Instalar Opensolaris 2009.06 con una HP Smart Array Controller

Installing OpenSolaris 2008.11 on a server with a HP Smart Array Controller

I'm quite new to OpenSolaris; insofar as it's like Linux, I'm pretty comfortable, but there appear to be enough little gotchas to make the learning curve a little steeper than one might like.

Take, for instance, the fact that OpenSolaris doesn't ship with the drivers for the almost-ubiquitous HP Smart Array controller. That makes for an installation hiccup that a quick Google search shows many people have found difficult. It's too bad, too: it appears that this has stymied a lot of folks in trying to install the OS.

Like most things, the solution is easy, once you know how to do it

Boot to the Install CD

The first task is to boot to the OpenSolaris Live CD, which is also the install CD. If you haven't downloaded it, yet, you can get it at http://opensolaris.org

Get the HP Smart Array Driver

Download the CPQary3 driver, which includes Solaris drivers for most of the recent (and not so recent) Smart Array controllers. As of this writing, the latest version of these drivers is v2.0.0. They can be found here[[1]]. The /tmp filesystem has a lot of space on the live CD, so it's probably best to save the file there. Edit: I see the location of the driver had changed, so I've updated the link above. I also saved off the drivers here, if that's helpful. As always, it' a better idea to go to the source (HP in this case) for files than a second-hand location, but if you can't locate it at their site, it'll remain available here.

Install the Driver

Now that we've got the drivers, we'll unpack them and go about installing them:

 jack@opensolaris:/tmp$ tar -zxf *.gz
 ls
 jack@opensolaris:/tmp$ ls
 CPQary3-2.0.0-solaris10-i386 dbus-D43WuQsGnK iconf_entries.363
 CPQary3-2.0.0-solaris10-i386.tar.gz dbus-EmWPHCv5Ec ogl_select471

Just for simplicity's sake, I renamed the directory, so that it was a bit less unwieldy.

 jack@opensolaris:/tmp$ mv CPQary3-2.0.0-solaris10-i386 cpqary
 jack@opensolaris:/tmp$ cd cpqary
 jack@opensolaris:/tmp/cpqary$ ls
 CPQary3.144 CPQary3.pkg LICENSE.CPQary3 RELEASENOTES.CPQary3
 CPQary3.iso DU README.CPQary3 tools

Note that the OpenSolaris Live CD logs in with the username 'Jack,' which doesn't have much in the way of priviledges. Instead of sudo, use the pfexec script to run the commands with elevated priviledges.

Now here is where some persistent Googling paid off. There's a bug report at the OpenSolaris site (bug #5860)[[2]] where a developer suggests a step that makes things all OK:

So here are the rest of the steps: Create a file on the root filesystem:

 jack@opensolaris:/tmp/cpqary$ pfexec touch /ADD_DRV_IGNORE_ROOT_BASEDIR

Once we've done that, we can install the driver we downloaded:

 jack@opensolaris:/tmp/cpqary$ pfexec pkgadd -d ./CPQary3.pkg

 The following packages are available:
 1 CPQary3 HP Smart Array Controller Driver
 (i386) 2.0.0,Rev=2008.12.05.01.09

 Select package(s) you wish to process (or 'all' to process
 all packages). (default: all) [?,??,q]:

 Processing package instance from

 HP Smart Array Controller Driver(i386) 2.0.0,Rev=2008.12.05.01.09
 Copyright 2008 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
 ## Executing checkinstall script.
 Using as the package base directory.
 ## Processing package information.
 ## Processing system information.
 11 package pathnames are already properly installed.
 ## Verifying package dependencies.
 ## Verifying disk space requirements.
 WARNING:
 The /usr filesystem has 0 free blocks. The current installation requires 158 blocks, which includes a required 150 block buffer for open deleted files. 158 more blocks are needed.
 WARNING:
 The /usr filesystem has 0 free file nodes. The current installation requires 26 file nodes, which includes a required 25 file node buffer for   temporary files. 26 more file nodes are needed.

 Do you want to continue with the installation of [y,n,?] y
 ## Checking for conflicts with packages already installed.
 ## Checking for setuid/setgid programs.

 This package contains scripts which will be executed with super-user
 permission during the process of installing this package.

 Do you want to continue with the installation of [y,n,?] y

 Installing HP Smart Array Controller Driver as

 ## Installing part 1 of 1.
 /kernel/drv/amd64/cpqary3
 /kernel/drv/cpqary3
 /kernel/drv/cpqary3.conf
 /usr/share/man/man7d/cpqary3.7d
 ERROR: attribute verification of failed
 pathname does not exist
 [ verifying class ]
 ERROR: attribute verification of failed
 pathname does not exist
 [ verifying class ]
 [ verifying class ]
 ## Executing postinstall script.
 Installation of partially failed.

Note a couple of things: the defaults are sufficient, and there are errors in the install.

Happily, the errors are in copying the man pages, which we'll not need, at least for now (the /usr filesystem is read-only in the live CD). The good news is that the driver now is installed for the Smart Array controller.

Install OpenSolaris

Double-click on the "install OpenSolaris" icon, and you now should be able to see your drives for installation.