CentOS 6.3 changed device names from /dev/cciss to /dev/sdX

Written by Claudio Kuenzler - 0 comments

Published on August 29th 2012 - Listed in Linux Hardware

Just had some learning experience trying to install a new CentOS 6.3 through a kickstart (Cobbler) config file on a HP ProLiant DL380 G7 server. 

In previous versions, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 included, the disks behind an HP StorageArray (P410) always had to be called like this:

clearpart --all --drives=cciss/c0d0,cciss/c0d1

The logical disks were seen by the Linux systems as /dev/cciss/c0d0 for logical disk 1 and /dev/cciss/c0d1 for logical disk 2.

Now since CentOS 6.3 the cciss driver must have been changed, because the kickstart installation fails indicating that it can't find the disk.

A manual check by booting CentOS 6.3 Rescue System showed why: The two logical disks are now seen (normally) as /dev/sda and /dev/sdb.

So the kickstart configuration needed to be changed to the following:

clearpart --all --drives=sda,sdb

Note: As of now (August 2012) I only saw this on CentOS 6.3 (and therefore it must also be on RHEL 6.3) but not on other Linux distributions.
I also tested it with Knoppix 7.0.3 and 7.0.4 and there the disks are still seen as /dev/cciss/c0d0 and /dev/cciss/c0d1.

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