SUSE FCoE
Bootable Driver Kit

version

3.0

details

This Bootable Driver Kit addresses the following issues with installing SUSE Linux Enterprise Server SP3 with Fibre Channel over Ethernet boot devices.

1. FCoE in UEFI mode

When installing SUSE Linux Enterprise Server SP3 in UEFI mode, with a bootable FCoE device inserted, boot from the installation media will cause grub2 to hang after 

Loading kernel ...
Secure boot not enabled
Loading initial ramdisk ...

An updated kernel is provided that fixes the issue.

2. FCoE timeout accessing boot device

On certain boot over FCoE setups the OS might fail to find the root disk right after the first boot.

This driver kit increases the link retry count of the Ethernet VLAN discovery to ensure all devices are up and discovered correctly during the bootup sequence before continuing to access the filesystems.

3. Fail to detect devices on Dell systems

On Dell systems where biosdevname is active, the network interfaces will be of the form emN and pXpY and aren't detected by the fcoe boot scripts.

This driver kit updates the boot scripts to handle the Dell biosdevname device names.

Updates to the installer as well as the open-fcoe and yast2-fcoe-client packages are provided to address issues 2 and 3.

platforms

  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 3

architectures

  • x86_64

media


Driver Kit ISO Image
File: suse_fcoe-sle11sp3-x86_64-3.0.iso · [download]
Size 409 MB
MD5 Checksum 8019d626c6b1b4c4e4fd0b8aa1b14927
SHA256 Checksum 36610ecc8cf82e45aec14c022f5a0ed91551503187fd20b1bc7fb5210fa7e472

installation

Media installation

  1. Burn the ISO image above to an empty CD/DVD media.
  2. Start the installation using the new CD/DVD media, having the standard SUSE Linux Enterprise media at hand or a URL to a network installation server.
    • If doing a network install, enter the URL of the network install source on the boot command line using the 'install=' option.
    • If doing installation from optical media the installer will first boot from the driver kit and then ask to insert CD1 of the SUSE Linux Enterprise product.
  3. An initrd containing updated drivers will be used for installation.

PXE boot installation

  1. Download the ISO image above.
  2. Mount the ISO image for access to the contents.
  3. Copy the kernel and initrd images from the driver kit iso image to the appropriate location on your tftp boot server. The initrd and kernel image are found under the ./install/boot/x86_64/loader directory. Download links for the kernel and initrd images can also be found in the table below.
  4. Copy the contents of the ISO image to a location on your installation server. (The /boot directory may be omitted)
  5. Add the URL of the driver kit location on the installation server to the boot command of the pxelinux config file using the 'addon=' option.
  6. An updated kernel will be used for installation and installed onto the system.

Example pxelinux config file section: 

# Install SLES 11 SP3 with Bootable Driver Kit
label install-bdk
kernel linux-bdk
append initrd=initrd-bdk splash=silent vga=0x314 showopts install=http://installserver/SLES-11-SP3-x86_64 addon=http://installserver/bdk
Kernel Image
Name linux · [download]
Size 3.76 MB
MD5 Checksum 50235da82f06763608afbcc5a7f41617
SHA256 Checksum fafc5d41fb92936c9612e272c5bb9bb74e8872677f571e375a40cda5a29eb10b
Initrd Image
Name initrd · [download]
Size 35.0 MB
MD5 Checksum 37d6dbb935dd231999750e5e402fa46a
SHA256 Checksum 449346fad101b6d4b672e5f707b2cefaf2f9f63b8e621114d276589b9c42c2f9

package names and versions

The following packages are provided with this driver kit: