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Several HP !ProLiant systems use the Broadcom !NetXtreme II network controllers. This network controller is supported by the bnx2 driver, but requires external non-free firmware. The installer will detect the absence of this firmware and prompt you for it at install-time. To avoid this, you can modify your install image to include the needed firmware. See [[http://dannf.org/bloggf/tech/add-firmware-to.html|this page]] for a script that does this. Also details at DebianInstaller/NetbootFirmware. Alternatively, you can obtain non-official CD images with external firmware loading enabled; see [[Firmware]]. More details are available in [[ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softlib2/software1/pubsw-linux/p1976866454/v67901/Debian-ProLiant-Support-Notes-20110527.pdf|this HP-provided document]]. Several HP !ProLiant systems use the Broadcom !NetXtreme II network controllers. This network controller is supported by the bnx2 driver, but requires external non-free firmware. The installer will detect the absence of this firmware and prompt you for it at install-time. To avoid this, you can modify your install image to include the needed firmware. See [[http://dannf.org/bloggf/tech/add-firmware-to.html|this page]] for a script that does this (Please note that you have to edit the script because it's supporting without changes only the outdated "lenny" and current stable "squeeze" release.). Also details at DebianInstaller/NetbootFirmware. Alternatively, you can obtain non-official CD images with external firmware loading enabled; see [[Firmware]]. More details are available in [[ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softlib2/software1/pubsw-linux/p1976866454/v67901/Debian-ProLiant-Support-Notes-20110527.pdf|this HP-provided document]].
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'''WARNING''' - the Debian repository is not always up to date. For example, at the time of writing, the Debian repository contains hpacucli v8.7. This gives a "No Controllers Detected" error for many recent SmartArray controllers. Using the [[http://downloads.linux.hp.com/SDR/downloads/proliantsupportpack/SuSE/11.2/x86_64/9.10/hpacucli-9.10-22.0.x86_64.rpm|v9.10 binary from the RPM]] (converted with the alien tool on Debian) allows access to such controllers without error. '''WARNING''' - the Debian repository is not always up to date. For example, at the time of writing, the Debian repository contains hpacucli v8.7. This gives a "No Controllers Detected" error for many recent SmartArray controllers. Using the Ubuntu repository currently contains the latest release of hpacucli for Debian (until hpsa is fully supported on Debian, after which It'll be posted in the Debian repository).
[[http://downloads.linux.hp.com/SDR/downloads/MCP/ubuntu/pool/non-free/hpacucli_9.10.7-7._amd64.deb|v9.10 deb package]]

Translation(s): none


HP ProLiant Servers

Installer Compatibility Table

This table is a community maintained matrix of DebianInstaller builds and their compatibility with various HP ProLiant systems. This page does not infer official support from HP. Information on official HP support offerings for Debian can be found on http://hp.com/go/debian. There is a HP support documentation about Debian GNU / Linux 6.0 Squeeze installation on ProLiant servers here. You may need firmware blobs found at here and here and instructions found at installation manual chapter 6.4.

System

Config

Installer

Installation Report

Summary

Squeeze

DL980 G7

SAS Hotplug

squeeze-di-rc2-amd64/NetInst

Worked mostly fine, needs firmware-netxen. NIC 1 & 2 not recognized in squeeze because of the missing firmware. NIC 3,4 worked fine.

BL685c G6

SAS Hotplug

squeeze-di-rc2-amd64/NetInst

Worked fine, needs bnx2 firmware

BL465 G5

SAS Hotplug

squeeze-di-rc2-amd64/NetInst

Worked fine, needs bnx2 firmware

DL120 G6

SAS Hotplug

6.0.4 amd64/NetInst

Worked fine, needs bnx2 firmware

DL580 G7

SAS Hotplug

squeeze-di-rc2-amd64/NetInst

Worked fine, needs bnx2 firmware

DL380 G7

SAS Hotplug

squeeze-di-rc2-amd64/NetInst

Worked fine, needs bnx2 firmware

DL380 G4

squeeze-di-rc2-i386/NetInst

Worked fine, needs tg3 firmware

DL385 G5P

squeeze-di-rc2-i386/NetInst

Worked fine, needs tg3 firmware

DL365 G5

Smart Array P400i SAS

6.0.3 i386/amd64 NetInst

Installed through iLO2 remote console/virtual CD, Worked fine, needs bnx2 firmware

Lenny

DL580 G7

5.0.5 amd64/NetInst

The version of the netxen_nic driver in lenny doesn't support the onboard nics - squeeze works fine though

BL685c G6

5.0.2 amd64/DVD

driver (bnx2x) missing for network controller, should be available in 5.0.3

BL460c G6

Boot from SAN

5.0.4 amd64/NetInst

Worked fine, needs bnx2 firmware

DL160 G6

Smart Array P410 SAS

5.0.4 amd64/NetInst

Worked fine

DL360 G5

SAS Hotplug

5.0r0 amd64

Worked fine, needs bnx2 firmware

DL360 G6

SAS Hotplug

5.0r0 amd64

Worked fine, needs bnx2 firmware

DL360 G6

HW RAID B110i

5.0r0 amd64

Hardware RAID logical volumes are invisible to OS, physical disks are exposed to OS, Debian could be installed but has to be handled with great care upon post-installation and when upgrading! See post #3 in this thread at linuxquestions which is a rough howto for CentOS. I would suggest disabling hardware raid and setting up software raid or no raid at all until the driver makes its way on the Linux Kernel, if it ever does.

DL365 G5

Smart Array E200i SAS

5.0.2 netinst i386/amd64, 5.0.2 DVD i386 and amd64

Worked fine, needs bnx2 firmware

DL380 G3

SCSI-RAID-1, RAID-5

Debian 5.0/CD-1

Working 100% perfectly; RAID setup using RAID BIOS option while booting

DL380 G6

Smart Array P411

5.0.6 amd64/NetInst

Worked fine, needs bnx2 firmware

DL380 G7

Smart Array P410

6.0.3 i386/amd64 NetInst

Worked fine, needs bnx2 firmware

ML350 G6

NetXen Add-on card (10gig/dual port)

5.0.2

The netxen_nic driver currently in Debian doesn't support this plug-in card. Need to use an updated kernel (>=2.6.27)

Daily Builds

Daily builds are available from the d-i devel page.

Known Issues

cciss and hpsa

On a HP ProLiant ML350 G6 Tower server I discovered on a fresh installed Debian squeeze amd64, that I can not use the internal HP Ultrium LTO-2 SAS tape device, connected to a P212 SAS Smart Array controller with zero memory, mounted in a PCI-Express slot. The server has also a 2-port P410i Smart Array controller integrated on the mainboard.

The kernel module cciss, which comes with the 2.6.32 kernel, seems not to be able to handle the tape connected to the P212 controller. No device (/dev/st0) was available. And also lsscsi does only show the DVD drive, but no disks. Looking at /dev/cciss/ one can see, that for the disks and the tape, a device was created. In the kernel documentation (linux-source-2.6.32 package) or on the web one can read about how to handle that situation:

(Extract from /usr/src/linux-source-2.6.32/Documentation/blockdev/cciss.txt)


SCSI tape drive and medium changer support

SCSI sequential access devices and medium changer devices are supported and appropriate device nodes are automatically created. (e.g. /dev/st0, /dev/st1, etc. See the "st" man page for more details.) You must enable "SCSI tape drive support for Smart Array 5xxx" and "SCSI support" in your kernel configuration to be able to use SCSI tape drives with your Smart Array 5xxx controller.

Additionally, note that the driver will not engage the SCSI core at init time. The driver must be directed to dynamically engage the SCSI core via the /proc filesystem entry which the "block" side of the driver creates as /proc/driver/cciss/cciss* at runtime. This is because at driver init time,the SCSI core may not yet be initialized (because the driver is a block driver) and attempting to register it with the SCSI core in such a case would cause a hang. This is best done via an initialization script (typically in /etc/init.d, but could vary depending on distribution). For example:

        for x in /proc/driver/cciss/cciss[0-9]*
        do
                echo "engage scsi" > $x
        done

Once the SCSI core is engaged by the driver, it cannot be disengaged (except by unloading the driver, if it happens to be linked as a module.)

Note also that if no sequential access devices or medium changers are detected, the SCSI core will not be engaged by the action of the above script.


With using a kernel version 2.6.33 and above, there comes the hpsa module, but it is not used automatically by the kernel. To get it working for me, I installed the kernel from experimental (2.6.36-rc6-amd64) and created the file /etc/modprobe.d/cciss_allow_hpsa.conf with one line of content 'options cciss cciss_allow_hpsa=y' to get the cciss driver to not load if hpsa can handle the devices better, according to this discussion and this information.

/!\ Take notice that /dev/cciss/c0d0, likely your boot device, may suddenly show up as /dev/sda instead. (This did not happen to me, but should be mentioned here)

After a reboot all works as expected and all the devices show also up with lsscsi.

root@debian:~# lspci -knn
...
04:00.0 RAID bus controller [0104]: Hewlett-Packard Company Smart Array G6 controllers [103c:323a] (rev 01)
        Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Smart Array P410i [103c:3245]
        Kernel driver in use: hpsa
14:00.0 RAID bus controller [0104]: Hewlett-Packard Company Smart Array G6 controllers [103c:323a] (rev 01)
        Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Smart Array P212 [103c:3241]
        Kernel driver in use: hpsa
root@debian:~# lsscsi 
[0:0:0:0]    storage HP       P410i            3.52  -       
[0:0:0:1]    disk    HP       LOGICAL VOLUME   3.52  /dev/sda
[1:0:0:0]    storage HP       P212             3.52  -       
[1:2:0:0]    tape    HP       Ultrium 2-SCSI   T65D  /dev/st0
[3:0:0:0]    cd/dvd  ATAPI    DVD A  DH16AAS   JHE5  /dev/sr0

For the upcoming stable version of Debian, squeeze, which will use the 2.6.32 kernel as standard, this given information will be hopefully helpful for others. I searched with some breaks nearly a week around to find a way to workaround.

See also the kernel documentation for further explanation.

Need bnx2 firmware

Several HP ProLiant systems use the Broadcom NetXtreme II network controllers. This network controller is supported by the bnx2 driver, but requires external non-free firmware. The installer will detect the absence of this firmware and prompt you for it at install-time. To avoid this, you can modify your install image to include the needed firmware. See this page for a script that does this (Please note that you have to edit the script because it's supporting without changes only the outdated "lenny" and current stable "squeeze" release.). Also details at DebianInstaller/NetbootFirmware. Alternatively, you can obtain non-official CD images with external firmware loading enabled; see Firmware. More details are available in this HP-provided document.

HP Repository

For some reason, HP does not advertise in a very obvious way the fact that they maintain a Debian repository for ProLiant:

http://downloads.linux.hp.com/SDR/downloads/ProLiantSupportPack/Debian/ stable/current non-free

There's even a GPG key you can import in apt so it doesn't complain about untrusted sources.

See http://downloads.linux.hp.com/SDR/ for more details.

WARNING - the Debian repository is not always up to date. For example, at the time of writing, the Debian repository contains hpacucli v8.7. This gives a "No Controllers Detected" error for many recent ?SmartArray controllers. Using the Ubuntu repository currently contains the latest release of hpacucli for Debian (until hpsa is fully supported on Debian, after which It'll be posted in the Debian repository). v9.10 deb package

RAID Monitoring

cciss RAID controller driver

See LinuxRaidForAdmins#cciss


CategoryDebianOn