directives, the install completes without a problem.
> > 
> > Correct.  Because you are now installing to the device mapping setup for
> > the FRAID volume.
> > 
> > > Does anyone know how to have the pre script recognize the hardware
> > > mirrored device volume name and use it automatically?
> > 
> > I haven't seen a problem with Anaconda since Fedora Core 5/6 or so and
> > Red Hat Enterprise Linux/CentOS 5.  What is the Intel ICH, nVidia MCP,
> > etc... chipset here?
> > 
> > If you don't know, use "lspci"
> > 
> > 

Brian,
Thanks for the explanation on the fake raid implementation. 
With the use of:
-----
set $(list-harddrives)
        let numd=$#/2
        d1=$1
----
Are you saying that Anaconda should recognize the Fake RAID using dmraid and set the d1 variable to isw_dficaggeej?
If not, is there something else that I can use to set the d1 variable if dmraid creates the mapping?

Here is the output of lspci on the machine:
----
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 5400 Chipset Memory Controller Hub (rev 20)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5400 Chipset PCI Express Port 1 (rev 20)
00:05.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5400 Chipset PCI Express Port 5 (rev 20)
00:09.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5400 Chipset PCI Express Port 9 (rev 20)
00:0f.0 System peripheral: Intel Corporation 5400 Chipset QuickData Technology Device (rev 20)
00:10.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 5400 Chipset FSB Registers (rev 20)
00:10.1 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 5400 Chipset FSB Registers (rev 20)
00:10.2 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 5400 Chipset FSB Registers (rev 20)
00:10.3 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 5400 Chipset FSB Registers (rev 20)
00:10.4 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 5400 Chipset FSB Registers (rev 20)
00:11.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 5400 Chipset CE/SF Registers (rev 20)
00:15.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 5400 Chipset FBD Registers (rev 20)
00:15.1 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 5400 Chipset FBD Registers (rev 20)
00:16.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 5400 Chipset FBD Registers (rev 20)
00:16.1 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 5400 Chipset FBD Registers (rev 20)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset UHCI USB Controller #1 (rev 09)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset UHCI USB Controller #2 (rev 09)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset UHCI USB Controller #3 (rev 09)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset UHCI USB Controller #4 (rev 09)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset EHCI USB2 Controller (rev 09)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev d9)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset LPC Interface Controller (rev 09)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB IDE Controller (rev 09)
00:1f.2 RAID bus controller: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB SATA RAID Controller (rev 09)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset SMBus Controller (rev 09)
01:0b.0 VGA compatible controller: ASPEED Technology, Inc. AST2000
02:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6311ESB/6321ESB PCI Express Upstream Port (rev 01)
02:00.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6311ESB/6321ESB PCI Express to PCI-X Bridge (rev 01)
03:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6311ESB/6321ESB PCI Express Downstream Port E1 (rev 01)
03:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6311ESB/6321ESB PCI Express Downstream Port E2 (rev 01)
03:02.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6311ESB/6321ESB PCI Express Downstream Port E3 (rev 01)
04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 80003ES2LAN Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper) (rev 01)
04:00.1 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 80003ES2LAN Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper) (rev 01)

Regards,
Rodney.