Redhat 9.0 on DL380 w/ Smart Array 5i crashes

[Ron Penna_2]

Hello,

I have 2 DL380 G3 servers running Redhat 9 with Smart Array 5i RAID controllers. Both boxes are identical: 2 2.8 ghz Xeon processors, 2 gigs of ram, 5 18 gig drives in a RAID 5 configuration.

One box is randomly kernel panicking. The other box is running fine. I've replaced the RAM in the box that is crashing and that had no effect. Has anyone successfully gotten any of the HP Diagnostic tools for ES3/rh7.3/rh8 to install or run on Redhat 9? I realize it's an unsupported OS but I'm running out of ideas here. Thanks in advance.

Ron

[David Claypool]

I think that many people hear "unsupported OS" and they think, "Oh, HP was too cheap to do the work to test and support it." In the case of RedHat 9 Professional that is far from the truth.

HP's ProLiant testing labs are some of the most stressful environments, running internally developed test tools that are legendary in some development circles. They've consistently found problems in operating systems and applications before anyone else, and used our clout with the ISV to get them addressed.

During testing we encountered several things that are still open items with RH9. That is what led to it being 'unsupported.'

I can't say whether or not the problems you describe are related or not to things experienced in our labs. However, ProLiant servers and RH9 is not a stable combination and that's why it's not supported.

You need to seriously consider backing down to RH8 or moving to RHEL3.