Re: Adding support for lsi 3ware 9750 and 8 cores

-----Original Message-----
From: Olaf Westrik [mailto:weizen_42-Yz37vSk3/[email protected]] 
Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2014 3:25 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [IPCop-devel] Adding support for lsi 3ware 9750 and 8
cores

On 2014-03-30 19:19, Seth Bardash wrote:

> Single AMD opteron 6000 series, 8 cores,
> Supermicro H8SGL Motherboard,
> 8 GB DDR3-1333 RECC DRAM,

Sounds like an unnecessary limitation.


> LSI 4 port raid controller with 3 disks (RAID 1 + hot spare) in
> shuttles

Better invest in a 4th disk and use RAID 10.


> 4 LAN ports - all intel pro/1000 type
> Redundant HS power supplies.
>
> This should provide an extremely reliable and long lasting
> firewall.
>
> I ask now with all due regard for the great effort put forth on
> IPCOP:
>
> Can the development team add support for the LSI 9750-4i
> controller:
>
> driver 3w-sas
> Source code is available for the 2.6.32 kernel as a simple
> download from LSI under support, driver source code.
>
http://www.lsi.com/downloads/Public/SATA/SATA%20Common%20Files/dri
> ver-linux-97xx-10.2.2.1.zip
>
> Can the development team add support for up to 8 cores instead
of
> the present 4 core limit?

Better to change to 64 or even 128. While at it, drop support for
i486 
etc. and require X86_64.


> It should only require a single line change in the kernel build.
>
> I would be glad to make these changes if someone can point me to
> the correct method
> of creating a build environment and adding changes and drivers.
> Plus the proper method of how to report them back to the
> development team.

http://www.ipcop.org/development.php


Olaf

Been there and have found it very terse and outdated.

I think that an i486 and an x86_64 version should be made. This
would support
anything from low end firewalls to high-end versions that can
support very high
speed transfers and proxy caching for larger installations.

I like the idea of supporting up to 128 cores, although I could
not justify the usage of more than 32 cores.

I am in the process of getting the sources together ( the
"./make.sh prefetch" has 27 errors trying to get the external
sources).
I am in the process of fixing this so I can have a starting point
that is equivalent to the existing release.
I am working with the r7388 svn version as a starting point. I
will post the changes once I'm sure they work.

We just finished putting on line a new high performance ftp
server. After I fix the 27 errors, I will put the packages and the
changes on our ftp server for the developers to look at and either
change or include in the svn trunk. Once I have the sources
building properly, I will create a larger
"all in one" download for the external sources. Then I will fix
the kernel and driver issues needed to support the above and post
the process
just as I did a few years ago. This would allow anyone wanting to
customize IPCOP a simpler build method.

As far as the disk configurations: RAID 1 plus a hot spare with
automatic rebuild provides plenty of performance and redundancy
for our small ISP. The LSI 9750-4 does automatic verify and
rebuild once a week and enters the results in the kernel logs of
IPCOP.

If I was supporting a larger organization I would be using 6 to 8
smaller disks (for speed) with RAID 5 and a hot spare but the
increase in performance is a waste of money. RAID 1 supports about
150MB/sec to 200 MB/sec. RAID 5 on 6 disks supports about
250MB/sec to 450MB/sec. Present disk usage is so low that the
difference is not even seen at the system level for IPCOP.

Speaking of storage: 
When I install the existing iso image, and use the option "install
swap=2000" the install process only creates 
a very small swap space of ~140MB. I must look into this and
figure a way to force a 2GB swap space
even though none of my IPCOP firewalls ever used the swap space.
It a comfort thing...   ;-)

Investigations, fixes, build environment, source collection and
build speed increases will continue.
All suggestions, input, corrections and advice are welcome.

Regards,

Seth Bardash

Integrated Solutions and Systems
1510 Old North Gate Road
Colorado Springs, CO 80921

719-495-5866 Shop
719-495-5870 Fax
719-337-4779 Cell

http://www.integratedsolutions.org

Failure can not cope with knowledge and perseverance! 


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