Seeking advice - old DG/UX Intel based.
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From: DGUX on 29 Jul 2010 08:39 Hello all, We got an old DG/UX (Data General UNIX) machine (an AViiON box, Intel based). I'm trying to virtualize/emulate it, so that it would work as is on a vm. I've DD'ed over the raw disks as images and I can boot it up (bootloader works) but it doesn't load up the kernel/system due to it's Adaptec PCI SCSI Controller and the lack of support from the virtulization products side (which support mainly Buslogic and LSI). From what I gathered, I got 2 choices here : 1. Write an Adaptec driver / firmware emulation and such for a VM product. 2. Write a BusLogic/LSI driver for DG/UX. The second options seems like a better one to me, and perhaps an easier one. According to the DG/UX docs, a System V Release 4 (SVR4) STREAMS driver is the easiest to port to DG/UX. From what I understand, a STREAMS driver is for character devices, ie. keyboard, mouse, net', and not block devices as HDDs, CDROM etc. Is there a STREAMS driver for BusLogic / LSI Controllers? Some tech: Adaptec chip is AIC-7880 DG/UX also supports Qlogic - QLA1040-PI and the QLA1041-PI cards. Most vm products support: Buslogic BT-958, PCI ID 104B:1040 || BusLogic BT-946C (BA80C30) LSI Logic - LSI53C1030 chip. Any extra thought / advice would be very much appreciated. If you need any extra info / logs / config files, let me know. Thanks a lot, Danny P.s Application updates/porting is not an options at the moment. All I want to do is get some stabillity and redundancy on this old AViiON boxes.
From: Scott Lurndal on 29 Jul 2010 13:30 DGUX <dgunix(a)gmail.com> writes: >Hello all, > >We got an old DG/UX (Data General UNIX) machine (an AViiON box, Intel >based). >I'm trying to virtualize/emulate it, so that it would work as is on a >vm. >I've DD'ed over the raw disks as images and I can boot it up >(bootloader works) but > >it doesn't load up the kernel/system due to it's Adaptec PCI SCSI >Controller and > >the lack of support from the virtulization products side (which >support mainly > >Buslogic and LSI). > >From what I gathered, I got 2 choices here : > >1. Write an Adaptec driver / firmware emulation and such for a VM >product. >2. Write a BusLogic/LSI driver for DG/UX. Depending on _what_ virtualization product you are using: 3. Port the XEN or KVM paravirt or virtio storage and network drivers to DG/UX. I believe that VMware may also support a paravirt block driver, but dunno opensource status. All cases would be a substantial amount of work since the DG/UX kernel is much different from Linux, BSD or VMware. Unixware (which like DG/UX is based on SVR4, if I recall correctly) has a driver for the aic7xxx chips; this may be the easiest to port, but it isn't open source. scott
From: DGUX on 29 Jul 2010 15:15 On Jul 29, 8:30 pm, sc...(a)slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) wrote: > DGUX <dgu...(a)gmail.com> writes: > >Hello all, > > >We got an old DG/UX (Data General UNIX) machine (an AViiON box, Intel > >based). > >I'm trying to virtualize/emulate it, so that it would work as is on a > >vm. > >I've DD'ed over the raw disks as images and I can boot it up > >(bootloader works) but > > >it doesn't load up the kernel/system due to it's Adaptec PCI SCSI > >Controller and > > >the lack of support from the virtulization products side (which > >support mainly > > >Buslogic and LSI). > > >From what I gathered, I got 2 choices here : > > >1. Write an Adaptec driver / firmware emulation and such for a VM > >product. > >2. Write a BusLogic/LSI driver for DG/UX. > > Depending on _what_ virtualization product you are using: > > 3. Port the XEN or KVM paravirt or virtio storage and network drivers to DG/UX. > > I believe that VMware may also support a paravirt block driver, but dunno opensource > status. > > All cases would be a substantial amount of work since the DG/UX kernel is much > different from Linux, BSD or VMware. Unixware (which like DG/UX is based on SVR4, > if I recall correctly) has a driver for the aic7xxx chips; this may be the easiest > to port, but it isn't open source. > > scott- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text - You're correct, that is a 3rd options. Although I think that option would be difficult to implement 'cause I cannot really mess arount too much with the DG's kernel or reboot it (affraid it won't boot up again). Not having the source code is indeed another bump in the road. I think that all things considered, Adapted support in VMware/Vbox/Qemu/ Xen or such will be the best option, for many other Adaptec users, not just in DG/UX. And also will not require any DG/UX specific kernel knowledge. Been trying to locate the source code for that Adaptec driver in my DG system, nothing. It isn't/wasn't open source. What else can I do ? I guess I can try and nag vm product developers to try and patch in Adaptec aic7xxxx suport, even linux drivers will do. As long as the chip is the same, the DG system will recognize it.
From: Aragorn on 29 Jul 2010 20:06 On Thursday 29 July 2010 19:30 in comp.unix.questions, somebody identifying as Scott Lurndal wrote... > DGUX <dgunix(a)gmail.com> writes: > >> We got an old DG/UX (Data General UNIX) machine (an AViiON box, Intel >> based). I'm trying to virtualize/emulate it, so that it would work as >> is on a vm. I've DD'ed over the raw disks as images and I can boot it >> up (bootloader works) but it doesn't load up the kernel/system due to >> it's Adaptec PCI SCSI Controller and the lack of support from the >> virtulization products side (which support mainly Buslogic and LSI). >> >> From what I gathered, I got 2 choices here : >> >> 1. Write an Adaptec driver / firmware emulation and such for a VM >> product. >> 2. Write a BusLogic/LSI driver for DG/UX. > > Depending on _what_ virtualization product you are using: > > 3. Port the XEN or KVM paravirt or virtio storage and network drivers > to DG/UX. In the event of Xen, the OP can also run the DG/UX system as a fully virtualized guest - as opposed to a paravirtual guest - in which case the guest doesn't need to know about the underlying hardware being SCSI, as long as said guest itself supports a generic PIIX3 IDE controller. (Xen 4.0 and later /may/ actually even support SCSI emulation to hardware-virtualized guests, but I'm not sure on that.) > I believe that VMware may also support a paravirt block driver, but > dunno opensource status. Well, with regard to paravirtualization, a block driver has to come as a pair of two different drivers, one being the back-end driver in the host - or in the event of Xen, the privileged guest - and one being a front-end driver to be used in the unprivileged, paravirtualized guest. VMWare may itself have such a back-end driver, but then it still remains to be seen whether there is a front-end driver for DG/UX. The OP might then want to write one of their own, but VMWare also supports full virtualization, so perhaps that would be an easier approach. The caveat would of course be that the hardware must have virtualization extensions and that they are enabled. This certainly applies to Xen - without it, Xen only offers paravirtualization - but I'm not sure on VMWare. It is possible that VMWare supports full virtualization via emulation, but that would be rather slow. > All cases would be a substantial amount of work since the DG/UX kernel > is much different from Linux, BSD or VMware. Unixware (which like > DG/UX is based on SVR4, if I recall correctly) has a driver for the > aic7xxx chips; this may be the easiest to port, but it isn't open > source. (Open)Solaris is also based upon SVR4, and I believe it has a driver for said Adaptec chips as well. OpenSolaris is licensed under the CDDL, so if it has such a driver, then the OP might study it in order to write one for DG/UX. (Disclaimer: I'm not well-versed enough on the CDDL to know whether it allows that the driver simply be ported to a proprietary operating system or not. What I do know is that the GPL explicitly forbids that sort of thing.) -- *Aragorn* (registered GNU/Linux user #223157)
From: DGUX on 30 Jul 2010 02:53
On Jul 30, 3:06 am, Aragorn <arag...(a)chatfactory.invalid> wrote: > On Thursday 29 July 2010 19:30 in comp.unix.questions, somebody > identifying as Scott Lurndal wrote... > > > > > > > DGUX <dgu...(a)gmail.com> writes: > > >> We got an old DG/UX (Data General UNIX) machine (an AViiON box, Intel > >> based). I'm trying to virtualize/emulate it, so that it would work as > >> is on a vm. I've DD'ed over the raw disks as images and I can boot it > >> up (bootloader works) but it doesn't load up the kernel/system due to > >> it's Adaptec PCI SCSI Controller and the lack of support from the > >> virtulization products side (which support mainly Buslogic and LSI). > > >> From what I gathered, I got 2 choices here : > > >> 1. Write an Adaptec driver / firmware emulation and such for a VM > >> product. > >> 2. Write a BusLogic/LSI driver for DG/UX. > > > Depending on _what_ virtualization product you are using: > > > 3. Port the XEN or KVM paravirt or virtio storage and network drivers > > to DG/UX. > > In the event of Xen, the OP can also run the DG/UX system as a fully > virtualized guest - as opposed to a paravirtual guest - in which case > the guest doesn't need to know about the underlying hardware being > SCSI, as long as said guest itself supports a generic PIIX3 IDE > controller. (Xen 4.0 and later /may/ actually even support SCSI > emulation to hardware-virtualized guests, but I'm not sure on that.) > > > I believe that VMware may also support a paravirt block driver, but > > dunno opensource status. > > Well, with regard to paravirtualization, a block driver has to come as a > pair of two different drivers, one being the back-end driver in the > host - or in the event of Xen, the privileged guest - and one being a > front-end driver to be used in the unprivileged, paravirtualized guest. > > VMWare may itself have such a back-end driver, but then it still remains > to be seen whether there is a front-end driver for DG/UX. The OP might > then want to write one of their own, but VMWare also supports full > virtualization, so perhaps that would be an easier approach. > > The caveat would of course be that the hardware must have virtualization > extensions and that they are enabled. This certainly applies to Xen - > without it, Xen only offers paravirtualization - but I'm not sure on > VMWare. It is possible that VMWare supports full virtualization via > emulation, but that would be rather slow. > > > All cases would be a substantial amount of work since the DG/UX kernel > > is much different from Linux, BSD or VMware. Unixware (which like > > DG/UX is based on SVR4, if I recall correctly) has a driver for the > > aic7xxx chips; this may be the easiest to port, but it isn't open > > source. > > (Open)Solaris is also based upon SVR4, and I believe it has a driver for > said Adaptec chips as well. OpenSolaris is licensed under the CDDL, so > if it has such a driver, then the OP might study it in order to write > one for DG/UX. > > (Disclaimer: I'm not well-versed enough on the CDDL to know whether it > allows that the driver simply be ported to a proprietary operating > system or not. What I do know is that the GPL explicitly forbids that > sort of thing.) > > -- > *Aragorn* > (registered GNU/Linux user #223157)- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text - Full virt' would be great, but there is a caveat - DG/UX does not support IDE. Although it displays some BIOS options and such, the docs say : "Data General has not tested or qualified the use of IDE devices in AViiON AV 2100 systems". I got a full list of supported hardware, straight from the DG system. Also, I don't need to port aic7xxx driver to DG. DG system already supports Adaptec, it only support Adaptec. I need either for the DG system to support a VM product controller, ie, buslogic/lsi or virtio or for a VM product to support Adaptec. |