Topic: SCSI RAID 5 HOW-TO

[LIAM ROBINSON]

HI,

HAVE READ THE ADAPTEC SCSI RAID HOW-TO.
NOTICED THAT ITS NOT POSSIBLE TO HAVE E-SMITH BOOT FROM THE RAID ARRAY.
THE HOW-TO SUGGESTS INSTALLING ONTO A IDE DRIVE AND THEN MOUNTING /HOME ONTO THE RAID ARRAY.

MY E-SMITH 4.1.2 SYSTEM USES OTHER DATA THAT IS IMPORTANT SUCH AS THAT IN /VAR  (THE SQUID CACHE), /USR TOO.

IS IT POSSIBLE TO ALSO MOUNT /USR AND /VAR ONTO THE RAID ARRAY AS WELL AS /HOME????

ARE THERE ANY PLANS TO ALLOW E-SMITH TO BE INSTALLED STRAIGHT ONTO A RAID ARRAY.

I BELIEVE THIS CAN BE DONE WITH RED HAT.


THANKS FOR ANY HELP.

[Tom]

Yes it can

I have a dell Poweredge 1300 with raid 5 setup and esmith boots with no problem

[dwmccoy]

I have an HP LH3 running Raid 5 using E-Smith 5.0 with patch 3 installed with no issues.....What is your hardware?  Raid Controller?

[Alexander Ziemann]

... and why the hell is your squid-cache so important? I just ask.

Alex

[Jaime Nebrera]

Yes it does, you just need to enter in advanced mode and load the drivers provided by adaptec. I think this solution only works for 4.12 but don't know for sure

[LIAM ROBINSON]

THANKS FOR THE REPLIES.
I MUST HAVE GOT THE WRONG END OF THE STICK
I WAS PLANNING ON REPLACING MY CURRENT MACHINE WITH A NEW ONE WITH AN
ADAPTEC 2100 SCSI RAID CONRTOLLER.
WAS THINKING THAT AT THE TIME I WOULD UPGRADE FROM 4.1.2 TO SME5.
I'M SURE I HAVE READ SOMEWHERE THAT ADAPTEC ONLY RELEASE DRIVERS FOR MAJOR REDHAT KERNEL RELEASES AND THAT SME5 USES A NON-MAJOR RED HAT KERNEL.
I WILL TRY IT.  IF IT DOESN'T WORK THEN I'M PLEASED TO HEAR THAT IT DOES WORK WITH 4.1.2

THANKS AGAIN.

PS.  HOW DO I GET INTO ADVANCED MODE WHEN INSTALLING?

[LIAM ROBINSON]

THIS WAS THE HOW-TO THAT CONFUSED ME.
IT DOES SAY THAT E-SMITH 4.1.2 CAN'T BE INSTALLED ONTO A RAID 5 ARRAY. BUT HAS TO BE INSTALLED ONTO AN IDE DRIVE.

http://www.e-smith.org/docs/howto/contrib/e-smith_adaptec_raid.htm

[Craig]

Liam

To get into advanced mode just type "accept dd".

I posted onto the forum some time ago about installing SME5.0 with an Adaptec 2100S. It is not supported as SME 5.0 uses 2.2.19 kernel. SME 4.1.2 uses 2.2.17 kernell and you can get the drivers from Adaptecs website.

I noticed that a couple of the posts here had SME 5.0 with RAID 5 working can you please let us know what controller card you are using and the drivers.

As far as I am aware most Mylex RAID cards should work here is the list that was posted http://www.e-smith.org/bboard//read.php?v=t&f=3&i=9744&t=9699

Regards
Craig

[robert]

hi craig!
another aussie eh! im in SA
anyway the 2100S - does it work with sme5.5?
if so a prompt to a newbie as to how would be MUCH appreciated
kind regards
Robert

[Craig]

Robert

Again the same problem. SME 5.5 still uses 2.2.19 kernel and does not support the Adaptec 2100S directly. There is a developer release of SME 5.6 with 2.4 kernel which should support that card. I have installed it on a RAID 5 DPT controller card with the Intel960 chipset with no problems. I have 2 SCSI 17GIG 10K hard drives configured as RAID 1.

At this stage the only way is to compile your own drivers. I have had ago but with no real joy unfortunately.

You may want to consider the Mylex RAID cards as I think that most of those are supported natively or wait until SME 5.6 is released.

I must admit the lack of support for RAID cards in SME is a bit of a concern especially when building highend servers.

Regards
Craig

[Gordon]

Robert
I can confirm 4.1.2 does work the 2100S card fine. I have a site using it in mirror function for over 12 months but have not had any luck setting up a bootable kernel for any of the later versions of SME.

Hope this helps
Gordon