# promise ex8350

## luminous

anyone had any luck getting the promise ex8350 raid controller to work?

I just cant seem to get it to play nice, even on the kernels it's driver from 

www.promise.com will compile on it reads the volume size incorrectly as 0.

if you have gotten it to work how did you getting it working? any help would be

much appricated.

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## Flintz

I also have problems compiling the open-source driver from promise (version 2.9.0.10)

this is the error I receive:

```
tresor shasta # make KERNEL_SOURCE_DIR=/usr/src/linux

make V=1  CC=cc LD=ld ARCH=i386 -C /usr/src/linux SUBDIRS=`pwd` modules

make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-2.6.15-gentoo-r5'

mkdir -p /root/shasta/.tmp_versions

make -f scripts/Makefile.build obj=/root/shasta

  cc -Wp,-MD,/root/shasta/.shasta.o.d  -nostdinc -isystem /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/3.4.5/include -D__KERNEL__ -Iinclude  -include include/linux/autoconf.h -Wall -Wundef -Wstrict-prototypes -Wno-trigraphs -fno-strict-aliasing -fno-common -ffreestanding -Os     -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe -msoft-float  -fno-unit-at-a-time -march=k8 -Iinclude/asm-i386/mach-default -Wdeclaration-after-statement  -D_LINUXDRIVER -D_MMMAP_ -DMOONFANG -D_X8632B -D_32BPLATFORM -I/usr/src/linux/include -I/usr/src/linux/drivers/scsi -I/usr/src/linux/include -I/usr/src/linux/drivers/scsi      -DMODULE -DKBUILD_BASENAME=shasta -DKBUILD_MODNAME=shasta -c -o /root/shasta/shasta.o /root/shasta/shasta.c  Building modules, stage 2.

make -rR -f /usr/src/linux-2.6.15-gentoo-r5/scripts/Makefile.modpost

  scripts/mod/modpost   -i /usr/src/linux-2.6.15-gentoo-r5/Module.symvers vmlinux /root/shasta/shasta.o

  cc -Wp,-MD,/root/shasta/.shasta.mod.o.d  -nostdinc -isystem /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/3.4.5/include -D__KERNEL__ -Iinclude  -include include/linux/autoconf.h -Wall -Wundef -Wstrict-prototypes -Wno-trigraphs -fno-strict-aliasing -fno-common -ffreestanding -Os     -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe -msoft-float  -fno-unit-at-a-time -march=k8 -Iinclude/asm-i386/mach-default -Wdeclaration-after-statement     -DKBUILD_BASENAME=shasta -DKBUILD_MODNAME=shasta -DMODULE -c -o /root/shasta/shasta.mod.o /root/shasta/shasta.mod.c

  ld -m elf_i386 -r -o /root/shasta/shasta.ko /root/shasta/shasta.o /root/shasta/shasta.mod.o

ld: Relocatable linking with relocations from format elf64-x86-64 (/root/shasta/shasta.o) to format elf32-i386 (/root/shasta/shasta.ko) is not supported

make[2]: *** [/root/shasta/shasta.ko] Fehler 1

make[1]: *** [modules] Fehler 2

make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-2.6.15-gentoo-r5'

make: *** [default] Fehler 2

```

Seems like it's not recognizing the 64 bit environment? Any ideas anyone?

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## cold

in the Makefile

line 43

remove:

```
 CONFIG_AMD64=$(shell cat $(KERNEL_SRC_DIR)/.config | grep CONFIG_X86_64 | awk -F= '{print $$2}')
```

and add: 

```
CONFIG_AMD64=$(shell cat $(KERNEL_SRC_DIR)/.config | grep "CONFIG_X86_64=" | awk -F= '{print $$2}')
```

or disable NUMA in your kernel

in cfg_linux.h

line 61 

remove 

```
#include <asm/ioctl32.h>
```

add 

```
 #include <linux/ioctl32.h> 
```

That did the trick for me with a AMD64 with SMP and 64BIT on linux-2.6.16-gentoo

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## Flintz

Ah, that sounds good.

Well I did it the brutal way, and completely removed the check for the arch and set it to always use AMD64 in the makefile. Surely not the nice way, but worked for me  :Wink: 

But it's good to have a answer in the forums, for other folks who may have the same problem! Thanks

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## cold

Thats the way I dit it the first time to  :Razz: 

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## dkaplowitz

So it's working well under Gentoo for you guys? I'm thinking about picking one up. For me the price and the fact that their driver is OS made it the clear choice over 3Ware's or Areca's. Thanks for any input.

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## HisN

hey cold,

I get the driver compilied using your help, but I can't get the module loaded.

insmod shasta replyes:

FATAL: Error inserting shasta (/lib/modules/2.6.16-gentoo-r9/kernel/drivers/scsi/shasta.ko): Unknown symbol in modules, or unknown parameter

Maybe you can help me out  :Smile: 

Alexander

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## drdope

 *HisN wrote:*   

> hey cold,
> 
> I get the driver compilied using your help, but I can't get the module loaded.
> 
> insmod shasta replyes:
> ...

 

Hi, i got the same error, when trying to manually load the driver/modules for my new LSI Megaraid 300-8X,

(megaraid_mbox), i just had to load the LSI Logic Management Module (megaraid_mm) before loading the MegaRAID Driver.

As your Controller is not directly supported via the Kernel, Modul dependencies will not be resolved automaticly, so you have to do it manually.

There are a few modul dependencies named in the readme of the Promise driver...

 :Wink: 

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## Killer Chris

I'm having some problems with the same controller, i've installed the drivers out of the source ( named stex.ko ?! ) and insmod them, accessing the Raid works w/o problems, but wenn i install the Webpam or CLI software them don't find the controller but i need the utilities, ans sugesstions how to fix the problem ?

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## davez

 *Killer Chris wrote:*   

> I'm having some problems with the same controller, i've installed the drivers out of the source ( named stex.ko ?! ) and insmod them, accessing the Raid works w/o problems, but wenn i install the Webpam or CLI software them don't find the controller but i need the utilities, ans sugesstions how to fix the problem ?

 

I think you need the shasta thing to work with WebPAM. I have the same problem now. With the shasta driver it worked; with stex it stopped working (it shows no controller in WebPAM).

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## Flintz

I've just recently updated to the newest driver version (2.9.0.16) and besides that it once again wasn't able to detect neither my right kernel version (2.6) nor X86_64 environment I got it running.

But I noticed one bad thing, when I'm doing some heavy copying from the raid-drive to/from another hard-drive outside the raid, I get some lags every 7-10 secons, the system stops to respond for approx 1/2 second, which is quite annoying. Anyone else noticed this? I tried around with differen I/O schedulers but no success...I have absolutely no idea whats causing this.

Besides that it seems the maximum transfer rate has increased with the new driver, but that doesn't help much if it blocks every few seconds  :Sad: 

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## cold

Did you try to turn off smart polling? this feature made movies playing from my raid stotter sometimes.

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## Flintz

Actually I never heard of that feature, where can I find it?

The strange thing is that the whole system hangs, mouse pointer doesn't move, sound stops to play nothing responds for approx 1/2 second   :Confused: 

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## Flintz

Some strange updates, I noticed two things:

1.) the hangs only appear when WRITING sth. on the raid-drive not when reading

2.) the hangs do NOT occur when I copy via Gnome Nautilus (dragging a file on the raid-drive)

I am confused   :Question: 

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