XCP-ng 8.3 No Longer Compatible with Older Adaptec RAID Card?
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I have a system with an older Adaptec ASR-71605 RAID card that has been working fine with XCP-ng 8.2.1. Otherwise the system is Intel 14th gen consumer grade hardware. When I attempt to upgrade to XCP-ng 8.3 by running the downloaded ISO from a bootable USB drive, the installation freezes during the step to "backup the old installation". After several tries and a few hours of waiting, I gave up on the normal upgrades. Sorry, I didn't save the log, but there was a lot of AACRAID timeout errors like those shown in this photo.
Then I tried to upgrade to 8.3 using the alternate kernel, and this works. The server will be up and running for some hours, or a few days, but eventually the VMs and hypervisor seem to lock up (ALL storage is connected to RAID through the Adaptec card). The photo above is the result of this issue. Everything seems to lose, or at least have extremely slow access to the disks.
I did not try running the server with the alternate kernel, just installing with it. I don't know if the alternate kernel would be stable with the Adaptec card in the long term.
For now I left the system at 8.2.1. I'm sure I can replace the RAID card with a newer supported card, which I may do, but I'm wondering if there's a simple and known fix for the older cards that worked on 8.2.1 but eventually stop working on 8.3?
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Mentioning also @Team-Hypervisor-Kernel who now manages the drivers.
Maybe it's related to https://github.com/xcp-ng-rpms/microsemi-aacraid/issues/2#issuecomment-3837183087
It looks like the switch to the vendor driver instead of the kernel built-in for 8.3 (initiated by XenServer, and that we followed at the time as it was probably made in order to support newer cards) was not without drawbacks.
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@dkg I have created a test installer ISO with an updated driver. Would you give it a go, and see if this fixes the issue for you? If you have any issues, then please provide us with the
dmesgoutput during/after installation? Thank you.ISO with updated AACRAID driver: xcp-ng-8.3.0-20250606-aacraid.iso (sha256: 6bd06036ea7f4f3788bdeab4663dc4359917a314b2b6859a88cce9f31b5a5ae2).
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I am s0lkanar1 in the https://github.com/xcp-ng-rpms/microsemi-aacraid/issues/2 thread. I'll reply there when I have more information.
I'll try more testing when I get a chance. I did try that test version first on a stripped down test computer with the relevant RAID card and the upgrade worked on the 2nd attempt, but when I tried on an in-use system with a bunch of running VMs, it was hanging on the install during my two attempts (the VMs were backed up in case of emergency). It didn't damage the 8.2.1 install. I didn't know to grab the dmesg output though before falling back to 8.2.1. It takes some time to set things up to do the tests, but I'll try to do that soon.
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@dkg Oops sorry I thought you were someone else having the same issues.
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I am using a translator because my English is limited. I have 5 identical servers equipped with Adaptec 6805 controllers. Previously, I bypassed the controller issues by using an alternative kernel, but that triggered network problems—specifically, network bonding is unstable on the alt-kernel.I have tested your evaluation image, but unfortunately, it did not resolve the issue. Later today, after my work shift, I will provide the logs and output from dmesg.I am ready to fully cooperate to fix this and can even arrange remote access via IPMI if needed.
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@niko thanks, that would help a ton!
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This post is deleted! -
@poddingue
Hello, sorry for the delayed response. We had some issues with the Supermicro IPMI and were waiting for a resolution. Here are the two log files:dmesg_xcp-ng-8320250606-aacraid-legacy.log dmesg_xcp-ng-8320250606-aacraid-uefi.logThe alternative kernel did not work with your xcp-ng-8.3.0-20250606-aacraid.iso.
I am also providing the log after installing the standard xcp-ng-8.3.0-20250606.iso:
The files can be found at https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1H-0FEruGK26oclD2WInDSOBJhVW2k8Xz?usp=sharing, as I wasn't able to upload the log files directly to the forum.
I am also ready to participate in any further testing of new images, up to and including XCP-ng 9.0.
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Any news about issue?
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Since I'm the happy owner of this controller, if there's no urgent solution, then tell me which models are definitely compatible with 8.3?
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Since I'm the happy owner of this controller, if there's no urgent solution, then tell me which models are definitely compatible with 8.3?
The Adaptec ASR-71605 was released in 2012, that's 14 years old. I'd use https://hcl.xenserver.com/search/?type=storagecontrollers&support_status=supported&page=1 to find compatible controllers if you need help.
But yeah... 14 year old controller...
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P poddingue marked this topic as a question
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14 year old controller
it supported and has a driver. Whats wrong?
I can't find that storage adapter on the HCL, were you able to? But the summary I have here is replace the old really old adapter.
How reliable can't this card still be after working for so long?
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