This information pertains to those customers who have Red Hat 6.1 and SGI ProPack version 1.2 or 1.3 installed on a system containing QLogic 1040, 1280, or 2100 SCSI or fiberchannel cards.
Please refer to the Errata at http://support.sgi.com/linux/docs/ for any last minute updates to this information.
 | Warning: Do not attempt to upgrade to Red Hat 6.2 before following these instructions. If you fail to do the following, your machine will not boot after the upgrade. |
In earlier ProPack releases, SGI provided updated drivers for the Qlogic 1040, 1280, and 2100 cards. These drivers came from the Qlogic corporation and have not yet been included in the Red Hat distribution. During the upgrade process, the Red Hat installer will try to put these drivers into the RAM disk image that is used to bootstrap the machine. Because the drivers do not exist in the Red Hat kernel, the script used to build the RAM disk will fail.
On most SGI systems, including the 1200, 1400, and 1450 servers, a SCSI driver is needed to boot the system because the root disk is a SCSI disk. Because the Red Hat script fails to build a RAM disk, the SCSI driver will not be available either. When trying to bring up the root disk, the kernel will panic with a message such as the following:
VFS: Cannot open root device "801" or 08:01 Please append a correct "root=" boot option Kernel panic: VFS : Unable to mount root fs on 08:01 |
The workaround for this problem is to complete following steps before upgrading to Red Hat 6.2.
Log into the machine as the root user.
Execute cd /etc.
Create a backup of the original by executing cp conf.modules conf.modules.backup.
Edit conf.modules. Remove lines containing “qla1040”, ”qla1280”, or “qla2100”.
Proceed with the upgrade by inserting the Red Hat 6.2 CD and rebooting.
After the upgrade completes, restore the portion of the /etc/conf.modules file before you install SGI ProPack 1.4 for Linux.
Check to see if the upgrade has added any more information to your /etc/conf.modules before restoring conf.modules.backup to conf.modules. After you have ensured that the file is correct, Install SGI ProPack 1.4 for Linux.
If you upgraded to Red Hat 6.2 without fixing conf.modules, rerun the Red Hat installer:
Put the Red Hat 6.2 CD into your machine and reboot.
After the Red Hat 6.2 installer Welcome screen to comes up, choose your language preference, keyboard type, and mouse type as with any other installation.
Choose Upgrade from the install menu.
Continue with the installation until the Package Installation Screen appears. You need to act quickly while it is installing the packages. Press Ctrl + Alt + F2 simultaneously.
Execute cd /mnt/sysimage/etc/.
Execute cp conf.modules conf.modules.backup.
Execute ../bin/vi conf.modules. Remove all “qla1040”, ”qla1280”, or “qla2100”lines.
Go back to the graphical installer by pressing Alt + F7 simultaneously.
After the installation is complete, reboot the fixed system and install SGI ProPack 1.4. for Linux.
If you still cannot boot the machine, or if the booting took too long, repeat this procedure..