install/39329: Intel S3000AH server motherboard with on-board LSI controller not supported by mfi

[randolf+netbsd.org%inter-corporate.com@localhost]

>Number:         39329
>Category:       install
>Synopsis:       Intel S3000AH server motherboard with on-board LSI controller 
>not supported by mfi
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       serious
>Priority:       medium
>Responsible:    install-manager
>State:          open
>Class:          sw-bug
>Submitter-Id:   net
>Arrival-Date:   Sun Aug 10 04:35:00 +0000 2008
>Originator:     Randolf Richardson
>Release:        NetBSD v4.99.70
>Organization:
Inter-Corporate Computer & Network Services, Inc.
>Environment:
Not applicable because OS not installed.
>Description:
Intel S3000AH server motherboards are very common in North America in the 
corporate world, and have been available for years.  These motherboards include 
an on-board LSI Logic RAID-1 controller (which can be switched in the BIOS to 
an Intel Matrix Storage RAID-1 controller, but this might be a "fakeraid" which 
depends on drivers to make the mirroring actually work).

NetBSD's sysinst from the i386 ISO fails to detect any hard disks in the system 
when either the LSI Logic or Intel Matrix Storage controllers are used.

This is a request to improve mfi so that these LSI Logic controllers may be 
supported.

Here's a link to the technical detail page on Intel's web site for this 
particular motherboard:  
http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/server/s3000ah/

>How-To-Repeat:

>Fix:
For now I'm using a solution that's not so ideal (because RAIDframe sometimes 
leaves me with an unmountable file system after a coredump of any application, 
so this isn't a suitable solution) is to manually duplicate wd0 to wd1 using a 
utility called "g4u" (copies Unix partitions), and then rely on a cron job to 
"rsync" the data from wd0 to wd1 every night.

Obviously this solution can't provide as much reliability as a hardware RAID 
solution, and my hope is that NetBSD will have better support for SATA and SAS 
hardware RAID controllers before NetBSD 5 is released.

Thanks in advance.