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                            AIC7xxx Driver for Linux

Introduction

----------------------------

The AIC7xxx SCSI driver adds support for Adaptec (http://www.adaptec.com)

SCSI controllers and chipsets. Major portions of the driver and driver

development are shared between both Linux and FreeBSD. Support for the

AIC-7xxx chipsets have been in the default Linux kernel since approximately

linux-1.1.x and fairly stable since linux-1.2.x, and are also in FreeBSD

2.1.0 or later.

  Supported cards/chipsets

  ----------------------------

    Adaptec Cards

    ----------------------------

    AHA-274x

    AHA-274xT

    AHA-2842

    AHA-2910B

    AHA-2920C

    AHA-2930

    AHA-2930U

    AHA-2930U2

    AHA-2940

    AHA-2940W

    AHA-2940U

    AHA-2940UW

    AHA-2940AU

    AHA-2940U2W

    AHA-2940U2

    AHA-2940U2B

    AHA-2940U2BOEM

    AHA-2944D

    AHA-2944WD

    AHA-2944UD

    AHA-2944UWD

    AHA-2950U2

    AHA-2950U2W

    AHA-2950U2B

    AHA-3940

    AHA-3940U

    AHA-3940W

    AHA-3940UW

    AHA-3940AUW

    AHA-3940U2W

    AHA-3950U2B

    AHA-3950U2D

    AHA-3985

    AHA-3985U

    AHA-3985W

    AHA-3985UW

    Motherboard Chipsets

    ----------------------------

    AIC-777x

    AIC-785x

    AIC-786x

    AIC-787x

    AIC-788x

    AIC-789x

    AIC-3860

    Bus Types

    ----------------------------

    W - Wide SCSI, SCSI-3, 16bit bus, 68pin connector, will also support

        SCSI-1/SCSI-2 50pin devices, transfer rates up to 20MB/s.

    U - Ultra SCSI, transfer rates up to 40MB/s.

    U2- Ultra 2 SCSI, transfer rates up to 80MB/s.

    D - Differential SCSI.

    T - Twin Channel SCSI. Up to 14 SCSI devices.

    AHA-274x - EISA SCSI controller

    AHA-284x - VLB SCSI controller

    AHA-29xx - PCI SCSI controller

    AHA-394x - PCI controllers with two separate SCSI controllers on-board.

    AHA-398x - PCI RAID controllers with three separate SCSI controllers

               on-board.

  Not Supported Devices

  ------------------------------

    Adaptec Cards

    ----------------------------

    AHA-2920 (Only the cards that use the Future Domain chipset are not

              supported, any 2920 cards based on Adaptec AIC chipsets,

              such as the 2920C, are supported)

    AAA-13x Raid Adapters

    AAA-113x Raid Port Card

    Motherboard Chipsets

    ----------------------------

    AIC-7810

    Bus Types

    ----------------------------

    R - Raid Port busses are not supported.

    The hardware RAID devices sold by Adaptec are *NOT* supported by this

    driver (and will people please stop emailing me about them, they are

    a totally separate beast from the bare SCSI controllers and this driver

    can not be retrofitted in any sane manner to support the hardware RAID

    features on those cards - Doug Ledford).

  People

  ------------------------------

    Justin T Gibbs  gibbs@plutotech.com

      (BSD Driver Author)

    Dan Eischen     deischen@iworks.InterWorks.org

      (Original Linux Driver Co-maintainer)

    Dean Gehnert    deang@teleport.com

      (Original Linux FTP/patch maintainer)

    Jess Johnson    jester@frenzy.com

      (AIC7xxx FAQ author)

    Doug Ledford    dledford@redhat.com

      (Current Linux aic7xxx-5.x.x Driver/Patch/FTP maintainer)

    Special thanks go to John Aycock (aycock@cpsc.ucalgary.ca), the original

    author of the driver. John has since retired from the project. Thanks

    again for all his work!

  Mailing list

  ------------------------------

    There is a mailing list available for users who want to track development

    and converse with other users and developers. This list is for both

    FreeBSD and Linux support of the AIC7xxx chipsets.

    To subscribe to the AIC7xxx mailing list send mail to the list server,

    with "subscribe AIC7xxx" in the body (no Subject: required):

        To: majordomo@FreeBSD.ORG

        ---

        subscribe AIC7xxx

    To unsubscribe from the list, send mail to the list server with:

        To: majordomo@FreeBSD.ORG

        ---

        unsubscribe AIC7xxx

    Send regular messages and replies to: AIC7xxx@FreeBSD.ORG

  Boot Command line options

  ------------------------------

    "aic7xxx=no_reset" -  Eliminate the SCSI bus reset during startup.

        Some SCSI devices need the initial reset that this option disables

        in order to work.  If you have problems at bootup, please make sure

        you aren't using this option.

    "aic7xxx=reverse_scan" - Certain PCI motherboards scan for devices at

        bootup by scanning from the highest numbered PCI device to the

        lowest numbered PCI device, others do just the opposite and scan

        from lowest to highest numbered PCI device.  There is no reliable

        way to autodetect this ordering.  So, we default to the most common

        order, which is lowest to highest.  Then, in case your motherboard

        scans from highest to lowest, we have this option.  If your BIOS

        finds the drives on controller A before controller B but the linux

        kernel finds your drives on controller B before A, then you should

        use this option.

    "aic7xxx=extended" - Force the driver to detect extended drive translation

        on your controller.  This helps those people who have cards without

        a SEEPROM make sure that linux and all other operating systems think

        the same way about your hard drives.

    "aic7xxx=irq_trigger:x" - Replace x with either 0 or 1 to force the kernel

        to use the correct IRQ type for your card.  This only applies to EISA

        based controllers.  On these controllers, 0 is for Edge triggered

        interrupts, and 1 is for Level triggered interrupts.  If you aren't

        sure or don't know which IRQ trigger type your EISA card uses, then

        let the kernel autodetect the trigger type.

    "aic7xxx=verbose" - This option can be used in one of two ways.  If you

        simply specify aic7xxx=verbose, then the kernel will automatically

        pick the default set of verbose messages for you to see.

        Alternatively, you can specify the command as

        "aic7xxx=verbose:0xXXXX" where the X entries are replaced with

        hexadecimal digits.  This option is a bit field type option.  For

        a full listing of the available options, search for the

        #define VERBOSE_xxxxxx lines in the aic7xxx.c file.  If you want

        verbose messages, then it is recommended that you simply use the

        aic7xxx=verbose variant of this command.

    "aic7xxx=pci_parity:x" - This option controls whether or not the driver

        enables PCI parity error checking on the PCI bus.  By default, this

        checking is disabled.  To enable the checks, simply specify pci_parity

        with no value afterwords.  To reverse the parity from even to odd,

        supply any number other than 0 or 255.  In short:

          pci_parity     - Even parity checking (even is the normal PCI parity)

          pci_parity:x   - Where x > 0, Odd parity checking

          pci_parity:0   - No check (default)

        NOTE: In order to get Even PCI parity checking, you must use the

        version of the option that does not include the : and a number at

        the end (unless you want to enter exactly 2^32 - 1 as the number).

    "aic7xxx=no_probe" - This option will disable the probing for any VLB

        based 2842 controllers and any EISA based controllers.  This is

        needed on certain newer motherboards where the normal EISA I/O ranges

        have been claimed by other PCI devices.  Probing on those machines

        will often result in the machine crashing or spontaneously rebooting

        during startup.  Examples of machines that need this are the

        Dell PowerEdge 6300 machines.

    "aic7xxx=panic_on_abort" - This option is for debugging and will cause

        the driver to panic the linux kernel and freeze the system the first

        time the drivers abort or reset routines are called.  This is most

        helpful when some problem causes infinite reset loops that scroll too

        fast to see.  By using this option, you can write down what the errors

        actually are and send that information to me so it can be fixed.

    "aic7xxx=dump_card" - This option will print out the *entire* set of

        configuration registers on the card during the init sequence.  This

        is a debugging aid used to see exactly what state the card is in

        when we finally finish our initialization routines.  If you don't

        have documentation on the chipsets, this will do you absolutely

        no good unless you are simply trying to write all the information

        down in order to send it to me.

    "aic7xxx=dump_sequencer" - This is the same as the above options except

        that instead of dumping the register contents on the card, this

        option dumps the contents of the sequencer program RAM.  This gives

        the ability to verify that the instructions downloaded to the

        card's sequencer are indeed what they are suppossed to be.  Again,

        unless you have documentation to tell you how to interpret these

        numbers, then it is totally useless.

    "aic7xxx=override_term:0xffffffff" - This option is used to force the

        termination on your SCSI controllers to a particular setting.  This

        is a bit mask variable that applies for up to 8 aic7xxx SCSI channels.

        Each channel gets 4 bits, divided as follows:

        bit   3   2   1   0

              |   |   |   Enable/Disable Single Ended Low Byte Termination

              |   |   En/Disable Single Ended High Byte Termination

              |   En/Disable Low Byte LVD Termination

              En/Disable High Byte LVD Termination

        The upper 2 bits that deal with LVD termination only apply to Ultra2

        controllers.  Futhermore, due to the current Ultra2 controller

        designs, these bits are tied together such that setting either bit

        enables both low and high byte LVD termination.  It is not possible

        to only set high or low byte LVD termination in this manner.  This is

        an artifact of the BIOS definition on Ultra2 controllers.  For other

        controllers, the only important bits are the two lowest bits.  Setting

        the higher bits on non-Ultra2 controllers has no effect.  A few

        examples of how to use this option:

        Enable low and high byte termination on a non-ultra2 controller that

        is the first aic7xxx controller (the correct bits are 0011),

        aic7xxx=override_term:0x3

        Enable all termination on the third aic7xxx controller, high byte

        termination on the second aic7xxx controller, and low and high byte

        SE termination on the first aic7xxx controller

        (bits are 1111 0010 0011),

        aic7xxx=override_term:0xf23

        No attempt has been made to make this option non-cryptic.  It really

        shouldn't be used except in dire circumstances, and if that happens,

        I'm probably going to be telling you what to set this to anyway :)

    "aic7xxx=stpwlev:0xffffffff" - This option is used to control the STPWLEV

        bit in the DEVCONFIG PCI register.  Currently, this is one of the

        very few registers that we have absolutely *no* way of detecting

        what the variable should be.  It depends entirely on how the chipset

        and external terminators were coupled by the card/motherboard maker.

        Further, a chip reset (at power up) always sets this bit to 0.  If

        there is no BIOS to run on the chipset/card (such as with a 2910C

        or a motherboard controller with the BIOS totally disabled) then

        the variable may not get set properly.  Of course, if the proper

        setting was 0, then that's what it would be after the reset, but if

        the proper setting is actually 1.....you get the picture.  Now, since

        we can't detect this at all, I've added this option to force the

        setting.  If you have a BIOS on your controller then you should never

        need to use this option.  However, if you are having lots of SCSI

        reset problems and can't seem to get them knocked out, this may help.

        Here's a test to know for certain if you need this option.  Make

        a boot floppy that you can use to boot your computer up and that

        will detect the aic7xxx controller.  Next, power down your computer.

        While it's down, unplug all SCSI cables from your Adaptec SCSI

        controller.  Boot the system back up to the Adaptec EZ-SCSI BIOS

        and then make sure that termination is enabled on your adapter (if

        you have an Adaptec BIOS of course).  Next, boot up the floppy you

        made and wait for it to detect the aic7xxx controller.  If the kernel

        finds the controller fine, says scsi : x hosts and then tries to

        detect your devices like normal, up to the point where it fails to

        mount your root file system and panics, then you're fine.  If, on

        the other hand, the system goes into an infinite reset loop, then

        you need to use this option and/or the previous option to force the

        proper termination settings on your controller.   If this happens,

        then you next need to figure out what your settings should be.

        To find the correct settings, power your machine back down, connect

        back up the SCSI cables, and boot back into your machine like normal.

        However, boot with the aic7xxx=verbose:0x39 option.  Record the

        initial DEVCONFIG values for each of your aic7xxx controllers as

        they are listed, and also record what the machine is detecting as

        the proper termination on your controllers.  NOTE: the order in

        which the initial DEVCONFIG values are printed out is not gauranteed

        to be the same order as the SCSI controllers are registered.  The

        above option and this option both work on the order of the SCSI

        controllers as they are registered, so make sure you match the right

        DEVCONFIG values with the right controllers if you have more than

        one aic7xxx controller.

        Once you have the detected termination settings and the initial

        DEVCONFIG values for each controller, then figure out what the

        termination on each of the controllers *should* be.  Hopefully, that

        part is correct, but it could possibly be wrong if there is

        bogus cable detection logic on your controller or something similar.

        If all the controllers have the correct termination settings, then

        don't set the aic7xxx=override_term variable at all, leave it alone.

        Next, on any controllers that go into an infinite reset loop when

        you unplug all the SCSI cables, get the starting DEVCONFIG value.

        If the initial DEVCONFIG value is divisible by 2, then the correct

        setting for that controller is 0.  If it's an odd number, then

        the correct setting for that controller is 1.  For any other

        controllers that didn't have an infinite reset problem, then reverse

        the above options.  If DEVCONFIG was even, then the correct setting

        is 1, if not then the correct setting is 0.

        Now that you know what the correct setting was for each controller,

        we need to encode that into the aic7xxx=stpwlev:0x... variable.

        This variable is a bit field encoded variable.  Bit 0 is for the first

        aic7xxx controller, bit 1 for the next, etc.  Put all these bits

        together and you get a number.  For example, if the third aic7xxx

        needed a 1, but the second and first both needed a 0, then the bits

        would be 100 in binary.  This then translates to 0x04.  You would

        therefore set aic7xxx=stpwlev:0x04.  This is fairly standard binary

        to hexadecimal conversions here.  If you aren't up to speed on the

        binary->hex conversion then send an email to the aic7xxx mailing

        list and someone can help you out.

    "aic7xxx=tag_info:{{8,8..},{8,8..},..}" - This option is used to disable

        or enable Tagged Command Queueing (TCQ) on specific devices.  As of

        driver version 5.1.11, TCQ is now either on or off by default

        according to the setting you choose during the make config process.

        In order to en/disable TCQ for certian devices at boot time, a user

        may use this boot param.  The driver will then parse this message out

        and en/disable the specific device entries that are present based upon

        the value given.  The param line is parsed in the following manner:

          { - first instance indicates the start of this parameter values

              second instance is the start of entries for a particular

              device entry

          } - end the entries for a particular host adapter, or end the entire

              set of parameter entries

          , - move to next entry.  Inside of a set of device entries, this

              moves us to the next device on the list.  Outside of device

              entries, this moves us to the next host adapter

          . - Same effect as , but is safe to use with insmod.

          x - the number to enter into the array at this position.

                  queue depth

              1-254 = Enable tagged queueing on this device and use this

                      number as the queue depth

              255 = Disable tagged queueing on this device.

              Note: anything above 32 for an actual queue depth is wasteful

                    and not recommended.

        A few examples of how this can be used:

        tag_info:{{8,12,,0,,255,4}}

          This line will only effect the first aic7xxx card registered.  It

          will set scsi id 0 to a queue depth of 8, id 1 to 12, leave id 2

          at the default, set id 3 to tagged queueing enabled and use the

          default queue depth, id 4 default, id 5 disabled, and id 6 to 4.

          Any not specified entries stay at the default value, repeated

          commas with no value specified will simply increment to the next id

          without changing anything for the missing values.

        tag_info:{,,,{,,,255}}

          First, second, and third adapters at default values.  Fourth

          adapter, id 3 is disabled.  Notice that leading commas simply

          increment what the first number effects, and there are no need

          for trailing commas.  When you close out an adapter, or the

          entire entry, anything not explicitly set stays at the default

          value.

        A final note on this option.  The scanner I used for this isn't

        perfect or highly robust.  If you mess the line up, the worst that

        should happen is that the line will get ignored.  If you don't

        close out the entire entry with the final bracket, then any other

        aic7xxx options after this will get ignored.  So, in general, be

        sure of what you are entering, and after you have it right, just

        add it to the lilo.conf file so there won't be any mistakes.  As

        a means of checking this parser, the entire tag_info array for

        each card is now printed out in the /proc/scsi/aic7xxx/x file.  You

        can use that to verify that your options were parsed correctly.

    Boot command line options may be combined to form the proper set of options

    a user might need.  For example, the following is valid:

    aic7xxx=verbose,extended,irq_trigger:1

    The only requirement is that individual options be separated by a comma or

    a period on the command line.

  Module Loading command options

  ------------------------------

    When loading the aic7xxx driver as a module, the exact same options are

    available to the user.  However, the syntax to specify the options changes

    slightly.  For insmod, you need to wrap the aic7xxx= argument in quotes

    and replace all ',' with '.'.  So, for example, a valid insmod line

    would be:

    insmod aic7xxx aic7xxx='verbose.irq_trigger:1.extended'

    This line should result in the *exact* same behaviour as if you typed

    it in at the lilo prompt and the driver was compiled into the kernel

    instead of being a module.  The reason for the single quote is so that

    the shell won't try to interpret anything in the line, such as {.

    Insmod assumes any options starting with a letter instead of a number

    is a character string (which is what we want) and by switching all of

    the commas to periods, insmod won't interpret this as more than one

    string and write junk into our binary image.  I consider it a bug in

    the insmod program that even if you wrap your string in quotes (quotes

    that pass the shell mind you and that insmod sees) it still treates

    a comma inside of those quotes as starting a new variable, resulting

    in memory scribbles if you don't switch the commas to periods.

  Kernel Compile options

  ------------------------------

    The various kernel compile time options for this driver are now fairly

    well documented in the file Documentation/Configure.help.  In order to

    see this documentation, you need to use one of the advanced configuration

    programs (menuconfig and xconfig).  If you are using the "make menuconfig"

    method of configuring your kernel, then you would simply highlight the

    option in question and hit the ? key.  If you are using the "make xconfig"

    method of configuring your kernel, then simply click on the help button

    next to the option you have questions about.  The help information from

    the Configure.help file will then get automatically displayed.

  /proc support

  ------------------------------

    The /proc support for the AIC7xxx can be found in the /proc/scsi/aic7xxx/

    directory. That directory contains a file for each SCSI controller in

    the system. Each file presents the current configuration and transfer

    statistics (enabled with #define in aic7xxx.c) for each controller.

    Thanks to Michael Neuffer for his upper-level SCSI help, and

    Matthew Jacob for statistics support.

  Debugging the driver

  ------------------------------

    Should you have problems with this driver, and would like some help in

    getting them solved, there are a couple debugging items built into

    the driver to facilitate getting the needed information from the system.

    In general, I need a complete description of the problem, with as many

    logs as possible concerning what happens.  To help with this, there is

    a command option aic7xxx=panic_on_abort.  This option, when set, forces

    the driver to panic the kernel on the first SCSI abort issued by the

    mid level SCSI code.  If your system is going to reset loops and you

    can't read the screen, then this is what you need.  Not only will it

    stop the system, but it also prints out a large amount of state

    information in the process.  Second, if you specify the option

    "aic7xxx=verbose:0x1ffff", the system will print out *SOOOO* much

    information as it runs that you won't be able to see anything.

    However, this can actually be very usefull if your machine simply

    locks up when trying to boot, since it will pin-point what was last

    happening (in regards to the aic7xxx driver) immediately prior to

    the lockup.  This is really only usefull if your machine simply can

    not boot up successfully.  If you can get your machine to run, then

    this will produce far too much information.

  FTP sites

  ------------------------------

    ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/aic/

      - Primary site for Doug Ledford developed driver releases

    ftp://ftp.dialnet.net/pub/linux/aic7xxx

      - Temporary mirror of the redhat.com ftp site while people

        get used to the new address

    ftp://ftp.pcnet.com/users/eischen/Linux/

      - Dan Eischen's driver distribution area

    ftp://ekf2.vsb.cz/pub/linux/kernel/aic7xxx/ftp.teleport.com/

      - European Linux mirror of Teleport site

  Web sites

  ------------------------------

    http://developer.redhat.com/aic7xxx/

      - Primary web site maintained by Doug Ledford.  I haven't actually

        put anything up yet....but I'm planning on it.  This information

        is put here as an add for the vapor page :)

Dean W. Gehnert

deang@teleport.com

$Revision: 1.1 $

Modified by Doug Ledford 1998-9