[NTLUG:Discuss] Discovering new device names

[Chris Cox]

Leroy Tennison wrote:
> Chris Cox wrote:
>> Leroy Tennison wrote:
>>   
>>> Richard Witt wrote:
>>>     
>>>> * Leroy Tennison <leroy_tennison at prodigy.net> [2007-03-02 00:09]:
>>>>   
>>>>       
>>>>> I have a machine (Compaq/HP DL380 G3 probably - forgot to check) with a 
>>>>> RAID controller (SmartArray 6400, six disks, RAID 5, no spare, one 
>>>>> logical drive) which contains two NTFS partitions.  Booting Knoppix from 
>>>>> CD, cciss module is loaded but no partitions are mounted.  From Googling 
>>>>> it appears that this is the driver for the controller.
>>>>>
>>>>> Question:
>>>>>
>>>>> How do I determine which device names might be assigned to these two 
>>>>> partitions (assuming the cciss module is correct and able to see the 
>>>>> partitions on the RAID controller) so that I can mount them?  Any other 
>>>>> troubleshooting steps would be appreciated.
>>>>>     
>>>>>         
>>>> They should be /dev/cciss/c0d0pX where X is the partition number. Thats
>>>> what all our hp servers here at work show. 
>>>>
>>>>   
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> http://www.ntlug.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>>>>   
>>>>       
>>> Thanks for the reply.  Unfortunately, there's no /dev/cciss period.  
>>> Looks like I'm going to have to make nodes.  As I've done my research 
>>> this has become a "peel the onion" exercise.  I've got some other things 
>>> to try at this point.  If they work out I'll post my "findings" should 
>>> anyone else have a use for them.  Otherwise I may be back with "confused 
>>> at a higher level" questions.
>>>     
>> Anything recent (and I mean ANYTHING) should create the devices
>> automatically if the module has been loaded.
>>
>> A G3, is an old device that should have a SmartArray 5i controller,
>> so it should just work.  Try using a SUSE or openSUSE CD and go
>> into rescue mode and see if it finds the device (in case Knoppix
>> did mess up the cciss module or their hal implementation somehow).
>>
>>
>>   
> I now have my answers and learned a lot in the process.  First, it is an 
> old version of Knoppix.  However, it did load cciss and I was able to 
> learn from /proc/driver/cciss/cciss0 that it did detect the RAID 
> controller.  What was missing was the nodes.  Using
> 
> MAKEDEV cciss
> 
> created them.  Knowing that the only controller I had was c0do (from 
> 'cat cciss0') allowed me to mount /dev/cciss/c0d0p1 easily and do the 
> work I wanted to do.
> 
> In the process I discovered what the MAJOR and MINOR numbers of devices 
> mean (useful for mknod as well as when viewing devices under /dev) and 
> that there is a file 
> (http://www.lanana.org/docs/device-list/devices.txt) which lists them 
> and explains the logic behind them - very interesting.  I had wondered 
> where other references "magically" came up with a MAJOR number of 104 
> for the RAID controller and this explained it.
> 
> I also got 'hits' which showed how to make the nodes by hand if MAKEDEV 
> hadn't been available.  Googling for 'cciss mknod' produced a wealth of 
> information.

While true... this is certainly not needed with anything recent (within
the past year .. perhaps two).  Devices should get created automatically
now (device files are dynamically managed).