Any Linux SCSI array gurus out there?

[TheFishingGeek]

A friend of mine likes to feed my hardware addiction with old goods that the bank that he works at sends to the dumpster, which is either good or bad based on whether you ask me or my wife.

Currenly I am in possession of a 7-disk SCSI drive array made by Compaq (model 3161, a PITA to find documentation for) and a Compaq Smart-2/P RAID Controller. I plugged the card into my Mandrake 9.1 server, and it came right up in the boot. As the card booted a spinning slash would come up as each of the 7 drives wound up. there was a green HD light lighting up with each spin up, for a total of seven. Once complete, the card BIOS said that there was one logical array. Cool.

When `drake booted up, it showed my SCSI card using the cpqarray driver, and all looked fine there. However, nowhere in HardDrake did it show any SCSI drives, and running a dmesg only has a couple of mentions of potential activity:

md: Autodetecting RAID arrays.
SCSI subsystem driver Revision: 1.00

...and that's it. I checked the /dev directory and the scsi directory is empty, and there don't seem to be any other possible mentions of SCSI anywhere.

My hardware enabler gave me a Compaq Smart Start CD version 5.3, but it's not booting successfully in my PC so that's of no value.

I'm relatively new to Linux (could you tell by me running a `drake server?) and even newer to SCSI, although I've been breaking computers now for about 8-9 years. There is only one SCSI connection in the back of the drive array, so I'm assuming that it auto-terminates (right?). There aren't any SCSI ID number setter-uppers, so that must be handled internally as well (right again?).

So, what can I do to get this drive array to work? I don't NEED the array, as I have 4x the space in one IDE drive, but I WANT to get it to work just to say that I did.

Thanks for reading through all that, and thanks even more if you are able to assist in this matter. Having 50 lbs of steely beigeness next to my server is a geeky turn-on, and I want it to be more than a cool noise-maker.

 

[bozo1]

The Compaq chassis auto-terminates.

Sounds like you have the array created. Next step is to partition it and format it. Linux should see it as one big disk and you partition it just like you would a standalone drive.

 

[TheFishingGeek]

Where would I find the array to format it? How would I figure out how it is identified? I don't want to format one of my IDE drives by mistake.

 

[Nothinman]

md: Autodetecting RAID arrays.

That's the md software RAID driver, it's irrelevant.

I checked the /dev directory and the scsi directory is empty, and there don't seem to be any other possible mentions of SCSI anywhere.

Does Mandrake use devfs? I've never used it so I have no idea where it would put those drives, but on a regular /dev filesystem they should be at /dev/cciss/ I believe, unless the older driver puts them somewhere else.

My hardware enabler gave me a Compaq Smart Start CD version 5.3, but it's not booting successfully in my PC so that's of no value.

Yes, it probably requires a Compaq Server to run, strangely I found that even the newest Smart Start CDs work on the older hardware.

There aren't any SCSI ID number setter-uppers, so that must be handled internally as well (right again?).

Those should be determined by the slot the drive is in, each slot should have a number near it.

Type 'file -s /dev/sda' and see what that says.

 

[Nothinman]

I don't want to format one of my IDE drives by mistake.

Then don't touch any of the /dev/hd* drives, that array will either be /dev/sda or a special name.

Does /proc/array exist?

 

[TheFishingGeek]

Unfortunately there isn't a /dev/cciss directory or file, so that didn't pan out. Also, this came back on the file command requested: /dev/sda: can't stat `/dev/sda' (No such file or directory).

Something else just jumped out at me from the dmesg at the end:

hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: dma_intr: error=0x84 { DriveStatusError BadCRC }

That comes up right after the "SCSI subsystem driver Revision: 1.00" listed above. I can only imagine what that is...

 

[Nothinman]

Type 'mount', does it say /dev is using devfs?

Does /proc/array exist?

The hda messages you posted are irrelevant, they have to do with your IDE drive. Probably a cable problem or something.

 

[TheFishingGeek]

Yeah, it appears to be using devfs, but there is no listing for /proc/array. Just a proc listing for USB.

There for awhile my master IDE connection was dying on me. Looks to me that Linux agrees. Hopefully my new board comes back from the second trip to MSI RMA working.

 

[Nothinman]

If you type lsmod is cpqarray in the list?

 

[TheFishingGeek]

Hmmm...no it is not.

scsi_mod is, though...FWIW.

 

[Nothinman]

scsi_mod is just the core SCSI support, as root type 'modprobe cpqarray' and see what happens.

 

[Panther505]

Try:

lspci --> should give you a scan of the pci bus to see what the card that you have is being seen as.

next to google to see what you can find on the "right" driver for the card. From there (once you have what you think is the right driver) you will need to modprobe or insmod the driver in.

Lookst like Nothingman was on to the driver (like there was a doubt)

add cpqarray to the modules.conf

should be able to fdisk it as /dev/sda


Linky for some reading

edit: cause I can't remember the fsvcking link format in the quick reply box.

 

[TheFishingGeek]

Nothing came up with that modprobe, so that seals it that the driver isn't loading. So, step one is to find the driver out on the wild and wooly net. Step two is adding cpqarray to modules.conf. I'll report back when it's working.

Thanks all. Much appreciated.

 

[Nothinman]

Nothing came up with that modprobe, so that seals it that the driver isn't loading

Nothing where? If modprobe doesn't give an error that means the driver loaded succesfully, you would need to check the console or dmesg to see the messages from the driver as it's loading.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

modules.conf? Is mandrake just weird, or do you guys mean /etc/modules?

 

[TheFishingGeek]

When I typed modprobe cpqarray it just came back with a new command prompt. That's good?

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Originally posted by: TheFishingGeek
When I typed modprobe cpqarray it just came back with a new command prompt. That's good?

Yeah, that means that nothing bad happened.

lsmod
dmesg | more

 

[TheFishingGeek]

Okay, may have found something. Looks like I have an entry at /dev/ida/c0d0, which is what came up as where the drive was located when I booted from the Mandrake install CD and got to the partitioning part. So now I need to find information on mounting that into a partition.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

To just test it out, find an unused directory in /mnt (or /mnt itself if it is empty) and "mount /dev/ida/c0d0 /mnt/whatever"

 

[TheFishingGeek]

Okay, we have success! I first did an fdisk of c0d0 and it had to create a DOS disklabel, as whatever was previously there wasn't anything (good, as it came from a bank). So, I wrote that to the disk and tried to mount the drive as suggested. It asked for the filesystem type, but instead of doing that I went into DiskDrake and THERE IT WAS! I mounted it at /mnt/array, formatted it as ext3, and wrote to fstab. Looks like we're in business!

So, in a nutshell...it put the drives at /dev/ida/c0d0. Little different from normal SCSI mounting places, it seems, but it works for me.

Maybe later I'll try and find a config utility for the controller card that will allow me to make two smaller arrays instead of one big one, for redundancy on a web server. Other adventures for other days.

Thanks to all in helping me on this one. I feel the SCSI geekiness growing inside of me. Either that or that rare steak I had for dinner was a bit TOO rare.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Originally posted by: TheFishingGeek
Okay, we have success! I first did an fdisk of c0d0 and it had to create a DOS disklabel, as whatever was previously there wasn't anything (good, as it came from a bank). So, I wrote that to the disk and tried to mount the drive as suggested. It asked for the filesystem type, but instead of doing that I went into DiskDrake and THERE IT WAS! I mounted it at /mnt/array, formatted it as ext3, and wrote to fstab. Looks like we're in business!

So, in a nutshell...it put the drives at /dev/ida/c0d0. Little different from normal SCSI mounting places, it seems, but it works for me.

Maybe later I'll try and find a config utility for the controller card that will allow me to make two smaller arrays instead of one big one, for redundancy on a web server. Other adventures for other days.

Cool! With that many drives, you may want to consider raid 5 instead of raid 1.

Thanks to all in helping me on this one. I feel the SCSI geekiness growing inside of me. Either that or that rare steak I had for dinner was a bit TOO rare.

Too rare? What are you, a woman? Real men just bite into a live cow

 

[NaughtyusMaximus]

I'm a fake man, I like mine well done.

 

[TheFishingGeek]

Actually, after doing some additional digging I've discovered that these drives are setup as RAID 5, and after doing some learnin' I've discovered that it is, truly, a "good thing". Sure hope that none of those drives die, cuz replacements might be hard to find.

Oh, and meat cooking definitions, at least for me, are relative. Rare means that there's an angry cow out there with a chunk out of her butt.

 

[TheFishingGeek]

Originally posted by: NaughtyusMaximus
I'm a fake man, I like mine well done.

When I want well done I'll just go grab a chunk out of the Kingsford charcoal bag.

 

[Nothinman]

Sure hope that none of those drives die, cuz replacements might be hard to find.

You can get refurbished replacements direct from Compaq/HP, they don't require a contract or anything but you're subject to what they have in stock and you'll probably pay out the ass.