[OpenIndiana-discuss] How do I swiych from IDE to AHCI mode for my SATA disks, please vet my procedure!

[Hans J. Albertsson]

I'm unclear about some of your answers.. interfoliating my questions.

But, can I interpret your answer to overall be that one should not have 
to do more than:

set BIOS to AHCI mode for the SATA controllers
boot liveDVD
as superuser (sudo su in a live dvd terminal)
     "zpool import -f rpool"
     "zpool export rpool"
reboot

for any reasonably recent Intel based server motherboard (mine is a 
Supermicro X7SBi)?

On 2013-03-18 19:02, Jim Klimov wrote:
> On 2013-03-18 18:14, Hans J. Albertsson wrote:
>>
>> Status: I have a server with two SATA disks carrying a root pool 2 way
>> mirror.
>>
>> The motherboard is in IDE mode for SATA.
>>
>> This must now change, since I need to be able to accomodate disks of the
>> 512e ilk, i e disks that lie about their blocksize, which really is 4k.
>>
>> I think I should do the following:
>
> Actually, your procedure is a bit over-complicated. While rpool is some
> special case for import during boot (its label-embedded device paths are
> trusted too much, which is the sole cause for problems with such driver
> changes like SATA/IDE/vHDD/whatever), I don't remember needing the extra
> steps you do with /device nodes. Just importing and cleanly exporting
> the rpool while booted from a LiveDVD and having the controller in the
> mode you want should suffice. At this moment the rpool is processed by
> generic routines like any other pool, with detection of component disks
> as needed, so it is found on other controllers than recorded in the
> label. These paths are further saved into rpool labels, allowing its
> import during further boot.
>
> All this said, my laptop can only boot from USB as an alternate media,
> and this shifts its known storage controller numbering. When I boot
> from the HDD, it searches for SATA disks at improper device paths.
> So my laptop is stuck with IDE mode until someone gets around to fix
> or relax the rpool import procedure (i.e. instead of failing, try the
> usual search for pools first).
>
>>
>> On the running host, I make sure either disk can be booted, by doing the
>> installgrub things.
>
> This rarely hurts ;)
>
>> Then I reboot the machine on a live DVD. On the way up, I set the Bios
>> to use AHCI mode for the SATA disks, and boot the Live DVD.
>>
>>  From the live cd I do, I hope this is correct! Please vet!
>>
>>
>> -------
>> zpool import -f rpool
>>
>> ( The -f is because I didn't export it on the running system, because I
>> couldn't, but I know it isn't active, I'm running off a DVD, see. But
>> how does "zpool" find rpool???)
>
> See above ;)
>
>
> This block is likely not needed - only if your hardware is somehow 
> non-standard and not detectable by bootup procedures.

You mean "the below block"???
>
> In this case you might want to add the driver names, etc. into the
> /boot/solaris/filelist.ramdisk text file which controls the contents
> of the boot archive, and maybe add a forceload in /etc/system.
>
>> touch /a
>>
>> zfs set -o canmount=on,mountpoint=/a root/ROOT/OI-151a7
>>
>> zfs mount rpool/ROOT/OI-151a7
>>
>> devfsadm -r /a -Cv
>>
>> bootadm update-archive -R /a
>
> If you changed the dataset properties above, you'd be wise to return
> them to original values. You did record them, right? ;)

Of course I must do zfs set -o canmount=on,mountpoint=/ rpool/ROOT/.... 
Anything else??


>
>>
>> zpool export rpool
>>
>> reboot
>> --------
>>
>>
>>
>> After the reboot, if everything is OK I'm fine, but what can I do to
>> recover in IDE mode if all this breaks for some dumb mistake or error??
>
> Either keep the other disk disconnected until you can just re-add it
> into the mirror you are satisfied with, or change the BIOS settings
> for HDDs to IDE and redo the LiveDVD trickery ;)
>
>> I'd like to ensure that disk number two remains unchanged until I know
>> AHCI mode works, so that I can either attach and resilver disk 2 if all
>> is OK or else reboot the Live DVD and recreate the IDE rpool from 
>> disk  2.
>>
>> An alternative to devfsadm would be to erase the dev and devices trees
>> embedded in the rpool and copy the Live DVD /dev and /devices in.
>
> This would likely break numbering of your multi-instance devices
> (HBA controllers/HDDs, NICs) which may be unfortunate for monitoring
> and configurations. Also, the LiveDVD has a limited set of drivers
> and might not include/install device nodes for unknown things.
>
>
>> And I suppose a new installgrub would have to be performed somewhere
>> after the dev/devices revamp and and before the bootadm
>
> I don't think the two are interconnected, or that another installgrub
> is warranted. It itself has little notion of the connection type, just
> using the BIOS-level access to a provided block device, AFAIK.
>
> HTH,
> //Jim Klimov
>
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