Sun X6541A, E250, and the AIT Library of DOOM!

From: Dave Belfer-Shevett (shevett@stonekeep.com)
Date: Fri May 16 2003 - 09:49:48 EDT


Hey folks, I have a problem thats driving me nutso, and since I got my
bosses to spring money for a new SCSI controller, I'm under the gun to
really make it work.

I have a Sun E250 running Solaris 2.8 whos sole task is to run backups to
a pair of Overland LibraryPro's with AIT-3's in them.

Initially we were having tons of SCSI timeout errors running dumps to the
AIT drives, so I decided to purchase a 'known' working card, the Sun
dual-channel differential SCSI controller, an X6541A.

This card came with cables. I disassembled poor 'tub', removed the old
card and installed the X6541A. Cabled up the drives (one cable to each
tape library), powered up, and waited for the happy Sony AIT-3 header in
the boot messages.

It didn't happen. boot -r, no dice. devfsadm -C, nuh uh. messages shows
no log of it. From the 'ok' prompt, I tried 'probe-scsi-all', and though
the internal HD's showed up, and the one external drive I have set up for
Amanda dumps shows up, the tape drives do not.

So, I'm guessing theres a driver missing somewhere, but I can't figure out
what it is, or what I've done wrong.

Hints:

1) on the libraries, of the 2 terminators, only one is showing a green
light. The other is not.

2) I have done st.conf twiddling before, but that was primarily on Sony
AIT devices, and I don't think we're even to that point.

3) here's what prtdiag is showing:
========================= IO Cards =========================

     Bus Freq
Brd Type MHz Slot Name Model
--- ---- ---- ---- --------------------------------
----------------------
SYS PCI 33 1 pciclass,020000 SUNW,qsi-cheerio
SYS PCI 33 2 pciclass,001000 Symbios,53C875

THe Symbios 54C875 I'm -assuming- is the same as the Sun X6541A.
Unfortunately, though this is a 'Sun' card, LSIlogic (who now runs Symbios
stuff) doesn't have a driver for that card.

So... help?

-- 
------------------.--------.
Dave Belfer-Shevett\ KB1FWR \
www.homeport.org    >--------`------------------------------------
shevett@pobox.com  /  A committee is a group that keeps minutes   \
------------------<        and loses hours. (Milton Berle)         |
                   \______________________________________________/
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