Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 on Dell PowerEdge servers (Features and Native drivers)

Red Hat has recently announced the availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 (RHEL 5.9) Operating System.  RHEL 5.9 includes the support for new hardware, driver updates and bug fixes.

For detailed information, please refer to RHEL 5.9 release notes. 

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9has been validated on supported Dell PowerEdge Servers, please refer the WIKI for Linux OS Support on Dell PowerEdge Servers.

Please refer to the important information guide for the issues fixed in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 on Dell PowerEdge servers.

Listed are the details of new features including driver updates for the storage & network controllers.

Network Drivers: 

• Updated Broadcom tg3, bnx2, bnx2x and bnx2i drivers.
  • The BCM5720 and BCM5719 are supported by the tg3 driver version 3.123
  • The bnx2 driver version 2.1.11
  • BCM 57810 and 57800 which are the Broadcom 10Gb iscsi capable 10Gb controllers are supported by
    • bnx2x version 1.72.51-0
    • bnx2i version 2.7.2.2 - Driver for Broadcom NetXtreme II iSCSI
• Updated Intel igb, igbvf, ixgbe and ixgbevf, Driver for Intel 1G and 10GB Network cards.
  • The igb driver version 4.0.1-k1-1
  • The ixgbe driver version 3.4.8-k
• Updated Brocade bfa (FC driver version 3.0.23.0) and bna (NIC driver version 3.0.23.0r) drivers - Brocade 10G PCIe Ethernet driver
  • The Brocade bna and bfa driver (BFA FC SCSI driver) are no longer considered a Technology Preview.
    • These drivers are fully supported in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9
• Updated Emulex
  • lpfc driver version 0: 8.2.0.128.3p - Emulex Fibre-Channel Host Bus Adapters
  • be2iscsi driver version 4.2.162.0r - Emulex OnceConnectOpen-iSCSI Driver
  • be2net 4.2.116r  (10GBps NIC driver)
• Updated Qlogic
  • QLogic Fibre Channel HBA Driver: qla2xxx 8.03.07.15.05.09-k
  • QLogic iSCSI HBA Driver: qla4xxx 5.02.04.05.05.09-d0
  • QLogic 1/10 GbE Converged/Intelligent Ethernet Driver: qlcnic 5.0.29

Storage Drivers:

• Updated the mpt2sas (H200) and megaraid_sas (PERC H310, H710 and H810 and PERC H700, H800, PERC6/ir storage controller) driver to upstream version containing bug fixes and performance enhancements to support on Dell’s 11^th and 12^thgeneration servers.
  • megaraid_sasdriver version 00.00.06.15-rh that is required by the PERC8 controllers and the ata_piix  version 2.12 required for the integrated SATA controller are native.
  • mpt2sas driver version 13.101.00.00
  • mptsas driver version 3.04.20rh1

ipmitool delloem Commands Upgraded:

• The Dell-specific IPMI extension, which adds the delloem subcommand to the ipmitool utility, has been updated to include the following enhancements:
  • A new vFlash command, which allows users to display information about extended SD cards.
  • A new setled command, which allows users to display the backplane LED status.

• The IPMIdriver has been updated to the latest upstream version.