[3027] in linux-scsi channel archive
RAID & unhappy scsi driver
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Linas Vepstas)
Mon Jan 5 03:42:05 1998
Date: Mon, 05 Jan 1998 03:51:46 -0600
From: Linas Vepstas <linas@fc.net>
To: dledford@dialnet.net, linux-raid@vger.rutgers.edu,
linux-scsi@vger.rutgers.edu, linux-eata@trudi.zdv.Uni-Mainz.DE
I am disappointed to point out the following kernel "bug":
Recently set up RAID w/ several seagates & adaptec 2940 on 2.0.33
kernel.
After a few weeks, one of the drives failed.
I was unhappy to find the machine all-but locked up as a result,
un pingable, un telnetable, etc. (although the keyboard did wake
up the sleeping monitor.) Appearently the aic7xxx driver entered
into some sort of infinite loop attempting to reset the scsi disk.
I was unable to reboot until I went into bios and disabled the disk.
This kind of driver behaviour completely negates the point of
hot-plug drive bays, severly impacts high-availability, and puts
a big dent in the philosphy of RAID.
Anyone experience anything similar? Anyone working to improve
the driver?
--------
It occurs to me that some RAID setups might use one controller per disk,
to avoid outage due to controller failure. But are the scsi device
drivers
robust enough to not hang/panic the kernel if a controller fails to
respond?
--linas
--
Linas Vepstas -- linas@linas.org.spam.stopper -- http://linas.org/
