The debian-installer netboot image on wheezy is missing the module
"./lib/modules/3.2.0-4-amd64/kernel/drivers/scsi/scsi_transport_spi.ko"
which
makes the mptspi module (which is used by VMWare virtual controller among
others) unloadable with "Unknown symbol" errors on the dmesg resulting
on the
installer unable to detect the disk(s).

As a side note, both the i386 netboot and the amd64 classic netinstall
images contains the module.

Taking the module from the netinstall amd64 iso and
putting it on the initrd image solves the problem and the installer
works fine
then.


It seems that the file has been missing for quite a long time :
https://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2011/03/msg00233.html

Jean Weisbuch, le Mon 05 Jan 2015 01:40:26 +0100, a écrit :

I've just checked jessie b2, it is not affected.

Samuel

Hi Jean,

and thanks for the report.

Jean Weisbuch <jean@phpnet.org> (2015-01-05):
| linux (3.14.13-2) unstable; urgency=medium
| …
|   * Add scsi_transport_sas and scsi_transport_spi to scsi-core-modules udeb
|     as optional so that these modules do not end up in two different udebs
|     as dependencies. Remove them from the i386, ia64, powerpc and sparc
|     definition.
| …
|  -- Aurelien Jarno <aurel32@debian.org>  Thu, 24 Jul 2014 21:05:08 +0200

which has been merged as r21638.

Should probably be reassigned to src:linux, and the following patch
against the wheezy branch should help? (I've verified these modules are
indeed shipped in the linux-image package; some others exist as well,
not sure they're worth shipping along…)

Mraw,
KiBi.

Cyril Brulebois <kibi@debian.org> (2015-01-06):

I'm attaching a refreshed (debian/changelog…) patch.

Mraw,
KiBi.

I don't get it.  The netboot image isn't supposed to have SCSI support,
it's supposed to download the SCSI module packages if needed.

As it happens, it does include usb-storage-modules and that depends on
scsi-core-modules, which now includes some of the traditional SCSI
transports.  But that's an implementation detail.

Is anything broken in downloading of SCSI module packages?  Or was this
just another case where the PXE files weren't updated at a point
release?  The netboot image for Debian 7.8 amd64 works for me with
QEMU's SCSI HD emulation.

Ben.

Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk> (2015-04-06):

Bah, colour me stupid…

… and sorry for wasting your time.

Yeah, that's a possibility… Jean?

Mraw,
KiBi.

I dont have that kind of system available ATM to give you more details
but the SCSI kernel module was definitely missing when required at the
disk detection part of the installer.
I cant confirm if the anna package including the SCSI modules was
downloaded and loaded prior but i can confirm that it wasnt working on
the netinstall while it worked just fine using the traditional ISO or by
manually adding the .ko module to the netinstall image.

Le 07/04/2015 03:31, Cyril Brulebois a écrit :