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magnate
*nix forums beginner
Joined: 21 Mar 2005
Posts: 38
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 Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 10:14 am Post subject:
Debian installer does not recognise ataraid array
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I have two SATA HDs on a Silicon Simage 3112 RAID controller. This is
known as "fakeraid" or "ataraid" because it's not a proper hardware
RAID controller, it just buggers about with on-the-fly address
translations in the controller's BIOS. So it's a bit like software RAID
- and indeed inferior to Linux software RAID - but this is a dual-boot
box, which is why I'm using it. (Honestly, it makes Windows a *lot*
faster, like 50%+.)
So, I want to install Debian on it. I managed it under 2.4 by manually
coaxing the medley.o module into place, to recognise the array and let
me install on it. On the way I found and reported several bugs: a
conflict between siimage.o and via82cxxx.o (which is still unsolved in
kernel-source-2.4.27), the fact that ataraid modules were not loaded by
the installer, and the fact that medley.o was missing from the mkinitrd
script, which meant that I couldn't boot after the install!
I'm not sure if that second one is solved yet, but it doesn't matter
because this time I'm trying to install 2.6 (I am reinstalling rather
than upgrading because I made a ton of changes to the partition
structure). I know that 2.6 doesn't use the medley module, and that all
the fakeraid stuff is dealt with by something called the device mapper,
and a user-space tool called dmraid.
Unfortunately I don't know any more than that, like how they work. When
I use the latest debian installer CD, it boots 2.6 and finds all my
hardware and offers me sda and sdb as my HDs - it completely fails to
notice the fakeraid array.
Yes I have brought this to Debian's attention, but I'm asking here
because I really need to just know a few more basics about ataraid
handling in 2.6.x and the device mapper - can anyone point me towards a
HOWTO or idiot's guide for that?
Grateful also for any other advice on how to diagnose this problem. I
presume that the low-level hardware driver (sata_sil.o in this case) is
still needed - this is what's finding sda and sdb. But I don't know
what to do once that's loaded to find the ataraid array, and therefore
I don't know how to find out where the debian installer is going
astray.
Rgds,
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Nico Kadel-Garcia
*nix forums Guru
Joined: 21 Feb 2005
Posts: 1068
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| Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 1:17 pm Post subject:
Re: Debian installer does not recognise ataraid array
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magnate wrote:
| Quote: | I have two SATA HDs on a Silicon Simage 3112 RAID controller. This is
known as "fakeraid" or "ataraid" because it's not a proper hardware
RAID controller, it just buggers about with on-the-fly address
translations in the controller's BIOS. So it's a bit like software
RAID - and indeed inferior to Linux software RAID - but this is a
dual-boot box, which is why I'm using it. (Honestly, it makes Windows
a *lot* faster, like 50%+.)
|
Instead of spending the many man-hours you've wasted trying to get that to
work properly, have you considered simply buying a real RAID controller,
such as a 3Ware or Adaptec? They cost a bit more, but they avoid exactly
this kind of driver difficulty by being better documented and more likely
for a Linux kernel developer to care about and perfect. Your difficulties
getting 2.4.27 to work with Debian is fairly typical of my friend's
experience with Debian: kernel massaging tends to take quite a bit of work
for slightly odd hardware.
Can the current Knoppix bootable CD see the hardware correctly? That would
be a hint that the current, or recent, 2.6 kernels have it solved. And which
2.6 kernel did you play with? |
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magnate
*nix forums beginner
Joined: 21 Mar 2005
Posts: 38
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| Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 3:40 pm Post subject:
Re: Debian installer does not recognise ataraid array
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Nico Kadel-Garcia wrote:
| Quote: | magnate wrote:
I have two SATA HDs on a Silicon Simage 3112 RAID controller. This is
known as "fakeraid" or "ataraid" because it's not a proper hardware
RAID controller, it just buggers about with on-the-fly address
translations in the controller's BIOS. So it's a bit like software
RAID - and indeed inferior to Linux software RAID - but this is a
dual-boot box, which is why I'm using it. (Honestly, it makes Windows
a *lot* faster, like 50%+.)
Instead of spending the many man-hours you've wasted trying to get that to
work properly, have you considered simply buying a real RAID controller,
|
Hey, I like to think of it as contributing to the sum of human
knowledge!
| Quote: | such as a 3Ware or Adaptec? They cost a bit more, but they avoid exactly
this kind of driver difficulty by being better documented and more likely
for a Linux kernel developer to care about and perfect. Your difficulties
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Yeah but if everybody bought well-supported hardware Linux wouldn't be
half as broad and useful as it is - this is the bazaar in action! When
I got it to install under 2.4, I had people on the other side of the
world getting me to help them through it. That was fun, and made me
glad I hadn't bought a nice fast hardware RAID controller ...
| Quote: | getting 2.4.27 to work with Debian is fairly typical of my friend's
experience with Debian: kernel massaging tends to take quite a bit of work
for slightly odd hardware.
|
Agreed. One problem with Debian is that it's so diffuse it's hard to
talk to the person who can actually fix your problem. It's also very
slow. It's quite stunning that nobody has fixed the conflict between
siimage.o and via82cxxx.o in 18 months - that's a common combination of
hardware (the entire Asus A7N8X line, for a start, which is several
million boards).
| Quote: | Can the current Knoppix bootable CD see the hardware correctly? That would
be a hint that the current, or recent, 2.6 kernels have it solved. And which
2.6 kernel did you play with?
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Hmm, I haven't used Knoppix since it was at 2.4, which worked fine
(again pointing to Debian-specific problem with the module conflict).
I'll try again, but I suspect that Knoppix will work, and that it's a
Debian problem. If I can find it, I can help them solve it.
I'm using the Debian installer image from 5 July 2006 - I'll check the
kernel version when I get home.
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Nico Kadel-Garcia
*nix forums Guru
Joined: 21 Feb 2005
Posts: 1068
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| Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 7:04 pm Post subject:
Re: Debian installer does not recognise ataraid array
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"magnate" <chrisc@dbass.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:1153237210.334748.90260@75g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
| Quote: | Nico Kadel-Garcia wrote:
such as a 3Ware or Adaptec? They cost a bit more, but they avoid exactly
this kind of driver difficulty by being better documented and more likely
for a Linux kernel developer to care about and perfect. Your difficulties
Yeah but if everybody bought well-supported hardware Linux wouldn't be
half as broad and useful as it is - this is the bazaar in action! When
I got it to install under 2.4, I had people on the other side of the
world getting me to help them through it. That was fun, and made me
glad I hadn't bought a nice fast hardware RAID controller ...
|
I see your point, but wasting your valuable working around the cheesy cruft
in some hardware drivers is wasting your time and rewarding them, because
you're doing their work for them. Investing the money in a good card from a
vendor who does good drivers and publishes their standards is also
contributing.
I sympathize, I do: but as an example, I've wasted so much time on el cheapo
Promise setups, that simply never do work well even under Windows with
native drivers, that I won't work with them anymore if at all possible.
| Quote: | Can the current Knoppix bootable CD see the hardware correctly? That
would
be a hint that the current, or recent, 2.6 kernels have it solved. And
which
2.6 kernel did you play with?
Hmm, I haven't used Knoppix since it was at 2.4, which worked fine
(again pointing to Debian-specific problem with the module conflict).
I'll try again, but I suspect that Knoppix will work, and that it's a
Debian problem. If I can find it, I can help them solve it.
I'm using the Debian installer image from 5 July 2006 - I'll check the
kernel version when I get home.
|
Knoppix is my friend for this sort of thing, really. The resulting live
system is good for probing for doing a full local installation of other
distributions. |
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Michael Heiming
*nix forums Guru
Joined: 19 Feb 2005
Posts: 1423
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| Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 8:13 pm Post subject:
Re: Debian installer does not recognise ataraid array
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In comp.os.linux.setup magnate <chrisc@dbass.demon.co.uk>:
| Quote: | I have two SATA HDs on a Silicon Simage 3112 RAID controller. This is
known as "fakeraid" or "ataraid" because it's not a proper hardware
RAID controller, it just buggers about with on-the-fly address
translations in the controller's BIOS. So it's a bit like software RAID
- and indeed inferior to Linux software RAID - but this is a dual-boot
box, which is why I'm using it. (Honestly, it makes Windows a *lot*
faster, like 50%+.)
So, I want to install Debian on it. I managed it under 2.4 by manually
|
Haven't used any of those fakeraid controllers, but from the
following URL (great job Rick!):
http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Hardware/sata.html
It looks like you are perhaps just using the wrong distro? For
some desktop I'd try out FC 5 and see if this works better.
This URL seems to suggest it:
http://tienstra4.flatnet.tudelft.nl/~gerte/gen2dmraid/
Red hat's Fedora Core can be used to install Linux on your RAID
set. Download Fedora Core here: http://fedora.redhat.com/
[..]
Good luck
--
Michael Heiming (X-PGP-Sig > GPG-Key ID: EDD27B94)
mail: echo zvpunry@urvzvat.qr | perl -pe 'y/a-z/n-za-m/'
#bofh excuse 443: Zombie processes detected, machine is haunted. |
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Rick Moen
*nix forums Guru
Joined: 20 Feb 2005
Posts: 439
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| Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 10:35 pm Post subject:
Re: Debian installer does not recognise ataraid array
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Michael Heiming <michael+USENET@www.heiming.de> wrote:
Much obliged, my good sir! I do try; but you're welcome to flatter me
any time. ;->
New to my stable of documentation, but very similar to the above:
http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Hardware/sas.html
(Serial Attached SCSI is doing to Ultra320 what SATA did to PATA --
except a lot faster. SAS-chipset support is starting to be a real
issue with Linux distro installer refreshes.)
--
Cheers, English is essentially Pictish that was attacked out of nowhere by
Rick Moen Angles cohabiting with Teutons who were done in by a drunk bunch of
rick@linux Vikings masquerading as Frenchmen who insisted they spoke Latin and
mafia.com Greek but lacked the Arabic in which to convey that. -- Bill Hammel |
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Rick Moen
*nix forums Guru
Joined: 20 Feb 2005
Posts: 439
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| Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 11:07 pm Post subject:
Re: Debian installer does not recognise ataraid array
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magnate <chrisc@dbass.demon.co.uk> wrote:
| Quote: | I have two SATA HDs on a Silicon Simage 3112 RAID controller. This is
known as "fakeraid" or "ataraid" because it's not a proper hardware
RAID controller, it just buggers about with on-the-fly address
translations in the controller's BIOS. So it's a bit like software RAID
- and indeed inferior to Linux software RAID - but this is a dual-boot
box, which is why I'm using it. (Honestly, it makes Windows a *lot*
faster, like 50%+.)
|
[snip details of your plan to try again using the Debian d-i installer's
"bf2.6" installation flavour]
Chris, I read your post last night, and at the time was very impressed
with your thorough approach to both the testing process and recounting
of same on this newsgroup. Like Michael Heiming, who kindly posted the
link to my Linux on SATA page, I have little practical experience with
fakeraid controllers -- and just about everything I know on the subject
is already on the aforementioned page.
| Quote: | Yes I have brought this to Debian's attention, but I'm asking here
because I really need to just know a few more basics about ataraid
handling in 2.6.x and the device mapper - can anyone point me towards a
HOWTO or idiot's guide for that?
|
I've not yet found one, and I've really looked extensively (though not
lately). In addition to the dmraid resources linked from my SATA page,
please see if the udev-related entries on
http://linuxmafia.com/kb/Kernel are any use to you -- since hotplug,
udev, sysfs, and the devicemapper all work closely in 2.6.
Anyway, my understanding is that the ataraid software layer is
2.4-specific, and dmraid _is_ ataraid for 2.6. (You may have meant
simply "Linux parsing of ATA fakeraid disk semantics", in which case
no criticism intended, and I'm just being careful to disambiguate.)
| Quote: | Grateful also for any other advice on how to diagnose this problem. I
presume that the low-level hardware driver (sata_sil.o in this case) is
still needed - this is what's finding sda and sdb.
|
Correct.
| Quote: | But I don't know what to do once that's loaded to find the ataraid
array, and therefore I don't know how to find out where the debian
installer is going astray.
|
My impression is that you're not missing anything, except the extremely
high likelihood that the current Debian installer ("d-i") doesn't have
dmraid support in the installation kernel. Now, what you _could_ do is
to install some other leading-edge distribution, e.g., FC5, and then do
a chroot installation of Debian, using the other distro's infrastructure
support for dmraid to accomplish the job. You'd then compile a
dmraid-supporting kernel inside the chroot jail before rebooting.
(See: "Installers" on http://linuxmafia.com/kb/Debian on how to do
chroot installs. It's actually pretty easy, and interesting to do.)
See also:
http://www.redhat.com/archives/ataraid-list/2005-July/msg00014.html
The existence of this "udeb" package suggests that my suspicion about
d-i is correct: Such packages are useful in constructing custom
installer images. (There are lots of such custom installer images
catalogued on the aforementioned "Installers" page; might be one with
dmraid support.)
http://packages.debian.org/unstable/debian-installer/dmraid-udeb
That package should not be confused with userspace package "dmraid",
which is the glue to control fakeraid operations via devicemapper:
http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/dmraid
Good luck.
--
Cheers, English is essentially Pictish that was attacked out of nowhere by
Rick Moen Angles cohabiting with Teutons who were done in by a drunk bunch of
rick@linux Vikings masquerading as Frenchmen who insisted they spoke Latin and
mafia.com Greek but lacked the Arabic in which to convey that. -- Bill Hammel |
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