Sparc64 Gutsy Kernel not recognizing ide=nodma

I have seen confirmations of this in the forums, and that it also affects the x86 binary kernels.

Changing status to confirmed based on confirmations in the Ubuntu forums.

I am assigning this bug to the 'ubuntu-kernel-team' per their bug policy. For future reference you can learn more about their bug policy at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeamBugPolicies .

Any chance this issue will be resolved in the next release (8.x / Hardy Heron)? I have an old Sun Blade 100 with Solaris 10 installed. I was hoping to install the Ubuntu [LAMP] server until I read of this problem in kernel bundled with 7.10. It apparently affects all platforms that cannot support DMA -- I have read of issues in sparc builds, and the above suggests it also affects x86 builds?

I'd ask the importance be upped as this can be an Ubuntu deal-breaker for older hardware. If the kernel team can give me a little info about where to find the source, I can take a look and see if I can help spot any particular changes that might have caused this. Meanwhile, I'll dig around a bit and see what I can find.

Thanks--Ron

Found this post, not sure of its relevance to the Ubuntu kernel
http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/3/15/293

"...However the code responsible for manually
enabling DMA ("hdparm -d 1") has a bug which results in DMA being erroneously
enabled - ide_set_dma() incorrectly passes "0" return value to set_using_dma()...."

But info here suggests the "ide=nodma" switch is obsolete as of kernel 2.6.23 -- note that the above post, and this additional information from a few months later are from the same author.
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/snapshots/patch-2.6.23-git11.log

commit c223701cf6c706f42840631c1ca919a18e6e2800
Author: Bartlomiej Zolnierkiewicz <email address hidden>
Date: Tue Oct 16 22:29:58 2007 +0200

    ide: add "hdx=nodma" kernel parameter

    * Add "hdx=nodma" option allowing user to disallow DMA for a given device.

    * Obsolete "ide=nodma" option.

    Acked-by: Sergei Shtylyov <email address hidden>
    Signed-off-by: Bartlomiej Zolnierkiewicz <email address hidden>

I see Hardy Heron Alpha 3 (release 8.04) is bundling kernel 2.6.24. I will contact the author of the above patches to confirm if his patches fix this issue in post 2.6.23.x kernels and will post back here.

Good news. Mr. Zolnierkiewicz, maintainer of the Linux kernel IDE subsystem got back to me very quickly, and I quote -- "hdx=nodma" should work fine with kernels >= 2.6.24 -- thank you very much!!

I have no experience installing Ubuntu yet. I have some experience with other distributions, but this will be my first install of Ubuntu. I will try the Hardy Heron Alpha 3 on my Sun box and try to verify the fix.

Beginning with the Hardy Heron 8.04 development cycle, all open Ubuntu kernel bugs need to be reported against the "linux" kernel package. We are automatically migrating this bug to the new "linux" package. However, development has already began for the upcoming Intrepid Ibex 8.10 release. It would be helpful if you could test the upcoming release and verify if this is still an issue - http://www.ubuntu.com/testing . If the issue still exists, please update this report by changing the Status of the "linux" task from "Incomplete" to "New". We appreciate your patience and understanding as we make this transition. Thanks!

Despite all my efforts I could not get DMA disabled on Ubuntu 8.04 using kernel 2.6.24 and a sparc processor. I tried all the options listed above (hda=nodma, the obsolete ide=nodma, ide_core.options=nodma, etc. etc. etc.) and all indications in logs and such were that DMA was disabled as desired, however the installation would still exhibit the same symptoms as if DMA was still enabled--random system hangs, especially while or just following partitioning of the drive.

I have no reason to believe this has been fixed with the latest kernel, but then I believe more and more distros are moving away from the older ide component to a new one (don't recall the name).

Just want to add that reverting to the older 6.06.2 Ubuntu distro with the 2.6.15 kernel worked fine.

Hi Ron,

Thanks for your continued updates and feedback. I don't suppose you still have that Hardy installation available to gather some log files? It would be good to have the following when running Hardy:

* cat /proc/version_signature > version.log
* dmesg > dmesg.log
* sudo lspci -vvnn > lspci-vvnn.log

For more information regarding the kernel team bug policy, please refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeamBugPolicies . Additionally, if you would be interested, the latest Alpha for the upcoming Intrepid Ibex 8.10 is available for testing - http://www.ubuntu.com/testing . It contains an even newer 2.6.26 kernel. I'm not sure if this will help but it would be nice to know if this issue will still exist in the upcoming release. Thanks again and we appreciate your help and feedback.

The Ubuntu Kernel Team is planning to move to the 2.6.27 kernel for the upcoming Intrepid Ibex 8.10 release. As a result, the kernel team would appreciate it if you could please test this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. There are one of two ways you should be able to test:

1) If you are comfortable installing packages on your own, the linux-image-2.6.27-* package is currently available for you to install and test.

--or--

2) The upcoming Alpha5 for Intrepid Ibex 8.10 will contain this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. Alpha5 is set to be released Thursday Sept 4. Please watch http://www.ubuntu.com/testing for Alpha5 to be announced. You should then be able to test via a LiveCD.

Please let us know immediately if this newer 2.6.27 kernel resolves the bug reported here or if the issue remains. More importantly, please open a new bug report for each new bug/regression introduced by the 2.6.27 kernel and tag the bug report with 'linux-2.6.27'. Also, please specifically note if the issue does or does not appear in the 2.6.26 kernel. Thanks again, we really appreicate your help and feedback.

I'll be happy to test out the Alpha5 build after it is released, but can you tell me precisely what kernel option or options I should provide to disable DMA? I understand ide=nodma is deprecated and may even be removed at this point. And its never been clear exactly what the new option to disable DMA on all channels and devices should be with the new kernel switches.

Also, I believe the underlying IDE system may now different between Sparc and x86 kernels? Can you confirm?

Finally, to the earlier post, I'd like to provide logs of the system, but 9 times out of 10 the system crashed during installation (usually at drive partitioning), so I could never get a log. Nor could I pull and update the kernel to a machine which cannot install and boot. But perhaps the LiveCD will work -- if DMA is disabled for the DVD-ROM drive.

Per a decision made by the Ubuntu Kernel Team, bugs will longer be assigned to the ubuntu-kernel-team in Launchpad as part of the bug triage process. The ubuntu-kernel-team is being unassigned from this bug report. Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeamBugPolicies for more information. Thanks.

This bug seems to have been lost for some time. Would it be possible to confirm if you still have this issue in Hardy or later releases. If you could report back here that would be helpful. Thanks!

Ubuntu Server 6.06.2 was the last server build I could install on that Sun Blade 100 (sparc64). All attempts at getting the IDE subsystem to disable DMA with kernels 2.6.24 and newer failed. As I mentioned above, I tried an exhaustive list of [kernel/IDE] options to disable DMA but was never able to complete an installation due to system hang (DMA issue). It seems to be a problem in the newer IDE subsystem specific to sparc64 builds ??

Unfortunately I no longer have that Sun box available for testing and have moved on to x86-based systems instead.

I can't confirm whether it's still there or not because the Jaunty CD doesn't even recognize the IDE controller in the first place. Like the other report, 6.06.2 was the last server build that would install on my SunBlade 150. And it looks like there isn't a build to try for Karmic. Am I to assume that Ubuntu has finally abandoned the Sparc platform completely? :(

I think it is still there.
I use a CompactFlash Card as IDE-Drive without a pin for DMA on the CF-IDE adapter. This is inside a Jetway J7F2WE-EDEN MiniITX-Mainboard (with VIA processor). On this hardware runs UBUNTU Jaunty 9.04 with Kernel 2.6.28-11-generic. After booting the kernel immediately hangs 3-times for about 30 sec's with the following messages:
[ 5.044287] ata4.00: configured for MWDMA2
[ 5.045070] sdc:<3>ata4.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x6 frozen
[ 35.816075] ata4.00: cmd c8/00:08:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/e0 tag 0 dma 4096 in
[ 35.816081] res 40/00:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/00 Emask 0x4 (timeout)
[ 35.816206] ata4.00: status: { DRDY }
[ 35.816291] ata4: soft resetting link
. . .
[ 66.816036] ata4.00: limiting speed to MWDMA1:PIO4
[ 66.816044] ata4.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x6 frozen
[ 66.816114] ata4.00: cmd c8/00:08:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/e0 tag 0 dma 4096 in
[ 66.816119] res 40/00:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/00 Emask 0x4 (timeout)
[ 66.816235] ata4.00: status: { DRDY }
[ 66.816307] ata4: soft resetting link
. . .
[ 97.816034] ata4.00: limiting speed to PIO4
[ 97.816042] ata4.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x6 frozen
[ 97.816111] ata4.00: cmd c8/00:08:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/e0 tag 0 dma 4096 in
[ 97.816116] res 40/00:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/00 Emask 0x4 (timeout)
[ 97.816232] ata4.00: status: { DRDY }
[ 97.816304] ata4: soft resetting link
[ 98.004287] ata4.00: configured for PIO4
[ 98.028286] ata4.00: configured for PIO4
[ 98.028298] ata4: EH complete
[ 98.030022] sdc1 sdc2 sdc3
[ 98.067480] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI disk
and further the system boots up normal with / on sdc1 (type xfs), swap on sdc2
(sdc = 16GB CF-Card).

I try to boot with kerel param "ide=nodma" and also the new "hd0=nodma" (is that correct?) but always same behavior.
hdparm -i /dev/sdc outputs for DMA:
DMA modes: *mdma0 mdma1 mdma2

I would be interested on a kernel patch, which does not try the various DMA-Modes.
Thank You.
(This is my first comment on this bugreport-forum)

This bug report was marked as Incomplete and has not had any updated comments for quite some time. As a result this bug is being closed. Please reopen if this is still an issue in the current Ubuntu release http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download . Also, please be sure to provide any requested information that may have been missing. To reopen the bug, click on the current status under the Status column and change the status back to "New". Thanks.

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