hpsa on RHEL 5

[POSSGeek]

Is it possible to use "hpsa" driver instead "cciss" while installing RHEL 5? I couldn't find the driver for RHEL 5

[Matti_Kurkela]

Which hardware model you're installing RHEL 5 to? And which is the model of the SmartArray controller in it?

When new Proliant server models have been introduced, RedHat has usually included the necessary drivers to their standard kernel package as soon as possible (i.e. with the next update release).

The "hpsa" driver was added to the standard kernel in Linux kernel version 2.6.33, but RHEL 5 uses 2.6.18. Using the hpsa driver with the older kernels would require backporting it, i.e. either re-implementing all the internal kernel features required by the driver that don't exist in 2.6.18, or removing/reworking driver features to make it not need those kernel features.

It seems neither RedHat nor HP has made the effort to backport "hpsa" to the older kernels. If you really want it, you could do it yourself (as the driver is open-sourced).

You should check the HP Technical Exceptions Matrix for RHEL to see the minimum RHEL version that can support your hardware:

http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/linux/supportmatrix/rhel/exceptions/rhel-exceptions.html

With a quick look through it, I noticed that some newer G8 servers are listed with RHEL 5.7 as minimum requirement. Since RHEL 5.8 is already out, you probably should use it for new RHEL 5.x installations unless there is an important reason to do otherwise.