Field Notice: FN - 62946 - WAAS Version 4.0.13 Code Removed from CCO Due to Disk Driver Issues

September 20, 2007

NOTICE:

THIS FIELD NOTICE IS PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" BASIS AND DOES NOT IMPLY ANY KIND OF GUARANTEE OR WARRANTY, INCLUDING THE WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY. YOUR USE OF THE INFORMATION ON THE FIELD NOTICE OR MATERIALS LINKED FROM THE FIELD NOTICE IS AT YOUR OWN RISK. CISCO RESERVES THE RIGHT TO CHANGE OR UPDATE THIS FIELD NOTICE AT ANY TIME.

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Products Affected

Products Affected
WAE 600 - WAE-612-K9

Problem Description

The hardware vendor for the hard drives Cisco uses in this device recently upgraded the firmware on their SAS drives which has created an incompatibility with the driver software that was updated in WAAS 4.0.13.12 release. This incompatibility will cause the system to generate I/O error messages which indicate the drive is unusable.

Background

In previous code versions Cisco used driver version 1.0.7 for the third party hard drives. In 4.0.13.12, as part of the hot-swap functionality enhancements, a more recent driver was introduced - version 1.0.8-10. This driver included performance improvements, but also introduced a compatibility issue. This issue has been addressed in DDTS CSCsk03273, which has been resolved in WAAS version 4.0.13.23.

Problem Symptoms

The effect of this issue is that the disk driver may mistakenly identify the disk as unusable or disabled. The syslog.txt file will show several errors like the following:

kernel: %WAAS-SYS-4-900000: Command timed out busy=2 failed=0 cmd=0xc6cae380 timeout=0(30000), retries=0(5)

Those log entries would be followed by log entries, similar to the following, which indicate the drive is taken down by software:

kernel: %WAAS-SYS-4-900000: SCSI disk error : host 0 channel 0 id 128 lun 0 

kernel: %WAAS-SYS-2-900000: SCSI I/O error: POSSIBLE BAD DISK 

kernel: %WAAS-SYS-4-900000: end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 552439049 

kernel: %WAAS-SYS-4-900000: scsi_eh_0: flush finish cmd: dc3d2380 

kernel: %WAAS-SYS-3-900000: scsi0 (128:0): rejecting I/O to device being removed

The drive would then be marked "bad" and remain unused until the administrator forces the drive to rejoin the RAID by issuing the following command:

no disk diskname shutdown force

The system may or may not require a reboot before the drive will come back online. While the drive firmware and software driver incompatibility remains, the drive may go "down" in this way at any time.

Devices that may be affected by this incompatibility can be identified in the following ways:

- One or more of the drives installed are Seagate drives with a label that says

Seagate Model Number: ST3300555SS

Firmware Rev: BA33

- From the CLI, by running the show disk tech-support command.

Note: Only WAAS 4.0.13 running on newer WAE-612-K9 devices, with Seagate drives that have updated firmware, exhibit this incompatibility.

Workaround/Solution

This incompatibility has been addressed in WAAS 4.0.13.23, which replaces WAAS 4.0.13.12. Customers with devices affected by this condition will need to upgrade to this newer version of WAAS 4.0.13. Cisco recommends upgrading all WAE-612-K9 devices, even if they do not have a drive with the firmware identified in this field notice. Devices running WAAS 4.0.13.23 are fully compatible with other devices running WAAS 4.0.13.12. Upgrading other devices to WAAS 4.0.13.23 will not cause any issues, as that image is compatible with all WAAS hardware devices shipping today.

This software can be found on CCO at the Cisco WAAS 4.0 Cryptographic Software Downloads (registered customers only) page.

After the upgrade, the disk errors reported in the syslog.txt file will cease. The status of the disks can be confirmed by running the show disk tech-support command.

DDTS

To follow the bug ID link below and see detailed bug information, you must be a registered user and you must be logged in.

DDTS	Description
CSCsk03273 (registered customers only)	612 hang after couple of hours of traffic - SCSI errors

Revision History

Revision	Date	Comment
1.0	20-SEP-2007	Initial Public Release

For More Information

If you require further assistance, or if you have any further questions regarding this field notice, please contact the Cisco Systems Technical Assistance Center (TAC) by one of the following methods:

• Open a service request on Cisco.com
• By email
• By telephone

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