This section covers known Solaris 10 issues on certified Dell PowerEdge Servers.


Known Solaris 10 10/08 issues on certified Dell PowerEdge Servers

Installing Solaris10 10/08 on PowerEdge R805 while using internal DVDROM drive

On a Dell PowerEdge R805 system, during system installation or upgrade, by using internal DVDROM drive, the Solaris installer starts and appears to function but fails with the following error messages:

• ERROR: The disc you inserted is not a Solaris OS CD/DVD
• There were problems loading the media from /cdrom

During normal system operation on PE R805, the internal DVDROM drive is not configured and cannot be used either.

Rootcause: The driver for the NVidia SATA controller MCP55 chipset included in the Solaris 10 10/08 release does not support ATAPI CD/DVD devices.

Workaround: Use a USB DVDROM drive.



Known Solaris 10 5/08 issues on certified Dell PowerEdge Servers

Creating Virtual Drives on a System With a Dell™ SAS6i/R Controller

On a system with a Dell SAS6i/R controller, a firmware conflict may prevent you from configuring virtual drives using the lsiutil and raidct1 commands in the Solaris operating system. The system may issue an Operation failed error message and place the physical drives in an offline state.

Workaround:
Configure virtual drives using the SAS configuration utility. To access the SAS configuration utility, press <Ctrl> <C> when prompted during the BIOS boot sequence.

The fix is included in Solaris 10 10/08 release. A patch for Solaris 10 05/08 is available for download from Sun.

Dell™ PERC 6/i Controller under Solaris 10 05/08

The device driver for Dell PERC 6/i controller is not included with the Solaris 10 05/08. The supported driver is available for download.

Note: Solaris10 10/08 includes the mega_sas device driver that supports Dell PERC 6/i and CERC6 controllers.

Installing the EMC® PowerPath® Driver on a System With a PERC 6/i or CERC6 Controller under Solaris 10 05/08

A system running Solaris 10 update 5 with a PERC 6/i or CERC6 as a boot controller may fail to boot after installation of the EMC PowerPath driver. The fix for this issue is included in Solaris 10 10/08 release. Following is the workaround for this issue.

Workaround:
Edit the /kernel/drv/mega_sas.conf file and replace all occurrences of class="scsi" with parent="mega_sas", as in the following example.

name="sd" class="scsi" target=0 lun=0;

is changed to

name="sd" parent="mega_sas" target=0 lun=0;

System Timeouts on PowerEdge M600 Systems Booting from Onboard SATA Controller under Solaris 10 05/08

System timeouts may occur during system boot on a PowerEdge multiprocessor system if the root device is on a drive with a legacy ATA driver. These timeouts result in a system hang with console error messages similar to the following that may scroll for several screens:

scsi: [ID 107833 kern.warning] WARNING: /pci@0,0/pciide@1f,2/ide@0 (ata0): timeout: reset bus, target=0 lun=0 scsi: [ID 107833 kern.warning] WARNING: /pci@0,0/pciide@1f,2/ide@0 (ata0): timeout: early timeout, target=0 lun=0 gda: [ID 107833 kern.warning] WARNING: /pci@0,0/pciide@1f,2/ide@0/cmdk@0,0 (Disk0): Error for command 'read sector' Error Level: Informational gda: [ID 107833 kern.notice] Sense Key: aborted command gda: [ID 107833 kern.notice] Vendor 'Gen-ATA 'error code: 0x3 gda: [ID 107833 kern.warning] WARNING: /pci@0,0/pciide@1f,2/ide@0/cmdk@0,0 (Disk0): Error for command 'read sector' Error Level: Informational

Workaround 1:
Install the Solaris operating system on a disk connected to a SAS 6/iR controller.

Workaround 2:
During system installation, select the option not to auto reboot after installation is complete. When the installation completes, type the following in a UNIX shell to disable the microcode update:

# mv /a/platform/i86pc/ucode
/a/platform/i86pc/ucode.disabled

If the system has already rebooted after installation, type the following in a UNIX shell:

# mv /platform/i86pc/ucode
/platform/i86pc/ucode.disabled

If you were unable to perform the workaround during the installation and are not able to boot the system due to system hanging, you can temporarily disable multiprocessing that will restore system operation so that you can disable microcode update from a UNIX shell.

To disable multiprocessing perform the following steps from the Grand Unified Boot loader (GRUB) menu:

1. Type e to edit your selected Solaris entry.
2. Navigate to the line that begins with kernel.
3. Type e to switch to the GRUB edit mode.
4. Append -kd to the line.
5. Press Enter to accept the change.
6. Type b to boot the selected Solaris entry.
7. At the kbmd prompt, type the following command and press <Enter>
use_mp/W 0 :c