[elrepo] kmod-sata_via module for CentOS7

[Tristan Evans]

Thanks Phil! I actually didn't seem to get your email with the DUD (I
checked my "spam" just in case). Although I've used pre-made DUDs before, I
really struggled with manually creating the one I'm using, which makes me
wonder if that somehow plays into my issue. I ended up downloading one from
ELRepo, opened it up, replaced the RPM and SRPM with the sata_via one and
recreated the repository. I then made a new .iso of that and wrote it to my
thumb drive. After that, the CentOS installer finally recognized it as a
DUD.

And please, no need to apologize. I'm very appreciative of you and this
community helping me out.

So after playing around a bit, I made a little progress..

What I did was the following:

   1. Downloaded the KMOD RPM and wrote it to one USB stick.
   2. Booted the CentOS 7 installation media from another USB stick.
   3. The CentOS install environment loads with the intree sata_via module
   and I begin installation. It is extremely slow, but it does eventually
   finish.
      1. Just to reiterate, even if I use the `inst.dd` kernel parameter at
      boot and select the DUD with the RPM on it, it doesn't seem to load into
      the CentOS installation environment (likely failing to install
it?), which
      is why the install is painfully slow.
   4. Then from the same install environment, I mounted the disk the OS was
   installed to and "chrooted" into it. I then installed the KMOD RPM from the
   USB stick using `yum`. No need for an update. The package install was super
   slow, but successful!
   5. I then reboot and the OS loads perfectly fine with my flashy new
   sata_via kernel module!

So that is really awesome and proves that it fixes the issue with my
hardware!

But I'm still struggling with getting the CentOS installer environment to
load the KMOD using the `inst.dd` kernel parameter and the DUD. I can't
even manually install the RPM in that environment without the mentioned
dependency errors.

There must be something wrong with the environment I'm loading off of my
flash drive? The only thing I can think of is downloading the CentOS 7
minimal installer fresh and trying that. I am open to any other ideas the
community may have!

On Tue, Jul 20, 2021 at 1:23 PM Phil Perry <phil at elrepo.org> wrote:

> On 20/07/2021 17:31, Tristan Evans wrote:
> > Thanks all, I'm still playing with it and will try all of your
> > suggestions, then report back.
> >
> > The thing that complicates this is that I'm trying all of this from the
> > CentOS (minimal) installer environment loaded from a USB drive, rather
> > than the actual OS installed on the disk, as I can't actually get the
> > installed OS to load after installation (keeps falling into the
> > emergency environment). I'm thinking a lot of my challenges may have
> > something to do with that? However, I have had a lot of luck with
> > loading other KMODs on other systems that have out-of-support hardware
> > (megaraid_sas) in this fashion (loading the RPM from a DUD using the
> > "inst.dd" kernel parameter).
> >
> > I'm not exactly sure how to use `yum` in the installer environment yet
> > (looks like there is `anaconda-yum`, so I could possibly experiment with
> > that). I'm doing another fresh install of CentOS (it takes a while) and
> > then I'll try to `chroot` into that environment from the installer
> > environment, and install the RPM with `yum`. If that doesn't work, I'll
> > do a `yum upgrade` and try again. I don't know if that is really helpful
> > or not, but I'm curious to see what happens.
> >
> > To shed a little light around my main goal is that I have a LOT of these
> > systems with this chipset that I'm trying to get onto CentOS 7 using
> > Foreman, so it is ultimately important for me to be able to get the
> > CentOS installer environment to load the KMOD RPM via a DUD, which would
> > ensure that the OS installs at a non-glacial pace and actually loads
> > during boot :)
> >
> > Apologies if I'm making this overly complicated!
> >
> > Tristan
> >
>
> Hi Tristan,
>
> I've sent you a DUD image for kmod-sata_via off list just in case, but
> sounds like you already have a fair amount of experience working with
> these.
>
> Apologies, in my earlier reply I'd assumed you had a working (albeit
> slowly) installation - I didn't realise you couldn't boot into it.
>
> Phil
>
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