SCSI support for Perc 4e/Si on Custom Kernel

[ChrisH]

My faithful Censornet Distro that I use for my Proxy and filtering needs has let me down in the ease of use stakes.
We have a Dell 1850 With a Perc 4e/Si SCSI Raid controller. I suspected there may be a problem installing censornet on it and sure enough it is. Unless some kind soul comes up with the solution on the Censornet site Im stuck as the company that is responsible for it will want a fee for the custom Kernel build.
www.censornet.com is the website.

Censornet at the moment is based on Debian Woody and a 2.4 kernel afaik.
The kernel is a custom build so there is a lot of other bits in the distro as well which cant be upset by simply upgrading to Sarage components etc.
I see reference to a 'megaraid' driver to get this hardware working. I think it is made by LSI logic.
The kernel source is available and I have started up reading on compiling the Kernel but not sure about getting the right modules etc.

Any help greatly appreciated

[ChrisH]

Nobody got a clue? I have just installed Debian Sarge base install and it was detected and it loaded as a megaraid2 module/driver. I have also seen reference to using bootdisks with the drivers on as well is this another option?

[Geoff]

Yes you want the megaraid2 driver.

do you have a copy of the standard config for the censornet kernel? You might be able to copy the configuration from the running kernel. It keeps a 'live' copy at /proc/config.gz but I suspect that might be a 2.6 only feature.

If you don't this is going to be more difficult. I'd just compile *everything* in as modules apart from your hardware drivers.

[ChrisH]

Im told all the stuff I need to build the kernel is in the distro so I will look into it a bit more later. I would prefer to install it all myself on my current debian install but censornet is nice and handy for quick recovery and features like the reporting and the ability to block the interenet to a room. Oh well time for that steep learning curve .

[Geoff]

Once you have your debian box running. Just use disk imaging to back it up. Linux installs are typically only a Gig or so.

You can probably take apart censornet and look at how they did the room blocking. It'll probably work fine with debian + squid.

The config file you want is /usr/src/linux/.config

[ChrisH]

The room blocking is done by MAC Address at the firewall I believe.

[Geoff]

Thats fairly easy then. It'll just be an iptables script.

[ChrisH]

Ok Im so far. I have got the kernel source unpacked and have got as far as:
make oldconfig
make menuconfig

and had a look around. I have downloaded the driver of the ftp site and have it unpacked in a folder in my usr/src directory. This is full of .h and .c files does this need compiling and if so how I tried ./configure but it didnt do anything.

So what do I do with the driver stick it in drivers/scsi and compile the kernel or .... ?

[Geoff]

the megaraid2 driver is in the kernel already. There's no need to add it again.

[ChrisH]

Hmm then where am I looking to enable it? I looked through all the menus and didnt see anything to do with the megaraid2.

[Geoff]

Thats because its not called megaraid.

Drivers -> SCSI Support -> low level drivers -> LSI Logic RAID Device Drivers.

[ChrisH]

Hmm it's not listed under there and I just noticed the kernel is lisited as 2.6!

[ChrisH]

Ok apparently the installer runs on a 2.4 Kernel and the main CN runs ona 2.6 Kernel!!!! Something to do with disk geometry but that maybe old new as there hasnt been a significat update for a while. This is getting too much like hard work lol.

[Geoff]

Thats just bizzare. Exactly what extra patches do you need. Can you run with a stock kernel that hasn't been screwed around with?

[ChrisH]

You need to use their Kernel. I have read a few posts on their forums about people trying stock Kernels and getting nowhere. All I need is this Kernel with support for the raid adaptor. The kernel source is uploaded to my webspace here if you want to check it out.