Re: OT: vmware mind control (WAS: Re: Dell PE850 CERC SATA controller)
On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 12:38 AM, Philip Guenther guent...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Mar 7, 2010 at 9:11 PM, bofh goodb...@gmail.com wrote: ... Is there *ANY* good virtualization software out there? The rest of your message gave several requirements but don't actually say *what problem you're trying to solve*, so any answers you get to your question are just reflections of what the responder guesses you to be aiming for. home use - basically, I want to be able to run various VMs - learning and experimentation. Longer term, a friend and I are working on a business venture, a java based app, and I need to make sure it runs well in windows and linux. ZFS is just because I want to build a box with a few big drives. -- http://www.glumbert.com/media/shift http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGvHNNOLnCk This officer's men seem to follow him merely out of idle curiosity. -- Sandhurst officer cadet evaluation. Securing an environment of Windows platforms from abuse - external or internal - is akin to trying to install sprinklers in a fireworks factory where smoking on the job is permitted. -- Gene Spafford learn french: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30v_g83VHK4
Re: OT: vmware mind control (WAS: Re: Dell PE850 CERC SATA controller)
On 3/8/2010 12:11 AM, bofh wrote: Is there *ANY* good virtualization software out there? I don't care what OS it needs to host it (preferably not windows :)) - my needs are simple (home use): I haven't really tried out Xen or qemu, but it seems ESXi should at least be adequate for the job, despite my earlier enterprisey comments. Personally, I think I'd put Solaris on a second box and mount it via NFS, probably using a dedicated NIC, and use that as a cheap SAN. OpenBSD works well under ESX, I'd expect it to work well under ESXi too. Using a processor with hardware-assisted virtualization seems to make a big difference in performance, although there's probably a bug somewhere that will let you jump from a VM guest to the host or another guest. That's probably the same with any (x86) virtualization product, though. So, try 'em all, let us know how it works out.
Re: Dell PE850 CERC SATA controller
On Sun, Mar 07, 2010 at 10:16:10PM -0600, Marco Peereboom wrote: You forgot the pyramid! And the Venn diagram... On Sun, Mar 07, 2010 at 09:19:19PM -0500, Steve Shockley wrote: On 3/5/2010 7:42 AM, Nick Holland wrote: And yes, this is just the tip of the iceberg with vmware quality issues, but that one was really, really easy to understand. So, you're saying VMware *is* enterprise-ready, then? Like Blackberry Enterprise Server, CA Message Manager, or any number of products that appear in a quadrant. VMware is definately Enterprise Ready. Like a spider is Fly Ready. Take Microsoft Windows, add hardware that individual projects can afford, mix in developers who can no longer conceive of their applications having to share or run without owning the machine and you get separate sets of servers for every dinky bright idea a management intern can come up with. Cool for an organization with 2 management interns and 2 projects a decade. Bad for Enterprise class situations with dozens of the former and hundreds of the later per year. What do you do when your building fills up and the river is completely turned to steam? You switch to 'pretend' servers and try to keep the merry-go-round turning. And the spider sucks your juices out. Of course the bonus is you now have room for all the Project Managers needed to coordinate the management interns. And thus commplete the movement from Information Technology to Information Management. Ken
Re: Dell PE850 CERC SATA controller
On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 5:39 AM, Kenneth R Westerback kwesterb...@rogers.com wrote: ... You switch to 'pretend' servers and try to keep the merry-go-round turning. And the spider sucks your juices out. Of course the bonus is you now have room for all the Project Managers needed to coordinate the management interns. And thus commplete the movement from Information Technology to Information Management. Ken We should convert this into a Public Announcement. I suggest a visual image of Theo standing still in the midst of a server farm gone unmaintained due to the fact that all employees at the facility are now Management, and Techs have been laid off to save costs. The camera will find Theo with a stoic look, and a small tear will run down his cheek as the wind blows a cat-5 tumbleweed across the background.
Re: Dell PE850 CERC SATA controller
*clap*clap*clap* I couldn't sound more condescending if I tried. Bravo sir! On Mon, Mar 08, 2010 at 07:39:25AM -0500, Kenneth R Westerback wrote: On Sun, Mar 07, 2010 at 10:16:10PM -0600, Marco Peereboom wrote: You forgot the pyramid! And the Venn diagram... On Sun, Mar 07, 2010 at 09:19:19PM -0500, Steve Shockley wrote: On 3/5/2010 7:42 AM, Nick Holland wrote: And yes, this is just the tip of the iceberg with vmware quality issues, but that one was really, really easy to understand. So, you're saying VMware *is* enterprise-ready, then? Like Blackberry Enterprise Server, CA Message Manager, or any number of products that appear in a quadrant. VMware is definately Enterprise Ready. Like a spider is Fly Ready. Take Microsoft Windows, add hardware that individual projects can afford, mix in developers who can no longer conceive of their applications having to share or run without owning the machine and you get separate sets of servers for every dinky bright idea a management intern can come up with. Cool for an organization with 2 management interns and 2 projects a decade. Bad for Enterprise class situations with dozens of the former and hundreds of the later per year. What do you do when your building fills up and the river is completely turned to steam? You switch to 'pretend' servers and try to keep the merry-go-round turning. And the spider sucks your juices out. Of course the bonus is you now have room for all the Project Managers needed to coordinate the management interns. And thus commplete the movement from Information Technology to Information Management. Ken
Re: OT: vmware mind control (WAS: Re: Dell PE850 CERC SATA controller)
On 3/8/2010 12:40 AM, Steve Shockley wrote: OpenBSD works well under ESX, I'd expect it to work well under ESXi too. (snip) I can verify that it works great. Upgrade from 4.3 to 4.4 required a manual change to the network driver, though - it quit matching the pseudo-hardware that VMware presented. -- Ed Ahlsen-Girard, Contractor (EITC) AFSOC/A6OK email: edward.ahlsen-girard@hurlburt.af.mil 850-884-2414 DSN: 579-2414 [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/x-pkcs7-signature which had a name of smime.p7s]
Re: OT: vmware mind control (WAS: Re: Dell PE850 CERC SATA controller)
Hi Sorry for the non-threaded reply - I am following the digests... On 3/8/2010 12:11 AM, bofh wrote: Is there *ANY* good virtualization software out there? I don't care what OS it needs to host it (preferably not windows :)) - my needs are simple (home use): I haven't really tried out Xen or qemu, but it seems ESXi should at least be adequate for the job, despite my earlier enterprisey comments. Personally, I think I'd put Solaris on a second box and mount it via NFS, probably using a dedicated NIC, and use that as a cheap SAN. OpenBSD works well under ESX, I'd expect it to work well under ESXi too. OpenBSD4.4 works great under vmware server 2.0.2, but OpenBSD4.6 not really. As an example, the kernel compile time went from roughly 15 mins to more than 2 hours. Certain task just seems 'slow' or kind of. The sysbench thread benchmark takes like 10 times wthat it should... Couldn't find out any probable cause. Seems vmware server having a problem or bug or not being optimised for it. Tried different configs and setting (vmware and opensbd, 32 / 64 bits, ...), but with no real positive result. So I would say forget vmware server. As this seems not (based on) the same vitualisation sw as esx(i), this might not count. The Fusion (Mac vmware) is working great again, though. Prost! cmb
Re: OT: vmware mind control (WAS: Re: Dell PE850 CERC SATA controller)
On 3/6/2010 10:22 AM, Ted Roby wrote: Oh, and it also blinks a pretty light when in use. I could be a typical Mac user, and consider this to be the best ever!. AND, as a Mac user, you'd have the most secure OS in the world!
Re: OT: vmware mind control (WAS: Re: Dell PE850 CERC SATA controller)
On Sun, Mar 7, 2010 at 6:21 PM, Steve Shockley steve.shock...@shockley.netwrote: On 3/6/2010 10:22 AM, Ted Roby wrote: Oh, and it also blinks a pretty light when in use. I could be a typical Mac user, and consider this to be the best ever!. AND, as a Mac user, you'd have the most secure OS in the world! Irony: A vmware vendor sending me free schwag after fubar of their own software release. Alchemy: Following Scott's advice On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 11:17 PM, Scott McEachern sc...@erratic.ca wrote: Hey, it's better than a(nother) kick in the pants. BTW: a bootable OpenBSD with X, scrotwm, firefox, mplayer, and a bunch of other handy stuff all fits in well under a gig on a USB stick. Make sure to mention that in your follow-up Thank-You note for the stick. :)
Re: Dell PE850 CERC SATA controller
On 3/5/2010 7:42 AM, Nick Holland wrote: And yes, this is just the tip of the iceberg with vmware quality issues, but that one was really, really easy to understand. So, you're saying VMware *is* enterprise-ready, then? Like Blackberry Enterprise Server, CA Message Manager, or any number of products that appear in a quadrant.
Re: Dell PE850 CERC SATA controller
Steve Shockley wrote: On 3/5/2010 7:42 AM, Nick Holland wrote: And yes, this is just the tip of the iceberg with vmware quality issues, but that one was really, really easy to understand. So, you're saying VMware *is* enterprise-ready, then? Like Blackberry Enterprise Server, CA Message Manager, or any number of products that appear in a quadrant. yeah, of course. Based on the products that stick Enterprise in their names, the computer world definition appears to be something like: * High priced (Our product will save you X dollars a year! We'll be charging you 0.5*X dollars a year, but you will be way ahead! It's worth it! Of course, the X saved is adjustable and impossible to really measure, the 0.5*X is a fixed cost you /will/ be paying). * high down time (caused by the rest of the things on this list) * arcane knowledge required (I don't mean expert knowledge -- you have to understand a lot of things to properly manage an e-mail system, but most enterprise products seem to deliberately ship in crippled mode and require FIXING to bring up to usable levels, using all kinds of voodoo syntax *cough*Cisco*cough*) * Insecure by design * really cool blinky charts and graphs to show the managers who have no f'ing clue what they mean, but they look good. * good to put on your resume, because it is far more important to be Enterprise grade than to do good work(*). * many cases of Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome (i.e., administrators selflessly giving up their weekend and evenings to come and rescue the company from problems that never should have existed in the first place). I've seen cases where it isn't just the administrator's fault -- I've seen managers who were completely unimpressed by people who's systems Just Worked because they were did Good Work, and promote those that Work really hard for the company by bandaging crap that should have been properly FIXED, or whined that the systems were not Enterprise Grade. Yes, I watched a really good administrator get passed over for for promotion because his reports basically said, all is good and things Just Worked, but someone else of considerably less skill was saying, oh, it is all junk! (*) Good work: So far, I don't think this phrase has been co-opted and corrupted by any crapware maker, so let's claim and define it: * True value price, not ability to pay. * Return on investment not requiring hallucinogens to see. They say we'll save $10 million a year! Dude, our total cash flow is only half a million. My favorite example: someone told the owner of a company that 20% of the employees were file clerks, and that the total payroll was $30M/yr. Thus, if they could get rid of the [low paid] file clerks, they could save $6M/yr [yes, that was the argument: file clerks and VPs all earn the same amount of money by this logic], and a document imaging system would pay for itself in a year! This set a chain of events in motion which has had..uh..interesting effects on the company, and as far as I know, not a single file clerk has been laid off. The top people in the IT department are all elsewhere, though (and no, I'd never believe this story, other than the details were provided to me by someone I trust who got it from someone who would know...and that I've seen evidence the owner had some serious problems with reality). * Minimal total down time. Infrequent, short is ok and expected. infrequent, long is not. Frequent, long is right out. * True redundancy and ability to withstand a realistic fault in an acceptable way. * Simple enough to avoid creating bizarre faults that can't be handled in an acceptable way (i.e., simple systems have simple problems. Complex systems will have things happen you can't imagine and didn't plan for). * Expectation that things won't go well at some point and plans in place to deal with it when it does go bad. * Provisions to move to a new solution when better solutions become available and to replace existing hardware when it is old and beyond its serviceable life (how many projects have you seen which lingered on and on on old crap hardware because no one could figure out how to re-implement on something modern?) * Acceptance that no one in your company has ever done EXACTLY this project before, and there will be learning taking place. The only people who have precisely done that many times are either liars or total screwups, usually both. * Spending a small amount of money on properly run pilot projects before spending large amounts of money on the final project is money well spent. I should probably clean up and refine these lists, that was just a quick toss-together. yeah, I'm venting, but I'm increasingly finding this industry embarrassing to work in. Nick.
Re: Dell PE850 CERC SATA controller
You forgot the pyramid! And the Venn diagram... On Sun, Mar 07, 2010 at 09:19:19PM -0500, Steve Shockley wrote: On 3/5/2010 7:42 AM, Nick Holland wrote: And yes, this is just the tip of the iceberg with vmware quality issues, but that one was really, really easy to understand. So, you're saying VMware *is* enterprise-ready, then? Like Blackberry Enterprise Server, CA Message Manager, or any number of products that appear in a quadrant.
Re: OT: vmware mind control (WAS: Re: Dell PE850 CERC SATA controller)
On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 10:05 PM, Jason Beaudoin jasonbeaud...@gmail.comwrote: What a crock of shite. Good to know as I am just getting into a few small-scale virtualizing projects.. not so sure I am at *all* surprised. Is there *ANY* good virtualization software out there? I don't care what OS it needs to host it (preferably not windows :)) - my needs are simple (home use): 1) free 2) has some level of documentation 3) able to support solaris x86 4) able to pass through raw (disk) devices to a guest (can you spell zfs :)) 5) able to support other x86 OSes (openbsd, linux, windows) I'm trying xen on debian right now, and it is very difficult to find good documentation on what's going on. I can't even figure out how to get it to install from an ISO image! Possibly, my google-fu is weak, but, *GAH* I'm *very* tempted to go with ESXi - for the price of free, and the ability to actually use the damn thing. Never tried qemu before, there seems to be a number of separate pieces that needs to be pieced together the last time I looked at it. Just what do you guys use? -- http://www.glumbert.com/media/shift http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGvHNNOLnCk This officer's men seem to follow him merely out of idle curiosity. -- Sandhurst officer cadet evaluation. Securing an environment of Windows platforms from abuse - external or internal - is akin to trying to install sprinklers in a fireworks factory where smoking on the job is permitted. -- Gene Spafford learn french: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30v_g83VHK4
Re: OT: vmware mind control (WAS: Re: Dell PE850 CERC SATA controller)
I'm running/I've runned OpenBSD, NetBSD, OpenWall GNU/Linux and Slackware 9.0/12.0/13.0 on qemu. I'm no expert, but it seems to work ok. Give it a try, it compiles fast. I didn't use any modules on qemu - actually, I didn't even know such modules exist. Go ahead and try the main package. I'm running Slacware 13.0 on my pc, using qemu to learn OpenBSD.
Re: OT: vmware mind control (WAS: Re: Dell PE850 CERC SATA controller)
On Sun, Mar 7, 2010 at 9:11 PM, bofh goodb...@gmail.com wrote: ... Is there *ANY* good virtualization software out there? Yes, there are some that support the world economy by generating 'make work' jobs, thereby distracting people from revolution. Oh, that's not what you meant by 'good'? The rest of your message gave several requirements but don't actually say *what problem you're trying to solve*, so any answers you get to your question are just reflections of what the responder guesses you to be aiming for. Philip Guenther
Re: OT: vmware mind control (WAS: Re: Dell PE850 CERC SATA controller)
On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 11:17 PM, Scott McEachern sc...@erratic.ca wrote: Ted Roby wrote: Hey, I got a 2 GB usb stick for my troubles over a recent fiasco with VMWare's release of Fusion 3. It seems their PR department is doing a better job than QC. Ooo, a trinket from WallyMart that you can buy for pocket change! Thanks.. I think. Hey, it's better than a(nother) kick in the pants. BTW: a bootable OpenBSD with X, scrotwm, firefox, mplayer, and a bunch of other handy stuff all fits in well under a gig on a USB stick. Make sure to mention that in your follow-up Thank-You note for the stick. :) Hey now! I think you fail to realize this particular trinket has the logo VMWARE screened on the outside of it. Oh, and it also blinks a pretty light when in use. I could be a typical Mac user, and consider this to be the best ever!. -- -RSM http://www.erratic.ca
Re: Dell PE850 CERC SATA controller
Which VMware August bug you mean? This one or different? http://communities.vmware.com/thread/162377?tstart=0start=0 On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 1:47 AM, Nick Holland n...@holland-consulting.net wrote: Tomas Bodzar wrote: You just think that it's running perfectly under Linux ;-) See eg. this post http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-miscm=125783114503531w=2 I've been waiting for an excuse to update that story... :) First of all, I want you to note that was posted in November. B It is now March, almost four months later, and it had been going on for quite some time back in November. Recap: Bad firmware - locking system. New firmware - rebooting system. Newer firmware - still reboots, now trashes file systems Newer firmware - still reboots, trashes file systems less often. At time of that posting, new firmware which has diagnostic code in it to capture critical info so Adaptec can figure out why their cards are crashing my system. So, for a couple months, things were going pretty well. B We got a few crashes out of the system and data to the vendor to pass up to Adaptec, but no really big events. B Then one weekend, one of the machines falls over and can't get back up. B I figure surprise, VPN into work, remove it from the cluster, and I'll worry about it Monday. Ok, now look at this from Adaptec's perspective... B You have pissed off your customer and your customer's customer. You can't find the problem, so you have asked them to run special diagnostic firmware to have them help you do your job. B What can you possibly do to further impress them with your incompetence now? So Monday, I go into work, cable up the machine and...it's hung in the RAID controller boot (not the system boot, but since HW manufacturers think it is so f*ing cool that OSs boot, of course they want their RAID controller to have a well advertised boot process too). B And it hangs. B Not even trying to read an OS off the disks, just hung. B Power off, back on, still hangs. B Reseat card, still hangs. I call our vendor, tell 'em the symptoms, they agree that it is the RAID controller that failed. B I start thinking, well, maybe I was a little hard on Adaptec, publicly bashing them like this and in reality, maybe I just had a defective RAID card all along. B It might explain why a large majority (though certainly not all!) of the crashes happened on this one machine...and now the card is totally dead. B Hm. B Maybe just bad hardware. B I'm starting to consider how I'll word my semi-retraction. Then the phone rings, it's my regular contact at the system vendor. He's telling me there's something really strange going on, as these cards are popping all over the country, all at people who have been running the diagnostic firmware. B They can't believe the conclusion, but it seems like there's a time bomb in the diagnostic firmware. They have a call in to Adaptec, but the guy responsible for the diagnostic firmware is on vacation, and it takes 'em a while to track the guy down, but it is possible. B Sure enough, a couple hours later, I get a call back that confirms the firmware is actively killing our cards, and thank goodness that I upgraded them over a period of days and not all in a short period of time, and I do an emergency reversion of all the other systems. How do you top your past levels of incompetence now? B Thank your victim..er..customers who are helping you debug your product by time-bombing the device so that sixty days after install, your adapter breaks. B Can you top that? B Yeah. B Don't tell anyone about the time bomb -- don't tell the VAR, or the end user, if you help us debug our crappy product, don't let it run this way for 60 days, or your computer will start doing space heater imitations. (One could argue that they topped that one step further by actually locking the boot process so one could not even boot up the firmware update disk and downgrade the firmware to something that sucks less, but I am willing to pass that off as a bug, not deliberate). Think about this a bit. B These people DELIBERATELY put a feature in their firmware to STOP me (and a lot of other people) from using this card. B Legit user, but they felt that I was entitled to help them debug their shit for no more than sixty days. B They worked hard at putting this feature in. B This isn't a piece of software that has access to the resources of a computer, like real-time clocks and writable disks. B This is a fucking RAID controller, which they managed to build a persistent time bomb into so that after 60 days of operation, it destroyed itself!! (and again, note: it didn't just crash and need to be power cycled, it DAMAGED THE CARD). B This took some effort -- I can't think of any other reason to have a RTC in a RAID card. B I also somehow doubt that the coder who did this sat down and wrote the time bomb AFTER he was charged with coming up with the diagnostic firmware. B No, I
Re: Dell PE850 CERC SATA controller
Tomas Bodzar wrote: Which VMware August bug you mean? This one or different? http://communities.vmware.com/thread/162377?tstart=0start=0 yep, that's the one. Short version: VMware accidentally shipped a production release of ESX and ESXi (yes, both the expensive and no-charge version) which turned off management of the VMs on August 12, 2008 -- a turned on VM could stay running, but an off VM could not be started, and their wonderful vmotion feature stops working...which would be critical for less painful recovery from this problem. VMware regularly time bombed their beta versions of the software, and in this case, the time bomb slipped out the door. Time bombs like this are a little like smoking in a firework factory. The cigarette and the fireworks are never supposed to get together, but if they are close enough, shit can happen, and acceptable practice is to make sure they are no where close. And yes, this is just the tip of the iceberg with vmware quality issues, but that one was really, really easy to understand. Nick.
OT: vmware mind control (WAS: Re: Dell PE850 CERC SATA controller)
On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 7:42 AM, Nick Holland n...@holland-consulting.net wrote: Tomas Bodzar wrote: Which VMware August bug you mean? This one or different? http://communities.vmware.com/thread/162377?tstart=0start=0 yep, that's the one. Short version: VMware accidentally shipped a production release of ESX and ESXi (yes, both the expensive and no-charge version) which turned off management of the VMs on August 12, 2008 -- a turned on VM could stay running, but an off VM could not be started, and their wonderful vmotion feature stops working...which would be critical for less painful recovery from this problem. VMware regularly time bombed their beta versions of the software, and in this case, the time bomb slipped out the door. Hilarious, yet depressing (and telling): FAQ for Express Patches 1. What do the express patches do? There are two express patches: * For an affected ESX 3.5 Update 2 (build number 103908), use ESX Update 2 Express Patch (build 110181) * For an affected ESXi 3.5 Update 2 (build number 103909), use ESXi Update 2 Express Patch (build number 110180). They are specifically targeted for customers who have installed or fully upgraded to ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 2 or who have applied the ESX350-200806201-UG/ESXe350-200807401-I-UG patch to ESX/ESXi 3.5 or ESX/ESX 3.5 Update 1 hosts. For customers who havent done either, these express patches should not be applied. Note: These patches have been validated to work with both esxupdate and VMware Update Manager. Maintenance mode is required, but a reboot of the ESX host is not required with these patches. We are currently testing an option to apply the patch without requiring VMotion or VM power-off and re-power-on at the point of patch application. To immediately refresh vmx on the VM, one can VMotion off running VMs, apply the patches and VMotion the VMs back. If VMotion capability is not available, VMs can be powered off before the patches are applied and powered back on afterwards. Did anyone else find an answer to the proposed question?1. What do the express patches do? from the kb article (their follow up) to that issue: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_UScmd=disp layKCexternalId=1006716 What a crock of shite. Good to know as I am just getting into a few small-scale virtualizing projects.. not so sure I am at *all* surprised. /end rant. ~Jason
Re: OT: vmware mind control (WAS: Re: Dell PE850 CERC SATA controller)
On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 8:05 PM, Jason Beaudoin jasonbeaud...@gmail.comwrote: On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 7:42 AM, Nick Holland n...@holland-consulting.net wrote: Tomas Bodzar wrote: Which VMware August bug you mean? This one or different? http://communities.vmware.com/thread/162377?tstart=0start=0 yep, that's the one. Short version: VMware accidentally shipped a production release of ESX and ESXi (yes, both the expensive and no-charge version) which turned off management of the VMs on August 12, 2008 -- a turned on VM could stay running, but an off VM could not be started, and their wonderful vmotion feature stops working...which would be critical for less painful recovery from this problem. VMware regularly time bombed their beta versions of the software, and in this case, the time bomb slipped out the door. Hilarious, yet depressing (and telling): FAQ for Express Patches 1. What do the express patches do? There are two express patches: * For an affected ESX 3.5 Update 2 (build number 103908), use ESX Update 2 Express Patch (build 110181) * For an affected ESXi 3.5 Update 2 (build number 103909), use ESXi Update 2 Express Patch (build number 110180). They are specifically targeted for customers who have installed or fully upgraded to ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 2 or who have applied the ESX350-200806201-UG/ESXe350-200807401-I-UG patch to ESX/ESXi 3.5 or ESX/ESX 3.5 Update 1 hosts. For customers who haven t done either, these express patches should not be applied. Note: These patches have been validated to work with both esxupdate and VMware Update Manager. Maintenance mode is required, but a reboot of the ESX host is not required with these patches. We are currently testing an option to apply the patch without requiring VMotion or VM power-off and re-power-on at the point of patch application. To immediately refresh vmx on the VM, one can VMotion off running VMs, apply the patches and VMotion the VMs back. If VMotion capability is not available, VMs can be powered off before the patches are applied and powered back on afterwards. Did anyone else find an answer to the proposed question?1. What do the express patches do? from the kb article (their follow up) to that issue: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_UScmd=disp layKCexternalId=1006716http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_UScmd=disp%0AlayKCexternalId=1006716 What a crock of shite. Good to know as I am just getting into a few small-scale virtualizing projects.. not so sure I am at *all* surprised. Hey, I got a 2 GB usb stick for my troubles over a recent fiasco with VMWare's release of Fusion 3. It seems their PR department is doing a better job than QC. /end rant. ~Jason
Re: OT: vmware mind control (WAS: Re: Dell PE850 CERC SATA controller)
On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 10:24 PM, Ted Roby ted.r...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 8:05 PM, Jason Beaudoin jasonbeaud...@gmail.comwrote: On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 7:42 AM, Nick Holland n...@holland-consulting.net wrote: Tomas Bodzar wrote: Which VMware August bug you mean? This one or different? http://communities.vmware.com/thread/162377?tstart=0start=0 yep, that's the one. Short version: VMware accidentally shipped a production release of ESX and ESXi (yes, both the expensive and no-charge version) which turned off management of the VMs on August 12, 2008 -- a turned on VM could stay running, but an off VM could not be started, and their wonderful vmotion feature stops working...which would be critical for less painful recovery from this problem. VMware regularly time bombed their beta versions of the software, and in this case, the time bomb slipped out the door. Hilarious, yet depressing (and telling): FAQ for Express Patches 1. What do the express patches do? There are two express patches: * For an affected ESX 3.5 Update 2 (build number 103908), use ESX Update 2 Express Patch (build 110181) * For an affected ESXi 3.5 Update 2 (build number 103909), use ESXi Update 2 Express Patch (build number 110180). They are specifically targeted for customers who have installed or fully upgraded to ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 2 or who have applied the ESX350-200806201-UG/ESXe350-200807401-I-UG patch to ESX/ESXi 3.5 or ESX/ESX 3.5 Update 1 hosts. For customers who haven t done either, these express patches should not be applied. Note: These patches have been validated to work with both esxupdate and VMware Update Manager. Maintenance mode is required, but a reboot of the ESX host is not required with these patches. We are currently testing an option to apply the patch without requiring VMotion or VM power-off and re-power-on at the point of patch application. To immediately refresh vmx on the VM, one can VMotion off running VMs, apply the patches and VMotion the VMs back. If VMotion capability is not available, VMs can be powered off before the patches are applied and powered back on afterwards. Did anyone else find an answer to the proposed question?1. What do the express patches do? from the kb article (their follow up) to that issue: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_UScmd=disp layKCexternalId=1006716http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.d o?language=en_UScmd=disp%0AlayKCexternalId=1006716 What a crock of shite. Good to know as I am just getting into a few small-scale virtualizing projects.. not so sure I am at *all* surprised. Hey, I got a 2 GB usb stick for my troubles over a recent fiasco with VMWare's release of Fusion 3. It seems their PR department is doing a better job than QC. HAH! just to think they believe that is suitable in buying you off.. it's just ridiculous..
Re: OT: vmware mind control (WAS: Re: Dell PE850 CERC SATA controller)
On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 8:51 PM, Jason Beaudoin jasonbeaud...@gmail.comwrote: On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 10:24 PM, Ted Roby ted.r...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 8:05 PM, Jason Beaudoin jasonbeaud...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 7:42 AM, Nick Holland n...@holland-consulting.net wrote: Tomas Bodzar wrote: Which VMware August bug you mean? This one or different? http://communities.vmware.com/thread/162377?tstart=0start=0 yep, that's the one. Short version: VMware accidentally shipped a production release of ESX and ESXi (yes, both the expensive and no-charge version) which turned off management of the VMs on August 12, 2008 -- a turned on VM could stay running, but an off VM could not be started, and their wonderful vmotion feature stops working...which would be critical for less painful recovery from this problem. VMware regularly time bombed their beta versions of the software, and in this case, the time bomb slipped out the door. Hilarious, yet depressing (and telling): FAQ for Express Patches 1. What do the express patches do? There are two express patches: * For an affected ESX 3.5 Update 2 (build number 103908), use ESX Update 2 Express Patch (build 110181) * For an affected ESXi 3.5 Update 2 (build number 103909), use ESXi Update 2 Express Patch (build number 110180). They are specifically targeted for customers who have installed or fully upgraded to ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 2 or who have applied the ESX350-200806201-UG/ESXe350-200807401-I-UG patch to ESX/ESXi 3.5 or ESX/ESX 3.5 Update 1 hosts. For customers who haven t done either, these express patches should not be applied. Note: These patches have been validated to work with both esxupdate and VMware Update Manager. Maintenance mode is required, but a reboot of the ESX host is not required with these patches. We are currently testing an option to apply the patch without requiring VMotion or VM power-off and re-power-on at the point of patch application. To immediately refresh vmx on the VM, one can VMotion off running VMs, apply the patches and VMotion the VMs back. If VMotion capability is not available, VMs can be powered off before the patches are applied and powered back on afterwards. Did anyone else find an answer to the proposed question?1. What do the express patches do? from the kb article (their follow up) to that issue: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_UScmd=disp layKCexternalId=1006716 http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_UScmd=disp%0AlayKCexternalId=1006716 What a crock of shite. Good to know as I am just getting into a few small-scale virtualizing projects.. not so sure I am at *all* surprised. Hey, I got a 2 GB usb stick for my troubles over a recent fiasco with VMWare's release of Fusion 3. It seems their PR department is doing a better job than QC. HAH! just to think they believe that is suitable in buying you off.. it's just ridiculous.. It was yet another point for ditching the proprietary compromises, and focusing on a genuine solution for my personal OS. When I last stepped away from OpenBSD there was no Xenocara. It makes me warm and fuzzy to think that X11 now gets heavier auditing, by the best debugging team in the world, than just a port.
Re: OT: vmware mind control (WAS: Re: Dell PE850 CERC SATA controller)
Ted Roby wrote: Hey, I got a 2 GB usb stick for my troubles over a recent fiasco with VMWare's release of Fusion 3. It seems their PR department is doing a better job than QC. Ooo, a trinket from WallyMart that you can buy for pocket change! Thanks.. I think. Hey, it's better than a(nother) kick in the pants. BTW: a bootable OpenBSD with X, scrotwm, firefox, mplayer, and a bunch of other handy stuff all fits in well under a gig on a USB stick. Make sure to mention that in your follow-up Thank-You note for the stick. :) -- -RSM http://www.erratic.ca
Dell PE850 CERC SATA controller
Hello, i read from the current documentation that it is not advised to purchase hardware containing the following (taken from http://www.openbsd.org/i386.html) Adaptec FSA-based RAID controllers (aac), including: (*) Note: In the past years Adaptec has lied to us repeatedly about forthcoming documentation which would have allowed us to stabilize, improve and manage RAID support for these (rather buggy) raid controllers. As a result, we do not recommend the Adaptec cards for use. * Adaptec AAC-2622, AAC-364, AAC-3642, 2130S, 2200S, 2230SLP, 2410SA, 2610SA, 2810SA, 21610SA * Dell CERC-SATA, PERC 320/DC * Dell PERC 2/QC, PERC 2/Si, PERC 3/Si, PERC 3/D * HP NetRaid-4M * IBM ServeRAID-8i/8k/8s Now I do have a Dell PE 850 (2005 edition) SATA CERC 1.5/6Ch with a RAID on it. Works perfectly under Linux as one RAID, but OpenBSD (4.6 says no drive). Does it mean I'm screwed? Message below. booting cd0a:/4.6/i386/bsd.rd: 5651156+913072 [52+211008+196339]=0x6a6260 entry point at 0x200120 Copyright (c) 1982, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1993 The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Copyright (c) 1995-2009 OpenBSD. All rights reserved. http://www.OpenBSD.org OpenBSD 4.6 (RAMDISK_CD) #53: Thu Jul 9 21:41:35 MDT 2009 dera...@i386.openbsd.org:/usr/src/sys/arch/i386/compile/RAMDISK_CD cpu0: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz (GenuineIntel 686-class) 3.01 GHz cpu0: FPU,V86,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,APIC,SEP,MTRR,PGE,MCA,CMOV,PAT,PSE36,CFLUSH,DS,ACPI,MMX,FXSR,SSE,SSE2,SS,HTT,TM,SBF,SSE3,MWAIT,DS-CPL,EST,CNXT-ID,CX16,xTPR real mem = 4025843712 (3839MB) avail mem = 3914698752 (3733MB) mainbus0 at root bios0 at mainbus0: AT/286+ BIOS, date 10/12/05, BIOS32 rev. 0 @ 0xffe90, SMBIOS rev. 2.3 @ 0xfa460 (48 entries) bios0: vendor Dell Computer Corporation version A02 date 10/12/2005 bios0: Dell Computer Corporation PowerEdge 850 acpi0 at bios0: rev 0 acpi0: tables DSDT FACP APIC SPCR HPET MCFG acpimadt0 at acpi0 addr 0xfee0: PC-AT compat cpu0 at mainbus0: apid 0 (boot processor) cpu0: apic clock running at 200MHz ioapic0 at mainbus0: apid 1 pa 0xfec0, version 20, 24 pins ioapic0: misconfigured as apic 0, remapped to apid 1 ioapic1 at mainbus0: apid 2 pa 0xfec1, version 20, 24 pins ioapic1: misconfigured as apic 0, remapped to apid 2 acpiprt0 at acpi0: bus 0 (PCI0) acpiprt1 at acpi0: bus 1 (PES1) acpiprt2 at acpi0: bus 2 (PEP0) acpiprt3 at acpi0: bus 3 (PXHA) acpiprt4 at acpi0: bus 4 (PEP1) acpiprt5 at acpi0: bus 5 (PEP2) acpiprt6 at acpi0: bus 6 (PCIS) bios0: ROM list: 0xc/0x8000 0xc8000/0x1000 0xc9000/0x1600 0xca800/0x4000 0xec000/0x4000! pci0 at mainbus0 bus 0: configuration mode 1 (bios) pchb0 at pci0 dev 0 function 0 Intel E7230 Host rev 0x00 ppb0 at pci0 dev 1 function 0 Intel E7230 PCIE rev 0x00: apic 1 int 16 (irq 0) pci1 at ppb0 bus 1 bge0 at pci1 dev 0 function 0 Broadcom BCM5721 rev 0x11, BCM5750 B1 (0x4101): apic 1 int 16 (irq 5), address 00:10:18:14:6a:2d brgphy0 at bge0 phy 1: BCM5750 10/100/1000baseT PHY, rev. 0 ppb1 at pci0 dev 28 function 0 Intel 82801GB PCIE rev 0x01 pci2 at ppb1 bus 2 ppb2 at pci2 dev 0 function 0 Intel PCIE-PCIE rev 0x09 pci3 at ppb2 bus 3 Adaptec ASR-2200S rev 0x01 at pci3 dev 2 function 0 not configured ppb3 at pci0 dev 28 function 4 Intel 82801G PCIE rev 0x01 pci4 at ppb3 bus 4 bge1 at pci4 dev 0 function 0 Broadcom BCM5721 rev 0x11, BCM5750 B1 (0x4101): apic 1 int 16 (irq 5), address 00:13:72:3b:87:09 brgphy1 at bge1 phy 1: BCM5750 10/100/1000baseT PHY, rev. 0 ppb4 at pci0 dev 28 function 5 Intel 82801G PCIE rev 0x01 pci5 at ppb4 bus 5 bge2 at pci5 dev 0 function 0 Broadcom BCM5721 rev 0x11, BCM5750 B1 (0x4101): apic 1 int 17 (irq 11), address 00:13:72:3b:87:0a brgphy2 at bge2 phy 1: BCM5750 10/100/1000baseT PHY, rev. 0 uhci0 at pci0 dev 29 function 0 Intel 82801GB USB rev 0x01: apic 1 int 20 (irq 11) uhci1 at pci0 dev 29 function 1 Intel 82801GB USB rev 0x01: apic 1 int 21 (irq 10) uhci2 at pci0 dev 29 function 2 Intel 82801GB USB rev 0x01: apic 1 int 22 (irq 6) ehci0 at pci0 dev 29 function 7 Intel 82801GB USB rev 0x01: apic 1 int 20 (irq 11) usb0 at ehci0: USB revision 2.0 uhub0 at usb0 Intel EHCI root hub rev 2.00/1.00 addr 1 ppb5 at pci0 dev 30 function 0 Intel 82801BA Hub-to-PCI rev 0xe1 pci6 at ppb5 bus 6 vga1 at pci6 dev 5 function 0 XGI Technology Volari Z7 rev 0x00 wsdisplay0 at vga1 mux 1: console (80x25, vt100 emulation) ichpcib0 at pci0 dev 31 function 0 Intel 82801GB LPC rev 0x01: PM disabled pciide0 at pci0 dev 31 function 1 Intel 82801GB IDE rev 0x01: DMA, channel 0 configured to compatibility, channel 1 configured to compatibility atapiscsi0 at pciide0 channel 0 drive 0 scsibus0 at atapiscsi0: 2 targets cd0 at scsibus0 targ 0 lun 0: TEAC, CD-ROM CD-224E-N, 3.AB ATAPI 5/cdrom removable cd0(pciide0:0:0): using PIO mode 4, Ultra-DMA mode 2 pciide0: channel 1 ignored (disabled) Intel 82801GB SMBus rev 0x01 at pci0 dev 31 function 3 not configured usb1 at uhci0: USB revision 1.0 uhub1 at usb1 Intel UHCI root
Re: Dell PE850 CERC SATA controller
Hi, Am 04.03.2010 16:32, schrieb FRLinux: Hello, i read from the current documentation that it is not advised to purchase hardware containing the following (taken from http://www.openbsd.org/i386.html) Adaptec FSA-based RAID controllers (aac), including: (*) Note: In the past years Adaptec has lied to us repeatedly about forthcoming documentation which would have allowed us to stabilize, improve and manage RAID support for these (rather buggy) raid controllers. As a result, we do not recommend the Adaptec cards for use. * Adaptec AAC-2622, AAC-364, AAC-3642, 2130S, 2200S, 2230SLP, 2410SA, 2610SA, 2810SA, 21610SA * Dell CERC-SATA, PERC 320/DC * Dell PERC 2/QC, PERC 2/Si, PERC 3/Si, PERC 3/D * HP NetRaid-4M * IBM ServeRAID-8i/8k/8s Now I do have a Dell PE 850 (2005 edition) SATA CERC 1.5/6Ch with a RAID on it. Works perfectly under Linux as one RAID, but OpenBSD (4.6 says no drive). Does it mean I'm screwed? Message below. aac is not enabled in the stock kernel for the reasons mentioned above. You need to enable aac and recompile the kernel if you really want to use that raid card. There is NO raid monitoring available, so you'll never know when i disk dies. I suggest to replace the controller with something else or just use the on-board SATA ports and softraid instead. Michael
Re: Dell PE850 CERC SATA controller
You just think that it's running perfectly under Linux ;-) See eg. this post http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-miscm=125783114503531w=2 On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 4:56 PM, Michael Lechtermann mich...@lechtermann.net wrote: Hi, Am 04.03.2010 16:32, schrieb FRLinux: Hello, i read from the current documentation that it is not advised to purchase hardware containing the following (taken from http://www.openbsd.org/i386.html) Adaptec FSA-based RAID controllers (aac), including: (*) Note: In the past years Adaptec has lied to us repeatedly about forthcoming documentation which would have allowed us to stabilize, improve and manage RAID support for these (rather buggy) raid controllers. As a result, we do not recommend the Adaptec cards for use. B B * Adaptec AAC-2622, AAC-364, AAC-3642, 2130S, 2200S, 2230SLP, 2410SA, 2610SA, 2810SA, 21610SA B B * Dell CERC-SATA, PERC 320/DC B B * Dell PERC 2/QC, PERC 2/Si, PERC 3/Si, PERC 3/D B B * HP NetRaid-4M B B * IBM ServeRAID-8i/8k/8s Now I do have a Dell PE 850 (2005 edition) SATA CERC 1.5/6Ch with a RAID on it. Works perfectly under Linux as one RAID, but OpenBSD (4.6 says no drive). Does it mean I'm screwed? Message below. aac is not enabled in the stock kernel for the reasons mentioned above. You need to enable aac and recompile the kernel if you really want to use that raid card. There is NO raid monitoring available, so you'll never know when i disk dies. I suggest to replace the controller with something else or just use the on-board SATA ports and softraid instead. Michael -- http://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html
Re: Dell PE850 CERC SATA controller
On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 5:15 PM, Tomas Bodzar tomas.bod...@gmail.com wrote: You just think that it's running perfectly under Linux ;-) See eg. this post http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-miscm=125783114503531w=2 Ah, I had actually skipped that one back then, thanks for pointing that to me. So I now officially have a lump of metal in my office :) Cheers, Steph
Re: Dell PE850 CERC SATA controller
That card is a bag of ass. Do yourself a favor and throw it in a moat. On Thu, Mar 04, 2010 at 11:55:56PM +, FRLinux wrote: On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 5:15 PM, Tomas Bodzar tomas.bod...@gmail.com wrote: You just think that it's running perfectly under Linux ;-) See eg. this post http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-miscm=125783114503531w=2 Ah, I had actually skipped that one back then, thanks for pointing that to me. So I now officially have a lump of metal in my office :) Cheers, Steph
Re: Dell PE850 CERC SATA controller
Tomas Bodzar wrote: You just think that it's running perfectly under Linux ;-) See eg. this post http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-miscm=125783114503531w=2 I've been waiting for an excuse to update that story... :) First of all, I want you to note that was posted in November. It is now March, almost four months later, and it had been going on for quite some time back in November. Recap: Bad firmware - locking system. New firmware - rebooting system. Newer firmware - still reboots, now trashes file systems Newer firmware - still reboots, trashes file systems less often. At time of that posting, new firmware which has diagnostic code in it to capture critical info so Adaptec can figure out why their cards are crashing my system. So, for a couple months, things were going pretty well. We got a few crashes out of the system and data to the vendor to pass up to Adaptec, but no really big events. Then one weekend, one of the machines falls over and can't get back up. I figure surprise, VPN into work, remove it from the cluster, and I'll worry about it Monday. Ok, now look at this from Adaptec's perspective... You have pissed off your customer and your customer's customer. You can't find the problem, so you have asked them to run special diagnostic firmware to have them help you do your job. What can you possibly do to further impress them with your incompetence now? So Monday, I go into work, cable up the machine and...it's hung in the RAID controller boot (not the system boot, but since HW manufacturers think it is so f*ing cool that OSs boot, of course they want their RAID controller to have a well advertised boot process too). And it hangs. Not even trying to read an OS off the disks, just hung. Power off, back on, still hangs. Reseat card, still hangs. I call our vendor, tell 'em the symptoms, they agree that it is the RAID controller that failed. I start thinking, well, maybe I was a little hard on Adaptec, publicly bashing them like this and in reality, maybe I just had a defective RAID card all along. It might explain why a large majority (though certainly not all!) of the crashes happened on this one machine...and now the card is totally dead. Hm. Maybe just bad hardware. I'm starting to consider how I'll word my semi-retraction. Then the phone rings, it's my regular contact at the system vendor. He's telling me there's something really strange going on, as these cards are popping all over the country, all at people who have been running the diagnostic firmware. They can't believe the conclusion, but it seems like there's a time bomb in the diagnostic firmware. They have a call in to Adaptec, but the guy responsible for the diagnostic firmware is on vacation, and it takes 'em a while to track the guy down, but it is possible. Sure enough, a couple hours later, I get a call back that confirms the firmware is actively killing our cards, and thank goodness that I upgraded them over a period of days and not all in a short period of time, and I do an emergency reversion of all the other systems. How do you top your past levels of incompetence now? Thank your victim..er..customers who are helping you debug your product by time-bombing the device so that sixty days after install, your adapter breaks. Can you top that? Yeah. Don't tell anyone about the time bomb -- don't tell the VAR, or the end user, if you help us debug our crappy product, don't let it run this way for 60 days, or your computer will start doing space heater imitations. (One could argue that they topped that one step further by actually locking the boot process so one could not even boot up the firmware update disk and downgrade the firmware to something that sucks less, but I am willing to pass that off as a bug, not deliberate). Think about this a bit. These people DELIBERATELY put a feature in their firmware to STOP me (and a lot of other people) from using this card. Legit user, but they felt that I was entitled to help them debug their shit for no more than sixty days. They worked hard at putting this feature in. This isn't a piece of software that has access to the resources of a computer, like real-time clocks and writable disks. This is a fucking RAID controller, which they managed to build a persistent time bomb into so that after 60 days of operation, it destroyed itself!! (and again, note: it didn't just crash and need to be power cycled, it DAMAGED THE CARD). This took some effort -- I can't think of any other reason to have a RTC in a RAID card. I also somehow doubt that the coder who did this sat down and wrote the time bomb AFTER he was charged with coming up with the diagnostic firmware. No, I rather suspect he grabbed some off-the-shelf code, something they put routinely into their diagnostic and troubleshooting systems, but wasn't intended to get out into the general public. They obviously care more about things OTHER than your system integrity and reliability. This coder made an error
Re: Dell PE850 CERC SATA controller
On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 12:47 AM, Nick Holland n...@holland-consulting.net wrote: Now, tell me again how horrible it is that OpenBSD doesn't let you trust your data (and OpenBSD's reputation) to these incompetent assholes? Thanks for the update, you convinced me the last time but have definitely so now. We have about 2 servers with that hardware in it. I might end up retiring the second production one quicker than expected just so I can sleep at night... And by the way (even though this is quite horrific), you are good at story telling :) Cheers, Steph
Re: Dell PE850 CERC SATA controller
On Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:47:38 -0500 Nick Holland n...@holland-consulting.net wrote: Tomas Bodzar wrote: You just think that it's running perfectly under Linux ;-) See eg. this post http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-miscm=125783114503531w=2 Think about this a bit. These people DELIBERATELY put a feature in their firmware to STOP me (and a lot of other people) from using this card. Legit user, but they felt that I was entitled to help them debug their shit for no more than sixty days. They worked hard at putting this feature in. This isn't a piece of software that has access to the resources of a computer, like real-time clocks and writable disks. This is a fucking RAID controller, which they managed to build a persistent time bomb into so that after 60 days of operation, it destroyed itself!! (and again, note: it didn't just crash and need to be power cycled, it DAMAGED THE CARD). This took some effort -- I can't think of any other reason to have a RTC in a RAID card. I also somehow doubt that the coder who did this sat down and wrote the time bomb AFTER he was charged with coming up with the diagnostic firmware. No, I rather suspect he grabbed some off-the-shelf code, something they put routinely into their diagnostic and troubleshooting systems, but wasn't intended to get out into the general public. They obviously care more about things OTHER than your system integrity and reliability. This coder made an error in judgment, but they obviously had the tools laying around for some reason. NOTE: A customer should never need to do this, but... For all intents and purposes, the card damaged itself per se by preventing itself from working, but with the right know-how, you could get it working again. The RTC of the card has to pull time from somewhere as well as keep time (i.e. needs power). If the card is not battery-backed, then it's drawing current from the mainboard. Yes, even when the system is supposedly in a powered off state. (If you read the PCI/PCIX/PCIE specs, you'll understand there is power available even in the powered off state to support features like Wake-On-LAN). If the card is battery-backed, then it could be drawing current from either the bus or the battery. None the less, no current, no clock. Remove the card, and remove the battery from the card if one is present. In case they have caps in place to handle short outages, short the battery leads and PCI power pins to drain them. Boot the system, set the clock back a month or whatever, then power it off again. Reinstall the card and you'll be able to get into it again to reflash with non-time-bombed firmware. Of course no sane human being would put up with needing to do crap like the above just to use the hardware they've paid for, but when you're stuck, you're stuck. Now, tell me again how horrible it is that OpenBSD doesn't let you trust your data (and OpenBSD's reputation) to these incompetent assholes? Adaptec is actually far worse than they seems to normal end users and open source developers... I might get my happy ass sued into oblivion for posting the stuff I know, so I'll tell you a possibly fictitious story that was told to me by a friend. A number of humongous, deep pocket, mega corps decided to bring a new type of tech to market... QUIETLY! One of the requirements was testing said tech with *ALL* of the *BEST* storage cards and storage devices, which is nothing more than a pleasant way to say the unannounced stuff that doesn't officially exist yet. The CTO was told by said friend to not waste any time testing Adaptec, but was promptly told to shut up, since their unannounced gear had already been delivered, along with the personal cell phone number of the EVP from Adaptec in charge of storage products. Ya, the usual... There were business connections involved and agreements at the highest levels, so plainly stating the obvious like saying The Emperor has no clothes was strictly verboten... Four weeks and multiple replacement cards later, they gave up trying to test Adaptec cards. The all failed. Miserably. The newest storage devices (various forms of SSD's) caused everything from Adaptec to fail, even though there was nothing wrong with the storage devices. Of course they got the typical story from Adaptec of, We've only qualified Intel SSD's with our products. --Bullshit. On inquiry, it turns out they never bothered to see what would happen if a *FULL* *SET* of (still unreleased) Intel SLC based 512GB SSD's was attached to their controller. Even a minimal set (no expansion backplanes) of the widely available Intel SSD's made their controller fail. It was pretty obvious that Adaptec hadn't tested their shit at all with SSD's of any type... Of course Adaptec claimed the problem was not their fault due to them using the newest unreleased research devices, but they were then duly informed of all the failed tests using the exact off-the-shelf Intel SSD's which Adaptec had
booby trapped firmware (was Re: Dell PE850 CERC SATA controller)
On 2010-3-5 2:47 AM, Nick Holland wrote: Think about this a bit. These people DELIBERATELY put a feature in their firmware to STOP me (and a lot of other people) from using this card. Legit user, but they felt that I was entitled to help them debug their shit for no more than sixty days. They worked hard at putting this feature in... That's a very clear illustration of how shit can be loaded into the flash memory AND still have room over for the code that (kind of) does what it is supposed to do. In an 8MB flash, a small network stack and server can fit in a few hundred KB each. /Lars
