Support Notes for Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS V.4 Update 4 for HP Integrity Servers
The elilo boot loader is the IA-64 initial program loader that starts the Linux kernel (both
for installations and post-install). Normally, systems are configured to automatically boot
without any user intervention. This workaround around requires user intervention as follows.
During installation, when the system prints the ELILO: prompt, you must enter a string to
override the default boot parameters. The loader allows you two seconds to start typing the
string or the system will proceed to boot using the default values. The following string
should be entered at the prompt:
ELILO: linux nostorage
If you are installing from a serial console, add console=ttyS0 , as in the following example:
ELILO: linux nostorage console=ttyS0
Booting in this fashion causes the Red Hat installer to only load device drivers for discovered
network interface controllers (NICs) and CD or DVD+RW drives, but to not load device
drivers for any other discovered storage HBAs. Later you are asked if you want to add
devices beyond these. Answer the question Add Device.
If you have these specific I/O cards, you should load these storage device drivers in the
following order, as they appear in the Red Hat installer driver list. You can specify drivers
for devices that are not in the system, so if in doubt, load them all:
1. Compaq Smart Array Controllers (cciss)
2. Symbios 53C896 or 53c10xx (sym53c8xx)
3. LSI Logic Fusion MPT SAS Driver (mptsas)
4. LSI Logic Fusion MPT SCSI Driver (mptspi)
5. Qlogic 2400 (qla2400)
6. Qlogic 2300 (qla2300)
7. Emulex FC Controller (lpfc)
When you have loaded the appropriate drivers, you can then select the Done option and
proceed with the installation as normal.
28. Ethernet connections may not work properly on BL860c blade servers running Linux with
the Ethernet Pass-Thru module. The standard Linux driver (tg3) does not autonegotiate
properly to secure the connection.
To fix this problem, HP has qualified a special version of the tg3 driver, which can be
downloaded from the drivers area of www.hp.com. Detailed installation instructions are
included in the documentation package that is posted with the driver. The fixed driver will
be included in the follow-on Red Hat Linux distributions: RHEL 4.5 and RHEL 5.1.
Even with the fixed tg3 driver the system may not establish a link 100 percent of the time
because of a hardware problem. This is an issue that manifests itself on Linux and does not
affect other operating systems. Until this issue is resolved, if the system does not establish
a link, then simply retry the Ethernet operation that failed.
29. System panics may occur on Integrity servers running Linux that have fibre channel (FC)
storage arrays directly connected.
If you plan to connect FC storage to Integrity Servers running Linux, you must connect
through a FC switch. For the BL860c Blade servers, customers must use either the FC switch
module (AE370A/AE371A/AE372A) or an external FC switch.
30. This problem is specific to the LSI1068 SAS I/O controller in the rx2660 and BL860c.
The mpt driver included in RHEL4 U4 does not have the necessary agent components
required by HP System Insight Manager.
To fix this problem, HP has qualified a special version of the mpt driver, which can be
downloaded from the drivers area of www.hp.com .
Known Issues 13