Adaptec AAC raid support

Sat Mar 19 13:41:12 PST 2005

Theo and Scott, a few words:

Theo:  I happen to own a system that runs FreeBSD and uses an Adaptec AAA
card,
here's the dmesg:

ahc0: <Adaptec aic7815 RAID memory controller> port 0x1000-0x10ff mem
0x40400000-0x407fffff,0x40100000-0x40100fff irq 11 at device 0.0 on pci2
RAID functionality unsupported
device_probe_and_attach: ahc0 attach returned 6
ahc0: <Adaptec AAA-131 Ultra2 RAID adapter> port 0x1400-0x14ff mem
0x40000000-0x40000fff irq 11 at device 4.0 on pci2
aic7890/91: Ultra2 Wide Channel A, SCSI Id=7, 32/253 SCBs

Adaptec has been unwilling to provide support for the parity calculator
for
this card, so it's RAID functionality is useless.  The situation is very
similar to the AAC card, worse in fact since there's not even a poor
out-of-date
binary substitute driver.

HOWEVER, PLEASE keep in mind that I did NOT go out and buy this machine,
did not direct money to be spent on this abomination.  I inherited this
machine
which used to be a Windows server, and I have made the best use of what
I had available.  I HAVE other SCSI cards, but all of them aren't LVD
SCSI, and the disk pack on this server is LVD SCSI drives.  So to support
these
disks with a native RAID card I would have to go buy a new card - which
isn't
cost-justified for an old server.

I understand your concern that leaving a half-a-driver in the OpenBSD
GENERIC
kernel might in fact encourage people to reward Adaptec by continuing to
buy
their products.  I am a very strong supporter of the idea of people NOT
purchasing
products that don't have full FreeBSD support.

But I must insist that this ISN'T true.  If you want to discourage people
from
buying Adaptec products then PUT THAT RECOMMENDATION RIGHT IN THE
HARDWARE
COMPATIBILITY LIST.  And make doubly damn sure that this list is at MOST,
a
SINGLE click away from the OpenBSD homepage.

I assure you that whenever I purchase products or approve
products for purchase at the ISP I work at, that I make sure they have
native
mode drivers for FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris AND Linux, even if they are
being purchased for
use as Windows servers.   You never know in a machine's lifespan what
your going
to end up using it for.

Crippled drivers like the AAC driver, and the AAA shim support for my
RAID
card, fulfill a vital purpose, they facilitate migration from Windows
platforms
for older servers. Period.  Nobody with any serious budget for a server
who is setting out to  build an OpenBSD or FreeBSD server, is going to go
against the Hardware Compatibility
List when selecting components.

So, your decision to pull the AAC support does only one thing - it makes
it so
that people who want to use OpenBSD on Windows servers, cannot do it.
Thus it
delays the migration of those servers away from Windows.

Now, for Scott:

Scott, put a God-Damned sock in it.  Adaptec has had a LONG history of
non-cooperation
with the Open Source community.  Back when FreeBSD 1.x was going, Adaptec
stalled for
years with information with the 2740 card, and we were all stuck with
using 1740
cards in our EISA servers.  And finally someone had to port over the
Linux driver
for the 2740 which had been reverse-engineered as I recall, Adaptec never
gave
us any support for it until after the thing had been figured out.

WHERE THE HELL is my AAA-131 driver if Adaptec as you assert they are so
friendly?

And Theo has done a case-winning explanation of how the AAC driver is
crippled.
YOU have not done a SINGLE thing to respond to ANY of the specific
explanations
of Theo's.  If you are such a big man, then overlook his shrillness and
provide
a technical explanation of each of his technical points.

I don't spec Adaptec SCSI parts that don't have native FreeBSD drivers,
and
right now, only the older Adaptec cards do.  So, great, I can get my old
SCSI
cards off Ebay, out of the bargain bins at Goodwill, and the computer
junk
stores.  Fat lot of good that does Adaptec.  Money for NEW stuff ain't
going to Adaptec.
Instead their stonewalling simply makes their older shit more valuable,
which
undercuts their market for their new shit.

And it's not like Adaptec isn't the market leader anyway, frankly if the
SCSI market wasn't a niche market, they would be up against the Feds on
anti-trust charges now.  So who the HELL do they have to fear if they are
giving out what they regard as proprietary data?  NOBODY.

Adaptec doesen't cooperate because their corporate culture is sick, it's
because
they are a bunch of power-grasping micromanagers that have a gigantic NIH
attitude, and an inferiority complex a mile high.  They don't release
data
because when they make mistakes they don't want people finding out about
them.  I've had inexplicible crashes on my Adaptec stuff in the past,
very rarely that happens, but every once in a few years it does.  And
there's
others that have posted here very recently, within the last few weeks
in fact, who have had much worse trouble.

You go ask Anthony Atkielski and Leroy van Logchem their opinions of how
great their FreeBSD Adaptec drivers are performing on their hardware, you
don't get this rosy picture that you seem to like to paint.  Both of them
posted problems in the FreeBSD questions forum recently and I didn't see
you
responding to either of them.

It is inexcusable for a hardware vendor to not provide programming specs.
PC hardware has always been sold in the past based on marketing and
positioning, for all the bake-offs and such that are held claiming one
chipset is better than another, the market leaders in hardware are the
ones that cut OEM deal after OEM deal.  That is how Adaptec got as
big as they are, and there's been plenty of times in the past that their
competitors have had faster and better product.  And their competitors
have spent the enormous sums to reverse-engineer the Adaptec products
anyway to find out all the go-fast tricks.  Denying programming specs
does not in any way help to shield their hardware secrets from
competitors,
all it does it make it impossible to write open source drivers, and
it hides any dumb mistakes they made in designing their hardware.

Adaptec has a LONG way to go before they are a friend of the Open Source
movement.

Ted Mittelstaedt
Author, The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide
http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com/

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Theo de Raadt
> Sent: Saturday, March 19, 2005 12:35 PM
> To: Scott Long
> Cc: Jason Crawford; misc at openbsd.org; Adam;
> freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> Subject: Re: Adaptec AAC raid support
>
>
> > It's not a binary driver, it's a 2-clause BSD licensed driver that
> > contains full source.  You said that the OpenBSD driver is unstable,
> > so I offered to help.  That has nothing to do with binary apps.
> > Deleting it from the OpenBSD tree is always an option, of course.
>
> The driver is free, but the tool is a binary.  The interface "tunnel"
> is coded in the driver, so that the "closed binary" tool can talk
> through to the card.  The messages exchanged are not documented,
> either.
>
> Same thing.
>
> You are saying
>
> 	There are open bits
>
> and I am saying
>
> 	There are closed bits
>
> This whole thing is about the closed bits, not about the open bits.
>
>
> Why do you keep apologizing for Adaptec, and attacking our efforts?
>
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