Old aacraid information

The aacraid driver written by Adaptec for the 2.4.x kernel series has been superceeded by a new aacraid driver re-written and maintained by Alan Cox. As of kernel 2.4.17-pre7, the aacraid driver is included in the standard kernel. Please use that one for current 2.4.x kernels.

This page contains information that was relevant to running the Adaptec-written aacraid driver on kernels prior to 2.4.17-pre7.

Kernels 2.2.x

The aacraid driver (formerly named percraid) is available as open-source for the Linux 2.2.x kernel series. aacraid v1.0.6 is included in the Red Hat Linux 7 kernel, and installs easily with Red Hat Linux 7. kernel-2.2.16-22.src.rpm

To install Red Hat Linux 6.2 SBE2 or 7 on a PowerEdge 2500 or 2550, you need a Driver Diskette and the installation instructions.

To install Red Hat Linux 6.2 SBE2 on a PowerEdge 1650 or 2650, you need a Driver Diskette. Extract these onto a DOS (FAT) formatted floppy and boot Red Hat Linux 6.2 SBE2 CD #1 with "linux dd". This kernel and driver are both extremely old and have several known issues corrected in later kernels and driver versions (like the driver for the 2.2.21 kernel below). Furthermore, this driver has not been stress tested, is not officially supported by Dell, and is not recommended for use on production systems. Use at your own risk! It may work for you. If not, you get to keep both pieces. Please report success/failure back to linux-poweredge@dell.com.

You must use Unix to download the patch files, or in some way keep Windows from converting linefeeds from \n to \r\n. Windows linefeeds confuse Unix patch.

aacraid v1.0.6 for various kernels:

aacraid v1.0.7 linux-2.2.x-1.0.7-aacraid.patch addresses a minor memory leak and corrects the PCI IDs for the PowerEdge 2500 and 2550.
aacraid patch PERCID_add.patch changes a PCI device ID and corrects the MAINTAINERS entry.

linux-2.2.19-aacraid-1.0.7+PERCID.patch (outdated - don't use!)
linux-2.2.19-aacraid-20010720.patch
linux-2.2.20-aacraid-20020131-2.patch.gz and linux-2.2.20-aacraid-20020131-2.patch.gz.sign - This fixes the adapter printing messages bug, adds some PCI IDs, removes unneeded #ifdef MODULE and __SMP__ stuff, and cleans up the Makefile. Unless someone volunteers to back-port Alan's aacraid driver to 2.2.x, this is probably the end of the line for aacraid 2.2.x development.
linux-2.2.21-aacraid-20020701.patch.gz and linux-2.2.21-aacraid-20020701.patch.gz.sign. This has no changes from the 2.2.20 patch above.

Kernels 2.4.1 through 2.4.17-pre6

2.4.x aacraid driver now available!!
Join the linux-aacraid-devel list to follow its progress.

You must use Unix to download the patch files, or in some way keep Windows from converting linefeeds from \n to \r\n. Windows linefeeds confuses Unix patch.

Kernel 2.4.1 and 2.4.2
- Jens Axboe's SCSI patch (rev 3!) to limit I/O request size properly. Apply first. (included in 2.4.2-ac9 already)
- linux-2.4.1-aacraid-030101.patch (equivalent to 1.0.7 + PERCID_add.patch)
Kernel 2.4.3 SCSI request size limiting patch. and linux-2.4.3-aacraid-030101.patch
Kernel 2.4.4 SCSI request size limiting patch. and linux-2.4.4-aacraid-043001.patch
Kernel 2.4.5 SCSI request size limiting patch, linux-2.4.5-aacraid-043001.patch, and linux-2.4.5-blockdev.patch.
SMP fix patch by Chris Pascoe. Adaptec has reviewed these changes, but neither Adaptec nor Dell have had time to test them yet. This may address some instabilities seen under very heavy load. The changes "look right". :-)
Kernel 2.4.6 SCSI request size limiting patch and linux-2.4.6-aacraid-20010721.patch. Includes SMP fix patch above.
Kernel 2.4.7pre3 - As of -pre3, the axboe-scsi-max-sec.patch is already included. Thanks Linus!
aacraid-read-capacity.patch fixes an off-by-one error on the reported size of the disk. This is only an issue if you need to access the very last sector of a disk (like GUID Partition Tables do).
Kernel 2.4.7 linux-2.4.7-aacraid-20010721.patch. Includes all patches above.
aacraid-pciids-20010808.patch.gz will allow presently unknown PCI IDs to be used.
Kernel 2.4.7 linux-2.4.7-aacraid-20010811.patch. Includes all patches above, plus some #ifdef MODULE and #ifdef CONFIG_SMP unnecessary code removal.
Kernel 2.4.8 linux-2.4.8-aacraid-20010811.patch. Includes all patches above, plus some #ifdef MODULE and #ifdef CONFIG_SMP unnecessary code removal.
Kernel 2.4.8 linux-2.4.8-aacraid-20010816.patch. Includes all patches above plus a new PCI ID.
Kernel 2.4.9 linux-2.4.9-aacraid-20010816.patch. Includes all patches above plus a new PCI ID.
- The kernel patches for 2.4.10 through 2.4.14 shouldn't be used. Instead, use the patch against 2.4.15.
- Kernel 2.4.10 linux-2.4.10-aacraid-20011009.patch.gz.
- Kernel 2.4.11(don't use) / 2.4.12 / 2.4.13 linux-2.4.11-aacraid-20011010.patch.gz. Patch is against 2.4.11, but applies cleanly against 2.4.12 and 2.4.13, so I'm not going to release another patch for those.
- Kernel 2.4.13 / 2.4.14 linux-2.4.13-aacraid-20011105.patch.gz. Applied changes from Adaptec so that adapter messages get printed to syslog in their entirety.
Kernel 2.4.15 / 2.4.16 / 2.5.0 - should apply to 2.4.10 and above pretty cleanly linux-2.4.15-aacraid-20011123.patch.gz and linux-2.4.15-aacraid-20011123.patch.gz.sign. This *solves* the NMI_DMA_0_ERROR problems we've had lately.
2.4.16-pre1, 2.5.1-pre1, and 2.4.15aa1 all fix a nasty data corruption bug with 2.4.15/2.5.0. Apply one of these patches too.
Warning - people are still seeing the hang-at-fsck with this driver. Pressing Magic-Sysrq-S seems to let the system continue. We're still investigating this.
As of kernel 2.5.1-pre2, the old SCSI error handling code has been removed. Since the aacraid driver still uses that path, it will no longer work until Adaptec finishes updating it.
For 2.4.17pre and 2.5.1-pre2 and above, see the aacraid driver included in 2.4.17-pre7.

Alan Cox aacraid updates

Alan Cox has started work to clean up the aacraid driver, in parallel with work going on at Adaptec. The goal is to merge the best ideas of each into one stable working well-performing driver.

aacraid-0.96ac1.diff is a significantly trimmed down version of the driver. See Alan's post about it. This applies against 2.4.17-pre1 stock, without any previous aacraid patches.
- linux-2.4.17-pre1-aacraid-0.96ac1-to-md1.patch to make the above compile.
FTP directory where Alan puts regular updates. Subscribe to linux-kernel or linux-aacraid-devel where he posts notes of updates.
As of 2.4.17-pre7, this aacraid driver is included in the kernel!
Fix for ROMB 150,000 interrupts/second problem. Also included in 2.4.18pre7-ac2.

As of kernel 2.4.18, the aacraid driver in the kernel is believed stable. Please report any issues you discover to linux-aacraid-devel@dell.com.