This section covers known Solaris 10 issues on certified Dell™ PowerEdge™ servers.

Known Solaris 10 5/09 Issues on Certified Dell PowerEdge Servers

Systems with 1GB RAM Panic While Plumbing the Fourth BCM 5709 interface Under Solaris 10 5/09

Systems configured with 1 GB RAM fail to plumb and panic while plumbing the fourth interface of integrated Broadcom® NetXtreme® II NIC (BCM 5709). The system might panic or the following error message is displayed:

ifconfig: plumb: bnx<X>: Invalid argument

Root cause: Panic seen due to a driver bug in failure handling code.

Workaround:

• Install more than 1GB RAM in the system

OR

• Download and install the Solaris GLDv3 driver (BNX driver ver 4.6.2) from the Broadcom Web site

OR

• Modify the bnx.conf file to use the default setting for tx_descriptor_count
• Reboot the system

OR

• Create a hostname.bnxX for each interface
• Reboot the system

The updated driver would be included in a future Solaris 10 update.

Known Solaris 10 10/08 Issues on Certified Dell PowerEdge Servers

Installing Solaris10 10/08 on the PowerEdge R805 while using the internal DVDROM drive

On a Dell PowerEdge R805 system, during system installation or upgrade, by using the internal DVDROM drive, the Solaris installer starts and appears to function but fails with the following error messages:

• ERROR: The disc you inserted is not a Solaris OS CD/DVD
• There were problems loading the media from /cdrom

During normal system operation on PowerEdge R805, the internal DVDROM drive is not configured and cannot be used either.

Root cause: The driver for the NVidia SATA controller MCP55 chipset included in the Solaris 10 10/08 release does not support ATAPI CD/DVD devices.

Workaround: Use a USB DVDROM drive.

A patch for Solaris 10 10/08 is available for download from Sun. The fix is included in Solaris 10 5/09.

Integrated NICs on PowerEdge M805 and PowerEdge M905 Blade Servers Under Solaris 10 10/08

The integrated Broadcom® NetXtreme® II NICs (with BCM 5709 chipset) in Dell PowerEdge M805 and PowerEdge M905 blade servers are not recognized and configured during installation of the Solaris 10 10/08 release.

Root cause: The bnx driver in the Solaris 10 OS 10/08 release does not support the Broadcom BCN 5709 chipset.

Workaround: Download and install the Solaris GLDv3 driver from the Broadcom Web site.

The updated driver included in Solaris 10 5/09 supports the BCM 5709 chipset.

Known Solaris 10 5/08 Issues on Certified Dell PowerEdge Servers

Creating Virtual Drives on a System with a Dell SAS6i/R Controller

On a system with a Dell SAS6i/R controller, a firmware conflict may prevent you from configuring virtual drives using the lsiutil and raidct1 commands in the Solaris OS. The system may issue an Operation failed error message and place the physical drives in an offline state.

Workaround: Configure virtual drives using the SAS configuration utility. To access the SAS configuration utility, press <Ctrl> <C> when prompted during the BIOS boot sequence.

The fix is included in Solaris 10 10/08 release. A patch for Solaris 10 05/08 is available for download from Sun.

Dell PERC 6/i Controller Under Solaris 10 05/08

The device driver for Dell PERC 6/i controller is not included with the Solaris 10 05/08. The supported driver is available for download.

Note: Solaris10 10/08 includes the mega_sas device driver that supports Dell PERC 6/i and CERC6 controllers.

Installing the EMC PowerPath Driver on a System with a PERC 6/i or CERC6 Controller Under Solaris 10 05/08

A system running Solaris 10 update 5 with a PERC 6/i or CERC6 as a boot controller may fail to boot after installation of the EMC® PowerPath® driver. The fix for this issue is included in Solaris 10 10/08 release. Following is the workaround for this issue.

Workaround: Edit the /kernel/drv/mega_sas.conf file and replace all occurrences of class="scsi" with parent="mega_sas", as in the following example:

name="sd" class="scsi" target=0 lun=0;

is changed to

name="sd" parent="mega_sas" target=0 lun=0;

System Timeouts on PowerEdge M600 Systems Booting from On-board SATA Controller Under Solaris 10 05/08

System timeouts may occur during system boot on a PowerEdge multiprocessor system if the root device is on a drive with a legacy ATA driver. These timeouts result in a system hang with console error messages similar to the following that may scroll for several screens:

scsi: [ID 107833 kern.warning] WARNING: /pci@0,0/pciide@1f,2/ide@0 (ata0): timeout: reset bus, target=0 lun=0 scsi: [ID 107833 kern.warning] WARNING: /pci@0,0/pciide@1f,2/ide@0 (ata0): timeout: early timeout, target=0 lun=0 gda: [ID 107833 kern.warning] WARNING: /pci@0,0/pciide@1f,2/ide@0/cmdk@0,0 (Disk0): Error for command 'read sector' Error Level: Informational gda: [ID 107833 kern.notice] Sense Key: aborted command gda: [ID 107833 kern.notice] Vendor 'Gen-ATA 'error code: 0x3 gda: [ID 107833 kern.warning] WARNING: /pci@0,0/pciide@1f,2/ide@0/cmdk@0,0 (Disk0): Error for command 'read sector' Error Level: Informational

Workaround 1: Install the Solaris OS on a disk connected to a SAS 6/iR controller.

Workaround 2: During system installation, select the option not to auto reboot after installation is complete. When the installation completes, type the following in a UNIX shell to disable the microcode update:

# mv /a/platform/i86pc/ucode
/a/platform/i86pc/ucode.disabled

If the system has already rebooted after installation, type the following in a UNIX shell:

# mv /platform/i86pc/ucode
/platform/i86pc/ucode.disabled

If you were unable to perform the workaround during the installation and are not able to boot the system because of the system hanging, you can temporarily disable multiprocessing that will restore system operation so that you can disable the microcode update from a UNIX shell.

To disable multiprocessing, perform the following steps from the Grand Unified Boot loader (GRUB) menu:

1. Type e to edit your selected Solaris entry.
2. Navigate to the line that begins with kernel.
3. Type e to switch to the GRUB edit mode.
4. Append -kd to the line.
5. Press Enter to accept the change.
6. Type b to boot the selected Solaris entry.
7. At the kbmd prompt, type the following command and press <Enter>:

use_mp/W 0 :c

Installing the Solaris 10 10/08 OS on Dell PowerEdge M805/M905 Blade Servers

Here is a link to a BigAdmin article with installation instructions.

BigAdmin Install Instructions