CentOS - Mar 2006 - Help with installing on Supermicro X6DHT-G server Marvell H2 SATA

I am trying to build a file server with 1 x 80 GB main drive and 4 x 500 
GB SATA drives in RAID in a Supermicro 3U server.
I found out the hard way that Centos 4.2 does not have a driver for the 
onboard Marvell H2 controller the drives are connected to.

Supermicro techs sent me aar81xx.rhel4qu2.i686.img as an img file. I 
used dd to copy to a floppy and dd confirmed successful write.

I booted Centos 4.2 and chose linux dd. When prompted I inserted the 
floppy and the driver was loaded. However, when it came to partitioning 
the drives, no drives could be found. I tried loading the driver during 
install using F2 for "other drivers", still no go.

Has anyone had success with this process or am I doing it wrong? The img 
file can be downloaded from 
http://www.masonc.com/aar81xx.rhel4qu2.i686.img if anyone would like to 
test it.

-- 
Chris Mason
NetConcepts



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On Sat, 2006-03-11 at 08:13 -0400, Chris Mason (Lists)
wrote:
> I am trying to build a file server with 1 x 80 GB main drive and 4 x 500 
> GB SATA drives in RAID in a Supermicro 3U server.
> I found out the hard way that Centos 4.2 does not have a driver for the 
> onboard Marvell H2 controller the drives are connected to.
> 
> Supermicro techs sent me aar81xx.rhel4qu2.i686.img as an img file. I 
> used dd to copy to a floppy and dd confirmed successful write.
> 
> I booted Centos 4.2 and chose linux dd. When prompted I inserted the 
> floppy and the driver was loaded. However, when it came to partitioning 
> the drives, no drives could be found. I tried loading the driver during 
> install using F2 for "other drivers", still no go.
> 
> Has anyone had success with this process or am I doing it wrong? The img 
> file can be downloaded from 
> http://www.masonc.com/aar81xx.rhel4qu2.i686.img if anyone would like to 
> test it.
> 
> -- 
> Chris Mason
> NetConcepts
Chris,

The standard 4.2 ISOs boot an i586 kernel not an i686 kernel.

Try the 4.2 single server CD and you might have better luck (it boots an
i686 kernel).

The upcoming 4.3 ISO set for the i386 arch will boot an i686 kernel by
default and require people to pass in i586 if they want to install on an
i586 machine.  This will solve the dd issue once and for all :)

How it will work:

For most users (everyone except pentium classic and VIA / Cyrix i586
users) it will be press enter as normal (or linux followed by any
switches ... just like now).  This will behave and use the exact same
type of kernel (built from sources of course) as the upstream provider.

For i586 users ... you would do:

i586 <Enter>

The above command would boot the i586 kernel and install on an i586
machine.  This is an option not offered by either the upstream provider
(or many of the other rebuild projects).

For rescue it will be the same .. for normal users:

linux rescue <Enter>

for i586 users

i586 rescue <Enter>


Thanks,
Johnny Hughes
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On Sat, 11 Mar 2006 at 8:13am, Chris Mason (Lists) wrote
> I am trying to build a file server with 1 x 80 GB main drive and 4 x 500 GB
> SATA drives in RAID in a Supermicro 3U server.
> I found out the hard way that Centos 4.2 does not have a driver for the 
> onboard Marvell H2 controller the drives are connected to.
>
> Supermicro techs sent me aar81xx.rhel4qu2.i686.img as an img file. I used
dd
> to copy to a floppy and dd confirmed successful write.
>
> I booted Centos 4.2 and chose linux dd. When prompted I inserted the floppy
> and the driver was loaded. However, when it came to partitioning the
drives,
> no drives could be found. I tried loading the driver during install using
F2
> for "other drivers", still no go.
>
> Has anyone had success with this process or am I doing it wrong? The img
file
> can be downloaded from http://www.masonc.com/aar81xx.rhel4qu2.i686.img if 
> anyone would like to test it.
I would strongly recommend *not* using that SATA controller at all.  Your 
problems with it aren't going to end once you get the install done.  The 
driver from SuperMicro is not going to track the vendor kernel closely at 
all, so you'll be forced to not install kernel updates.  Also, given that 
the driver isn't in the kernel, its performance and stability are 
unknown.

On my compute nodes with SM boards, I just threw a 3ware 8006-2 in each 
and a single drive.  On my servers, I used the same controller and a pair 
of 74GB WD Raptors as a hardware RAID1.  The 3w-xxxx driver is rock solid 
and has been in the kernel for a long while.

What controller are you using for the 4 drive RAID array?  Would it be 
possible to boot off that?

-- 
Joshua Baker-LePain
Department of Biomedical Engineering
Duke University