kern/93128: [sym] FreeBSD 6.1 BETA 1 has problems with Symbios/LSI-HBAs (regression)

[Juergen Dankoweit]

The following reply was made to PR kern/93128; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: Juergen Dankoweit <Juergen.Dankoweit at T-Online.de>
To: bug-followup at FreeBSD.org, Juergen.Dankoweit at T-Online.de
Cc:  
Subject: Re: kern/93128: [sym] FreeBSD 6.1 BETA 1 has problems with
	Symbios/LSI-HBAs (regression)
Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2007 11:08:07 +0200

 Hello,
 
 after thinking how to solve this awful problem, I found this solution
 which works great. Here the code snippet
 
    /* Checking for sym-driver is disabled in the device.hints */
    unit = device_get_unit(dev);
    if (resource_disabled("sym", unit)) {
       device_printf(dev, "sym_pci_probe: sym driver disabled\n");
       return (ENXIO);
    }
    /* ------------------------------------------------------- */
 
 It should be place in the following functions:
 ----------------------------------------------
 line 8465: static int sym_pci_probe(device_t dev);
 line 8482: static int sym_pci_attach(device_t dev);
 
 What does it do:
 ----------------
 It looks in the /boot/device.hints after the following entry:
 hints.sym.x.disabled="1" (where x = 0, 1, 2, ...)
 
 Why this solution:
 ------------------
 The problem is that FreeBSD finds on some systems the LSI chips even if
 they are disabled by the BIOS. To suppress this I added this hint. Now
 it is possible to install FreeBSD on systems with LSI where the boot
 sequence hangs. So it is possible to use an other host adaptor like
 Adaptec or so.
 
 Conclusion:
 -----------
 It is tested on several machines and it works great.
 It would be nice if this is in the next FreeBSD 7.0 snapshot.
 
 Best regards
 
 Juergen Dankoweit