versions older than 4.0 do not work with kernels 2.4.0 or later! If you
try to compile your kernel with the wrong driver source, the
compilation is aborted and you get a corresponding error message. This is
- no bug in the driver. It prevents you from using the wrong sourcecode
+ no bug in the driver; it prevents you from using the wrong source code
with the wrong kernel version.
Authors of this Driver
5 Users' Manual
5.1 Commandline Parameters
5.2 Troubleshooting
- 5.3 Bugreports
+ 5.3 Bug reports
5.4 Support WWW-page
6 References
7 Credits to
1 Abstract
----------
- This README-file describes the IBM SCSI-subsystem low level driver for
- Linux. The descriptions which were formerly kept in the source-code have
- been taken out to this file to easify the codes' readability. The driver
+ This README-file describes the IBM SCSI-subsystem low level driver for
+ Linux. The descriptions which were formerly kept in the source code have
+ been taken out of this file to simplify the codes readability. The driver
description has been updated, as most of the former description was already
- quite outdated. The history of the driver development is also kept inside
- here. Multiple historical developments have been summarized to shorten the
- textsize a bit. At the end of this file you can find a small manual for
+ quite outdated. The history of the driver development is also kept inside
+ here. Multiple historical developments have been summarized to shorten the
+ text size a bit. At the end of this file you can find a small manual for
this driver and hints to get it running on your machine.
2 Driver Description
between 0 and 7). The IBM SCSI-2 F/W adapter offers this on up to two
busses and provides support for 30 logical devices at the same time, where
in wide-addressing mode you can have 16 puns with 32 luns on each device.
- This section dexribes you the handling of devices on non-F/W adapters.
+ This section describes the handling of devices on non-F/W adapters.
Just imagine, that you can have 16 * 32 = 512 devices on a F/W adapter
which means a lot of possible devices for such a small machine.
--------------------------------------------------------
One consequence of information hiding is that the real (pun,lun)
numbers are also hidden. The two possibilities to get around this problem
- is to offer fake pun/lun combinations to the operating system or to
+ are to offer fake pun/lun combinations to the operating system or to
delete the whole mapping of the adapter and to reassign the ldns, using
the immediate assign command of the SCSI-subsystem for probing through
- all possible pun/lun combinations. a ldn is a "logical device number"
+ all possible pun/lun combinations. An ldn is a "logical device number"
which is used by IBM SCSI-subsystems to access some valid SCSI-device.
At the beginning of the development of this driver, the following approach
was used:
lun>0 or to non-existing devices, in order to satisfy the subsystem, if
there are less than 15 SCSI-devices connected. In the case of more than 15
devices, the dynamical mapping goes active. If the get_scsi[][] reports a
- device to be existant, but it has no ldn assigned, it gets a ldn out of 7
- to 14. The numbers are assigned in cyclic order. Therefore it takes 8
- dynamical reassignments on the SCSI-devices, until a certain device
+ device to be existent, but it has no ldn assigned, it gets an ldn out of 7
+ to 14. The numbers are assigned in cyclic order, therefore it takes 8
+ dynamical reassignments on the SCSI-devices until a certain device
loses its ldn again. This assures that dynamical remapping is avoided
during intense I/O between up to 15 SCSI-devices (means pun,lun
combinations). A further advantage of this method is that people who
- Michael Lang
June 25 1997: (v1.8b)
- 1) Some cosmetical changes for the handling of SCSI-device-types.
+ 1) Some cosmetic changes for the handling of SCSI-device-types.
Now, also CD-Burners / WORMs and SCSI-scanners should work. For
MO-drives I have no experience, therefore not yet supported.
In logical_devices I changed from different type-variables to one
than devices are available, they are assigned to non existing pun,lun
combinations to satisfy the adapter. With this, the dynamical mapping
was possible to implement. (For further info see the text in the
- source-code and in the description below. Read the description
+ source code and in the description below. Read the description
below BEFORE installing this driver on your system!)
2) Changed the name IBMMCA_DRIVER_VERSION to IBMMCA_SCSI_DRIVER_VERSION.
3) The LED-display shows on PS/2-95 no longer the ldn, but the SCSI-ID
- Michael Lang
Apr 23, 2000 (v3.2pre1)
- 1) During a very long time, I collected a huge amount of bugreports from
+ 1) During a very long time, I collected a huge amount of bug reports from
various people, trying really quite different things on their SCSI-
- PS/2s. Today, all these bugreports are taken into account and should be
+ PS/2s. Today, all these bug reports are taken into account and should be
mostly solved. The major topics were:
- Driver crashes during boottime by no obvious reason.
- Driver panics while the midlevel-SCSI-driver is trying to inquire
- Michael Lang
July 17, 2000 (v3.2pre8)
- A long period of collecting bugreports from all corners of the world
+ A long period of collecting bug reports from all corners of the world
now lead to the following corrections to the code:
1) SCSI-2 F/W support crashed with a COMMAND ERROR. The reason for this
was that it is possible to disable Fast-SCSI for the external bus.
July 26, 2000 (v3.2pre11)
1) I passed a horrible weekend getting mad with NMIs on kernel 2.2.14 and
a model 9595. Asking around in the community, nobody except of me has
- seen such errors. Weired, but I am trying to recompile everything on
+ seen such errors. Weird, but I am trying to recompile everything on
the model 9595. Maybe, as I use a specially modified gcc, that could
cause problems. But, it was not the reason. The true background was,
that the kernel was compiled for i386 and the 9595 has a 486DX-2.
alive rotator during boottime. This makes sense, when no monitor is
connected to the system. You can get rid of all display activity, if
you do not use any parameter or just ibmmcascsi=activity, for the
- harddrive activity LED, existant on all PS/2, except models 8595-XXX.
+ harddrive activity LED, existent on all PS/2, except models 8595-XXX.
If no monitor is available, please use ibmmcascsi=display, which works
fine together with the linuxinfo utility for the LED-panel.
- Michael Lang
in version 4.0. This was never really necessary, as all troubles were
based on non-command related reasons up to now, so bypassing commands
did not help to avoid any bugs. It is kept in 3.2X for debugging reasons.
- 5) Dynamical reassignment of ldns was again verified and analyzed to be
+ 5) Dynamic reassignment of ldns was again verified and analyzed to be
completely inoperational. This is corrected and should work now.
6) All commands that get sent to the SCSI adapter were verified and
completed in such a way, that they are now completely conform to the
If this really happens, do also send e-mail to the maintainer, as
forced detection should be never necessary. Forced detection is in
principal some flaw of the driver adapter detection and goes into
- bugreports.
+ bug reports.
Q: The driver screws up, if it starts to probe SCSI-devices, is there
some way out of it?
A: Yes, that was some recognition problem of the correct SCSI-adapter
recommended version is 3.2 or later. Here, the F/W support is in
a stable and reliable condition. Wide-addressing is in addition
supported.
- Q: I get a Ooops message and something like "killing interrupt".
+ Q: I get an Oops message and something like "killing interrupt".
A: The reason for this is that the IBM SCSI-subsystem only sends a
termination status back, if some error appeared. In former releases
of the driver, it was not checked, if the termination status block
and 15 get ignored by the driver & adapter!
Q: I have a 9595 and I get a NMI during heavy SCSI I/O e.g. during fsck.
A COMMAND ERROR is reported and characters on the screen are missing.
- Warm reboot is not possible. Things look like quite weired.
+ Warm reboot is not possible. Things look like quite weird.
A: Check the processor type of your 9595. If you have an 80486 or 486DX-2
processor complex on your mainboard and you compiled a kernel that
supports 80386 processors, it is possible, that the kernel cannot
problem. Not yet tried, but guessing that it could work. To get this,
set unchecked_isa_dma argument of ibmmca.h from 0 to 1.
- 5.3 Bugreports
+ 5.3 Bug reports
--------------
- If you really find bugs in the sourcecode or the driver will successfully
+ If you really find bugs in the source code or the driver will successfully
refuse to work on your machine, you should send a bug report to me. The
best for this is to follow the instructions on the WWW-page for this
driver. Fill out the bug-report form, placed on the WWW-page and ship it,
so the bugs can be taken into account with maximum efforts. But, please
do not send bug reports about this driver to Linus Torvalds or Leonard
- Zubkoff, as Linus is burried in E-Mail and Leonard is supervising all
+ Zubkoff, as Linus is buried in E-Mail and Leonard is supervising all
SCSI-drivers and won't have the time left to look inside every single
driver to fix a bug and especially DO NOT send modified code to Linus
Torvalds or Alan J. Cox which has not been checked here!!! They are both
- quite burried in E-mail (as me, sometimes, too) and one should first check
+ quite buried in E-mail (as me, sometimes, too) and one should first check
for problems on my local teststand. Recently, I got a lot of
- bugreports for errors in the ibmmca.c code, which I could not imagine, but
+ bug reports for errors in the ibmmca.c code, which I could not imagine, but
a look inside some Linux-distribution showed me quite often some modified
code, which did no longer work on most other machines than the one of the
modifier. Ok, so now that there is maintenance service available for this
some e-mail directly, but at least with the same information as required by
the formular.
- If you have extensive bugreports, including Ooops messages and
+ If you have extensive bug reports, including Oops messages and
screen-shots, please feel free to send it directly to the address
of the maintainer, too. The current address of the maintainer is:
detailed bug reports and ideas for this driver (and his
patience ;-)).
Alan J. Cox
- for his bugreports and his bold activities in cross-checking
+ for his bug reports and his bold activities in cross-checking
the driver-code with his teststand.
7.2 Sponsors & Supporters
concerning the Linux-kernel in special, this SCSI-driver comes without any
warranty. Its functionality is tested as good as possible on certain
machines and combinations of computer hardware, which does not exclude,
- that dataloss or severe damage of hardware is possible while using this
+ that data loss or severe damage of hardware is possible while using this
part of software on some arbitrary computer hardware or in combination
with other software packages. It is highly recommended to make backup
copies of your data before using this software. Furthermore, personal
git.openpandora.org / pandora-kernel.git / blobdiff