QLogic module (qla2xxx) fails to load upon server startup

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Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10

Situation

After updating the kernel, the QLogic drivers fail to load during server startup and no LUNs are seen.

The following message can usually be found in /var/log/boot.msg:

FATAL: Error inserting qla2xxx (/lib/modules/2.6.27.19-5-default/kernel/drivers/scsi/qla2xxx/qla2xxx.ko): Unknown symbol in module, or unknownparameter (see dmesg)

Resolution

This is caused by qla2xxx module parameters in /etc/modprobe.conf.local that are no longer valid under the new kernel. The parameters in question are commonly added to modprobe.conf.local by a third party script that is used to configure the QLogic adapters. One of the configurations that we have seen cause this is:

/etc/modprobe.conf.local

options qla2xxx qlport_down_retry=1 ql2xfailover=1 ql2xretrycount=5

remove qla2xxx /sbin/modprobe -r --first-time --ignore-remove qla2xxx && { /sbin/modprobe -r --ignore-remove qla2xxx_conf; }

In the above example, the ql2xfailover and ql2xretrycount options are not supported in the QLogic driver in SLES10. Removing these deprecated options will resolve this problem.

Note - If the qla2xxx module is being added to the initrd, the initrd must be rebuilt using `mkinitrd` command after changing the /etc/modprobe.conf.local file.

Disclaimer

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