Description of problem: EL5 does not boot if i2o mode is set in controller bios Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): kernel-2.6.18-8.1.3.el5 How reproducible: always Steps to Reproduce: 1. set i20 instead of mass storage in controller bios 2. boot latest kernel 3. look at i20 errors Actual results: Error messages on console i20:iop0: Get status timeout i20:iop0: Reset timeout i20:iop0: could not reset controller i20:iop0: Reset timeout kernel panic Expected results: boot ok, this works with EL4 Additional info: Seems the interim kernel kernel-2.6.18-8.1.1.el5 was fine. It did boot with i2o enabled. But initial kernel from cd and latest kernel-2.6.18-8.1.3.el5 do not boot. Controller: 01:08.0 RAID bus controller: LSI Logic / Symbios Logic MegaRAID (rev 01) Subsystem: Dell MegaRAID 518 DELL PERC 4/DC RAID Controller Flags: bus master, 66MHz, slow devsel, latency 32, IRQ 185 Memory at fce00000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=64K] Expansion ROM at fcf00000 [disabled] [size=64K] Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2
I have to revise, sorry. This does only apply to the initial kernel when installing EL5. It only finds the controller when set to mass storage. After updating the kernel it can be set to i20, everything is fine. kernel-2.6.18-8.1.1.el5 kernel-2.6.18-8.1.3.el5 are both working.
The RHEL 5.0 release notes https://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-5-manual/release-notes/RELEASE-NOTES-x86-en.html say: Known Issues Host bus adapters that use the MegaRAID driver must be set to operate in "Mass Storage" emulation mode, not in "I2O" emulation mode. To do this, perform the following steps: 1.Enter the MegaRAID BIOS Set Up Utility. 2.Enter the Adapter settings menu. 3.Under Other Adapter Options, select Emulation and set it to Mass Storage. If the adapter is incorrectly set to "I2O" emulation, the system will attempt to load the i2o driver. This will fail, and prevent the proper driver from being loaded. Previous Red Hat Enterprise Linux releases generally do not attempt to load the I2O driver before the MegaRAID driver. Regardless of this, the hardware should always be set to "Mass Storage" emulation mode when used with Linux.