Disable SATA device probing in RHEL

Solution Verified - Updated -

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux [RHEL] 5.x
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux [RHEL] 6.x

Issue

  • How to disable SATA device probing with no SATA devices present.

Resolution

  • For RHEL5 remove or comment out the alias line for ahci in /etc/modprobe.conf.
#alias scsi_hostadapter1 ahci
  • For RHEL 6 Add a blacklist entry for ahci in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
blacklist ahci

Diagnostic Steps

  • With no SATA devices installed and unable to disable SATA controller in the BIOS.
  • System is recieving the following entries in /var/log/messages when checking for new SAN devices (done on an automated basis).
Dec 8 15:16:33 myhost kernel: PCI: set SATA to AHCI mode  
Dec 8 15:16:33 myhost kernel: ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [SATA] (IRQs *16)  
Dec 8 15:16:33 myhost kernel: ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [SATA] enabled at IRQ 16  
Dec 8 15:16:33 myhost kernel: ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:11.0[A]; Link [SATA]; GSI 16 (level, low); IRQ 106  
Dec 8 15:16:33 myhost kernel: ahci 0000:00:11.0: AHCI 0001.0100 32 slots 1 ports 3 Gbps 0x1 impl SATA mode  
Dec 8 15:16:33 myhost kernel: ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m1024@0xfcef0000 port 0xfcef0100 irq 106  
Dec 8 15:16:33 myhost kernel: ata1: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)

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