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Is there an ipsraid driver available for OSR6? This is for a IBM
ServeRaid 5i controller. I've found a link to the driver for OSR on
IBM's website (below), but OSR6 is not specifically mentioned in the
readme and the links therein go nowhere.

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/si...cid=MIGR-56826

Roger Cornelius wrote:

> Is there an ipsraid driver available for OSR6? This is for a IBM
> ServeRaid 5i controller. I've found a link to the driver for OSR on
> IBM's website (below), but OSR6 is not specifically mentioned in the
> readme and the links therein go nowhere.
>
> http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/si...cid=MIGR-56826

I found a useful page at:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/si...GR-495PES.html

It has pointers to drivers for UnixWare 7, which are they kind of
drivers you want for OSR6. I have no idea whether these have been
specifically tested on OSR6 by either SCO or IBM, but there's a good
chance they will work.

>Bela<

Bela Lubkin wrote:
> Roger Cornelius wrote:
>
> > Is there an ipsraid driver available for OSR6? This is for a IBM
> > ServeRaid 5i controller. I've found a link to the driver for OSR on
> > IBM's website (below), but OSR6 is not specifically mentioned in the
> > readme and the links therein go nowhere.
> >
> > http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/si...cid=MIGR-56826
>
> I found a useful page at:
>
> http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/si...GR-495PES.html
>
> It has pointers to drivers for UnixWare 7, which are they kind of
> drivers you want for OSR6.

Is that generally true for all drivers for OSR6 (Digi has a OSR6
specific driver in beta for the Portserver product)?

> I have no idea whether these have been
> specifically tested on OSR6 by either SCO or IBM, but there's a good
> chance they will work.

There's nothing at that link to indicate it has been tested on OSR6.
It's also not listed on SCO's compatable hardware database. I'm
hesitant to try it without some confirmation it will work since it
requires a firmware upgrade which could make getting the system back up
again difficult if it failed and I have to restore OSR5.

Roger Cornelius wrote:

> Bela Lubkin wrote:
> > Roger Cornelius wrote:
> >
> > > Is there an ipsraid driver available for OSR6? This is for a IBM
> > > ServeRaid 5i controller. I've found a link to the driver for OSR on
> > > IBM's website (below), but OSR6 is not specifically mentioned in the
> > > readme and the links therein go nowhere.
> > >
> > > http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/si...cid=MIGR-56826
> >
> > I found a useful page at:
> >
> > http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/si...GR-495PES.html
> >
> > It has pointers to drivers for UnixWare 7, which are they kind of
> > drivers you want for OSR6.
>
> Is that generally true for all drivers for OSR6 (Digi has a OSR6
> specific driver in beta for the Portserver product)?

The OSR6 kernel is based on the SVR5/UnixWare kernel. This means that
OSR5 (SVR3.2) drivers definitely will not work. Drivers have to be
written to the SVR5 kernel interfaces or they have no chance of working.

Different UW drivers will have different results on OSR6. HBA drivers
(like "ipsraid") have a very good chance of working because they
interface to the kernel in a very well defined manner, and they don't
have much user-level support code. I downloaded the UW7 "ipsraid"
package and looked at its files; I saw nothing to make me nervous about
OSR6 compatibility.

I'm not sure what the Digi PortServer driver package looks like, but it
surely has a more difficult task. It's likely that the actual kernel
driver portion of it is fine on OSR6. But terminal drivers interface
with a lot of user code. The package will want to add tty names to a
file to cause them to get login prompts: /etc/inittab on OSR5 and OSR6,
whatever `ttymon` uses on UnixWare. I expect there will be 5 or 10 such
differences in the installation of a tty driver, vs. none in a simple
HBA driver.

> > I have no idea whether these have been
> > specifically tested on OSR6 by either SCO or IBM, but there's a good
> > chance they will work.
>
> There's nothing at that link to indicate it has been tested on OSR6.

It clearly hasn't been tested on OSR6 (it may be in the _process_ of
being tested; I have no idea; but it clearly has not gone through an
entire testing process, the conclusion of which is to add OSR6 to the
list of formally supported OS releases).

> It's also not listed on SCO's compatable hardware database. I'm
> hesitant to try it without some confirmation it will work since it
> requires a firmware upgrade which could make getting the system back up
> again difficult if it failed and I have to restore OSR5.

It would not be wise to test it on a production system. If you can
assemble a test system with any HBA hardware supported by "ipsraid"
(even a lower-end board than the one you need to support), you could do
some confidence testing. Also, you could research whether the newer
firmware is supposed to remain compatible with the old drivers. That
would allow you to do a more cautious staged upgrade.

A few other confidence tests you can do:

1. on a completely generic system, boot the OSR6 install CD and feed it
the UW7 "ipsraid" HBA floppy. If it's radically incompatible, the
install will reject the HBA floppy, or you'll see some sort of link
error (symbol referencing errors). Otherwise it should run the
"ipsraid" hardware recognition code, not see its hardware, and silently
ignore the driver.

2. you could bring down your production system, disconnect the drives,
and run the same test. With the drives detached, the driver under test
cannot harm your data. In this test, the driver _should_ recognize its
hardware. If it really needs the newer firmware, it will probably error
out with a readable error message to that effect. It's also possible
that it doesn't really _need_ the new firmware, but that the new driver
brings out bugs in the old firmware, so it isn't safe to use under load.
Either way, you should get adequate confirmation that the kernel &
driver are compatible.

3. Taking it one step further, you could set aside your production
drives, hook up a scratch drive, and do a full install of OSR6 +
"ipsraid".

This sequence is predicated on the idea that you can't scare up a spare
adapter and that down time on your production system is acceptable. You
need to make the tradeoffs according to your own parameters...

A web search easily turns up people selling ServeRAID-3 "pulls" for
around $30. If you can install OSR6 on one of those with the UW7
driver, the driver and kernel are compatible... (To make it a strong
test, first try installing _without_ the HBA, to make sure there isn't
some other driver that recognizes the board and tricks you into thinking
"ipsraid" is working...)

>Bela<

Bela Lubkin wrote:
> Roger Cornelius wrote:
>
> > Bela Lubkin wrote:
> > > Roger Cornelius wrote:
> > >
> > > > Is there an ipsraid driver available for OSR6? This is for a IBM
> > > > ServeRaid 5i controller. I've found a link to the driver for OSR on
> > > > IBM's website (below), but OSR6 is not specifically mentioned in the
> > > > readme and the links therein go nowhere.
> > > >
> > > > http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/si...cid=MIGR-56826
> > >
> > > I found a useful page at:
> > >
> > > http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/si...GR-495PES.html
> > >
> > > It has pointers to drivers for UnixWare 7, which are they kind of
> > > drivers you want for OSR6.
> >
> > Is that generally true for all drivers for OSR6 (Digi has a OSR6
> > specific driver in beta for the Portserver product)?
>
> The OSR6 kernel is based on the SVR5/UnixWare kernel. This means that
> OSR5 (SVR3.2) drivers definitely will not work. Drivers have to be
> written to the SVR5 kernel interfaces or they have no chance of working.
>
> Different UW drivers will have different results on OSR6. HBA drivers
> (like "ipsraid") have a very good chance of working because they
> interface to the kernel in a very well defined manner, and they don't
> have much user-level support code. I downloaded the UW7 "ipsraid"
> package and looked at its files; I saw nothing to make me nervous about
> OSR6 compatibility.
>
> I'm not sure what the Digi PortServer driver package looks like, but it
> surely has a more difficult task. It's likely that the actual kernel
> driver portion of it is fine on OSR6. But terminal drivers interface
> with a lot of user code. The package will want to add tty names to a
> file to cause them to get login prompts: /etc/inittab on OSR5 and OSR6,
> whatever `ttymon` uses on UnixWare. I expect there will be 5 or 10 such
> differences in the installation of a tty driver, vs. none in a simple
> HBA driver.

OK, all that makes perfect sense.

> > > I have no idea whether these have been
> > > specifically tested on OSR6 by either SCO or IBM, but there's a good
> > > chance they will work.
> >
> > There's nothing at that link to indicate it has been tested on OSR6.
>
> It clearly hasn't been tested on OSR6 (it may be in the _process_ of
> being tested; I have no idea; but it clearly has not gone through an
> entire testing process, the conclusion of which is to add OSR6 to the
> list of formally supported OS releases).
>
> > It's also not listed on SCO's compatable hardware database. I'm
> > hesitant to try it without some confirmation it will work since it
> > requires a firmware upgrade which could make getting the system back up
> > again difficult if it failed and I have to restore OSR5.
>
> It would not be wise to test it on a production system. If you can
> assemble a test system with any HBA hardware supported by "ipsraid"
> (even a lower-end board than the one you need to support), you could do
> some confidence testing. Also, you could research whether the newer
> firmware is supposed to remain compatible with the old drivers. That
> would allow you to do a more cautious staged upgrade.

It is a production machine. A scheduled weekend is the most downtime I
can afford. From what I've read so far, the driver needs to be updated
with,the firmware.

> A few other confidence tests you can do:
>
> 1. on a completely generic system, boot the OSR6 install CD and feed it
> the UW7 "ipsraid" HBA floppy. If it's radically incompatible, the
> install will reject the HBA floppy, or you'll see some sort of link
> error (symbol referencing errors). Otherwise it should run the
> "ipsraid" hardware recognition code, not see its hardware, and silently
> ignore the driver.
>
> 2. you could bring down your production system, disconnect the drives,
> and run the same test. With the drives detached, the driver under test
> cannot harm your data. In this test, the driver _should_ recognize its
> hardware. If it really needs the newer firmware, it will probably error
> out with a readable error message to that effect. It's also possible
> that it doesn't really _need_ the new firmware, but that the new driver
> brings out bugs in the old firmware, so it isn't safe to use under load.
> Either way, you should get adequate confirmation that the kernel &
> driver are compatible.
>
> 3. Taking it one step further, you could set aside your production
> drives, hook up a scratch drive, and do a full install of OSR6 +
> "ipsraid".
>
> This sequence is predicated on the idea that you can't scare up a spare
> adapter and that down time on your production system is acceptable. You
> need to make the tradeoffs according to your own parameters...
>
> A web search easily turns up people selling ServeRAID-3 "pulls" for
> around $30. If you can install OSR6 on one of those with the UW7
> driver, the driver and kernel are compatible... (To make it a strong
> test, first try installing _without_ the HBA, to make sure there isn't
> some other driver that recognizes the board and tricks you into thinking
> "ipsraid" is working...)

I will try 1 and 2, but either way, I don't think I'll be comfortable
without a certified driver. I'll probably go ahead and update the
firmware/driver for OSR5, then wait until a certified driver for OSR6
is available. There isn't anything pressing me to install OSR6 now.

Thanks for your help, and I'll report back with my progress.