[ofw] RE: Windows Server 2008 (x64) mthca install via DPINST.EXE

[Tzachi Dar]

Trying to combine the two threads back to one:

I guess that we all agree that the co installer makes problems on LH.
The real question is how to solve them.

I must say that I'm not sure that I understand why inf installation is
that important?
>From reading Jan mails, than I see that even today he installs things
manually (to a local disk), and than creates an image. Can you please
add more details why it is that important?

In any case, there are 3 options that I see that will allow INF
installation:
1) Using a filter driver with a service (auto start). I'm not sure that
this is a documented way.
2) Installing the IBBUS driver as a service only, probably much more
documented. This server will start on demand and can probably start
before any user mode code.
3) Have the functionality of the IB-BUS exposed by mthca.sys. By this
approach there is only one driver (mthca). MTHCA than loads the
IBBUS.sys driver dynamically and implements it's functionality.

All comments are welcomed.

Thanks
Tzachi
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ofw-bounces at lists.openfabrics.org 
> [mailto:ofw-bounces at lists.openfabrics.org] On Behalf Of Jan Bottorff
> Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2007 3:44 AM
> To: Tzachi Dar; Reuven Amitai; Fab Tillier; Smith, Stan
> Cc: ofw at lists.openfabrics.org
> Subject: RE: [ofw] RE: Windows Server 2008 (x64) mthca 
> install via DPINST.EXE
> 
> > 1) Install the mthca (no co-installer) - should be trivial.
> > 2) Create a stand alone program that will create the node 
> of the Ibbus.
> > 3) Install the bus driver.
> 
> This would be bad for installing the OS into a clean fabric 
> attached disk (like you can with FC adapters). You MUST get 
> the hca/ibbus/system disk driver (srp or other) to all 
> install ONLY from the inf. 
> 
> Actually, the current coinstaller based strategy I believe 
> may already be problematic, since you need the ibbus to come 
> up BEFORE any user mode code runs. 
> 
> We are currently installing the OS on a local SATA disk and 
> adding the IB drivers (plus our drivers), and then imaging 
> the volume. We then write that image to a fabric disk using a 
> PXE booted Windows PE 2.0. We can then boot that fabric disk 
> using boot bios code we have for the hca. It would be nice to 
> just run an unattended (or not) install (while running 
> something like Windows PE) that installs directly to a fabric disk.
> 
> 
--------------------------------------------------------------------

> Your proposed installation process would make it impossible 
> to have an INF-based installation, which the co-installer enables.
> 
> Another way to solve this issue is to make ibbus.sys an 
> upper-level filter driver for the HCA, and have it listed as 
> part of the MTHCA INF file.  This removes the IB Fabric 
> device altogether, including the co-installer and INF file.  
> The drawback here is that you lose the ability of have IB 
> applications start before the HCA.  This could be solved by 
> marking ibbus.sys as a service that would auto-start.  When 
> the driver starts, it could create a device object and create 
> the symbolic name from its DriverEntry routine for the 
> existing IBAL device.
> 
> -Fab
> 
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