Topic: Support for HPT370 RAID Controller

[Andrew Smith]

Hi,

Any chance of out-of-the-box support for the Highpoint HPT370 IDE RAID controller so that SME can be installed onto a RAID array?

Highpoint already have drivers at http://www.highpoint-tech.com/370drivers.htm - they just need to be implemented in SME so that the install program sees the drives and RAID array(s).

It seems like this is a pretty easy thing to do (but I could be wrong)... At the moment I'm trying a work-around, but it's a right pain!

Thanks

[Kelvin]

Andrew,

The drivers on Highpoint's web site are only compiled for the standard Red Hat kernels that ships on their distribution CDs (2.2.16 for RH 6.2 / RH 7.0 and 2.4.x for RH 7.1 and higher). As SME 5 and above is based on kernel 2.2.19, those drivers won't work. I have contacted Highpoint on more than one occasion in the past for either the driver source so that we may compile a suitable driver ourselves or to have them compile one for us but we have been knocked back.

At the moment, we have servers using ESSG 4.1.2 which thankfully uses the standard 2.2.16 kernel and thus have no problem with the HPT 370 controllers. However, we are unable to upgrade those servers to SME 5 due to the lack of a driver to support the HPT controllers used in them. Bummer.

Kelvin

[Mike Drummond]

I to have a HighPoint 370 IDE Rail controller going to waste as I can't use it with my e-smith box.  I appreciate that it would be nice if the source was released to allow compling for non standard kernels.   However in my mind a better solution would be for Mintel to use the current standard Kernals that ship with the RH distributions.  This would reduce problems like those caused by high point based cards.

Cheers
Mike Drummond

[JeromeV]

HPT370 open source drivers ARE NOW AVAILABLE !!!!

http://www.highpoint-tech.com/370drivers_down.htm

[Kelvin]

Anyone know how to create a driver disk from the files after we compile it ?

This will be needed if the hard disks connected to the Highpoint controller are the only drives in the system (ie. no separate boot up drive).

Just copying all files to a floppy after we compiled the resulting .o modules is not enough as SME's installer does not recognise the floppy as a driver disk and therefore don't know how to use the drivers on it.

Kelvin

[Andrew Smith]

Downloaded the drivers, compiled and.... YAY - it sees the chipset and the RAID array!

The way I did it:

1. Take hard disk 1, plug in as hda, install e-smith.
2. Get my SuSE 7.1 CDs - install YaST for it's RPM manager.
3. Use YaST to install 'make', 'gcc', etc...
4. Use my other PC to get kernel source from the net. Burn onto CD-RW.
5. Install source from CD-RW to e-smith drive. Compile dirver.
6. Copy hpt37x2.o to /lib/modules/????/scsi
7. Reboot, then depmod, then modprobe the driver

And tada! We can now access the HPT370 chipset and and devices attached to it. From what you said, I'm guessing you've already got this far Kevin...?

I am also stuck at this point. My plan of thinking is:

8. Get the module to load on startup before any of the filesystems are mounted
9. Change entries in fstab from hda to sda.
10. Update LILO with new root drive (/dev/hda?)
11. Shut down. Connect hard disk 1 into ide3 mobo socket, hard disk 2 (not used till now) into ide4.
12. Turn on, set up RAID1 array and sync hard disks.
13. Hope that everything works and linux boots from the RAID array.

So basicly I need to know how to get a module loaded by the kernel when it first starts up. I'm going to to a web search now, but if anyone knows off the top of your head, PLEASE post! )

Thnaks!



Andrew


P.S. Mitel - Now I expect to see out-of-the-box support for the HPT370 chiset in the next release!

[Andrew Smith]

Yay - managed to get it working... here's what I did...

8. Run "mkinitrd --preload hpt37x2 /boot/hpt37x2.img 2.2.19-7.0.8"
9. Edit /etc/lilo.conf. Make a copy of the existing config called 'esmith-raid'. Use the same kernel image, root partion is /dev/sda6 and set initrd=/boot/hpt37x2.img
10. Run lilo.
11. Turn off. Swap drive over to HPT370 controller.
12. Turn on, create RAID array.
13. At the lilo prompt, choose esmith-raid.
14. If it works, edit lilo.conf so this is the default startup option.

You shoyld now have a fully working e-smith server running entirely on your HPT37x! ) It's a bit of a pig to do, but there's probably an easier way (I'm certainly no Linux guru!)

[Kelvin]

Nice Workaround Andrew.

However, I would still like to see if anyone can help create a SME / RedHat compatible driver disk with the driver modules we built so that we can install directly to the RAID drives. That, would ultimately be the way to go.

Kelvin