[ILUG] Suse & Qlogic HBA 4010c Build Problems - Solution

[AJ McKee]

Okay this took a wee while to solve but eventually I go it working. 

Solution.

The default kernel sources that ship with Suse Open exchange
(2.4.19-64GB-smp) are busted. They will not compile correctly under certain
conditions (like adding QLogic 4010c HBA support). Update your kernel and
sources to 2.4.21 using YOU.

Download the QLogic 4010c Suse drivers;
http://www.qlogic.com/support/os_detail.asp?productid=341&osid=125

While there you may as well download their configuration utility San Surfer
Control IX, you'll need it later on. 

Now configure your kernel to suit your needs, remembering to remove anything
that is not going to be used in the near future. For example if this is a
production system and its just going to provide mail services, then the
likelihood of you wanting Amateur Radio Support compiled into the kernel is
very slim (I say this knowing that I am bound to get a mail off someone who
has their mail server working with some weird radio stuff sending a
innocuous beep on some weird HAM enthusiast special frequency that they are
constantly listening to.:). Then build your kernel and your modules and
configure grub to use your new kernel as the default (I know I should not
have to say this, but don't remove your original kernel from the system or
from the grub boot menu because if you mess up it would be nice to be able
to reboot the system and get back in.)

If you now have a booting system, go to the location on the system where you
downloaded the QLogic drives and complete the following

# make SMP=1 OSVER=linux install

You should now be able to load the module without it crashing your system;

# modprobe qla4010


Follow the instructions to install San Surfer and configure your HBA. You
will need your HBA to come up on boot so don't forget to edit
/etc/sysconfig/kernel and then create a new image. 

Now when you have all that done, reboot your system and you should see your
HBA fire up and then all of a sudden you have a couple of new terabyte disk
drives. 

Okay, I wanted to load this as a module but you can easily just compile the
kernel to support it natively, just read the instructions which are much
better than my little old mail (Although don't trust their docs too much).
They are published;
http://download.qlogic.com/drivers/19032/README.qla4xxx.txt


I am sure there are other ways to get it working, and I could have been a
bit more specific, but all this mail is, is a polite thank you to those whom
helped me and also to get indexed by Google, so when I forget all this and
do a search I will find out that it is possible to get it working.

Cheers
Aj

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