What is Hitachi's Host Bus Adapter (HBA), why does it use an additional binary driver and why doesn't Red Hat support it directly?

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Issue

  • What is Hitachi's Host Bus Adapter (HBA), why does it use an additional binary driver and why doesn't Red Hat support it directly?

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5
  • Red Hat Enterprise Open Stack Platform 4
  • Red Hat Enterprise Open Stack Platform 3
  • Hitachi's Host Bus Adapter (HBA)
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform 5
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform 6
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform 7
  • Red Hat OpenStack Platform 8
  • Red Hat OpenStack Platform 9
  • Red Hat OpenStack Platform 10
  • Red Hat OpenStack Platform 11

Resolution

Hitachi offers its own HBA on servers listed in the above Environment section, which includes a "value add" driver option that works with Hitachi storage. The driver and other Hitachi software are supported through a cooperative agreement between Red Hat and Hitachi. Since this driver is not shipped as part of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) or Red Hat Enterprise Open Stack Platform(RHELOSP), Red Hat does not provide support for the Hitachi driver.

Red Hat will provide full support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux or Red Hat Enterprise Open Stack Platform when the proprietary Hitachi driver is loaded, however response time SLAs may not apply as Hitachi will need to be engaged to isolate and troubleshoot any issues related to the Hitachi driver.

For those customers desiring to use only Red Hat Enterprise Linux or Red Hat Enterprise Open Stack Platform supported hardware and software, Hitachi also provides and supports the equivalent Emulex HBA on the listed servers. Red Hat does support this adapter and our SLA does apply in this case. For additional information please consult the following pages

Note: 16G FC HBA is supported by RHEL7.x and RHEL 8.x.

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