Proper permanent setup of 1394 drivers

[Rick Stevens]

Mark Knecht wrote:
> Rick Stevens wrote:
> 
>> Mark Knecht wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>    Under FC2 what is the proper way to tell it to load the 1394
>>> drivers at boot time? It seems that USB drivers are loaded in
>>> /etc/modprobe using an alias command, but USB uses a single driver for
>>> each controller. However the 1394 drivers require that I load 3 
>>> drivers (ieee1394, ohci1394 and sbp2) to get access to all of my 
>>> peripherals.
>>> Where and how can I do this?
>>
>>
>>
>> In /etc/modprobe.conf (the replacement for /etc/modules.conf under
>> 2.6 kernels).  The modules.dep file shows some dependencies, but not
>> enough to satisfy your needs.  However, we can forcefeed the modules you
>> want as follows:
>>
>> 1.  Create an "/etc/modules.special" file.  In it, put in the following
>> lines:
>>
>>     /sbin/modprobe ohci1394
>>     /sbin/modprobe ieee1394
>>     /sbin/modprobe sbp2
>>
>> (you can optionally stuff a little ">/dev/null 2>&1" at the end of each
>> line if you want any possible "already loaded" messages to go to the bit
>> bucket).  Save the file and set as owner and group root, permissions
>> 555:
>>
>>     chown root:root /etc/modules.special
>>     chmod 555 /etc/modules.special
>>
>> 2. Edit /etc/modprobe.conf and add these lines:
>>
>>     install ohci1394 /etc/modules.special
>>     install ieee1394 /etc/modules.special
>>     install sbp2 /etc/modules.special
>>
>> Now, whenever you try to "modprobe" any one of the three, the other two
>> will also install.  Yes, it's butt ugly.  A more elegant solution would
>> be to bugger the "/lib/modules/`uname -r`/modules.dep" file, but that
>> can be a dangerous thing to do if you're not careful.
>>
>> See "man modprobe", "man modprobe.conf", and "man modules.dep" for
>> details on the above magic.
> 
> 
> Rick,
>    Thanks, but not working right so far:
> 
> 1) When I booted none of the modules were actually loaded. Smallish 
> problem, but it would still require me to su to root and modprobe one of 
> the drivers, if problem 2 didn't exist...

Are the aliases still in the file?  The installs aren't triggered until
the alias is invoked--usually due to a USB bus scan or a "plug in"
event.

> 2) modprobe sbp2 resulted in my console running away on me.  The hard
> drive when into 100% access. (visually anyway) Going to another console 
> and running top shown only top taking up CPU accesses.

Really?  That's odd.  When you say "running away", you mean that console
wouldn't respond?  Are you sure the disk activity wasn't caused by, say,
an updatedb or prelink run?

sbp2 does require the scsi_mod module, but the modprobe should have
loaded it because the modules.dep says it's a dependency.  Very weird.

>                                                        The only way out, 
> after a minute or two of this, was a power button push. Upon startign 
> again I'm greeted with 'system not shutdown cleanly' and a file system 
> check. Ctrl-D when it was done, a reboot, another file system check, and 
> then it booted.
> 
> Not a pretty sight!

Uh, no.  Yuck!  Sorry about that. :-(

> The system is back up. Nothing in dmesg or /var/log/messages of any 
> obvious interest. Nothing in lost+found. (thankfully)

Whew!

> I think something is not quite right here.... ;-)

Yeah.  Hmmm.  Well, you could add an "/sbin/modprobe scsi_mod" before
the "/sbin/modprobe sbp2" in the modules.special file if you're willing
to try again.  Or you can delete all that stuff I mentioned and simply
add the appropriate modprobe commands to /etc/rc.d/rc.local.  That's
real simple, except that they'll load every time you boot--even if you
don't have a device that uses them.  Your call.  I don't have any 1394
devices to play with or I'd do some testing for you.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-   "Do you suffer from long-term memory loss?"  "I don't remember"  -
-                            -- Chumbawumba, "Amnesia" (TubThumping) -
----------------------------------------------------------------------