Easier way to install on 3ware 9550 card?

[John Nielsen]

On Wednesday 03 January 2007 14:18, John Nielsen wrote:
> On Wednesday 03 January 2007 12:34, Dan Mahoney, System Admin wrote:
> > On Wed, 3 Jan 2007, Per olof Ljungmark wrote:
> > > Dan Mahoney, System Admin wrote:
> > >> Hey all,
> > >>
> > >> I have a new system with NO FLOPPY CONTROLLER and a 3ware 9550 card.
> > >> It's a 1u system -- sticking extra things into PCI slots as a
> > >> workaround is likely to be impossible.
> > >
> > > I don't think you need a driver - it's already there.
> > > apropos 3ware
> > > twa(4)- 3ware 9000/9500/9550 series SATA RAID controllers driver
> > > twe(4)- 3ware 5000/6000/7000/8000 series PATA/SATA RAID adapter driver
> >
> > Oh I'm sorry, then why didn't I just install the OS?  Because it said "no
> > drives found!"
> >
> > The card doesn't probe at boot, and there's an elaborate howto on 3ware's
> > site that describes HOW to get it to probe at boot.
> >
> > While I myself stated that the driver DOES appear to be in the base, for
> > whatever reason the kernel on the install CD doesn't include it, nor the
> > ability to kldload a module from anyplace easy.
>
> You were on the right track with the emergency shell, but the "Fixit" mode
> (now included on disk 1 for your convenience) gives you a lot more
> flexibility (inclusion of "ls" is just the start!). Have you tried
> something like this?
>
> 1) Boot to complete install CD
> 2) Go into "Fixit" mode (not just the emergency shell)
> 3) # sysctl kern.module_path="/dist/boot/kernel"
> 4) # kldload twa
> 5) # exit
> 6) proceed with installation
>
> This shouldn't be necessary though, since twa is included in GENERIC for
> both FreeBSD 6.1 and 6.2 (did you say what version you were trying to
> install?).
>
> Now, if your controller is too new to be included in the shipping version
> of twa then that's another matter. If you have a binary kernel module that
> uses a different driver name from the vendor you could use the same general
> approach, but you'd want to configure your network interface and set up
> your NFS mount prior to step 3, and include the appropriate NFS path in the
> sysctl command in step 3.

Forgot to mention you'd also need to manually copy the vendor driver and 
modify /boot/loader.conf on the newly installed system so it could actually 
boot.. you could easily take care of that from the fixit mode shell after the 
installation, though.