RHEL Hardware Deprecation and Support Removal - Storage

Environment

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9

Issue

This article lists device drivers and adapters that have changed support status within RHEL8 and RHEL9. Such adapters may be no longer maintained, deprecated marked for being disabled or removed in a future release, flagged as disabled or have been removed entirely. For more information for when hardware is classified as "unmaintained" and a description of the other statuses, please see "What does it mean when hardware is classified as "unmaintained" in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.6+, 9.0 and newer?".

Resolution

NOTE	Only storage adapters that have changed status from 'S'(upported) to 'D'(eprecated), 'U'(nmaintained), 'H'ardware disabled, or 'R`(emoved) status in RHEL8 and RHEL9 kernels are listed within the tables below. These status changes reflect the kernel release note information for these adapters.

Previously adapters were either recognized/supported by a driver ('1:S'upported status), or unrecognized/unsupported ('0:R'emoved status). The output of modinfo would show which adapters were recognized/supported via being present within the alias pci lines. The fact that an adapter's PCI IDs were present within alias pci meant that the adapter was recognized and therefore fully supported. That is a '1' implied 'S'(uspported status) and '0' (not being present within driver's pci alias lines) implied 'R'(emoved/not supported status).

As of RHEL 8.6+, 9.0 and later kernels an additional three adapter status were introduced; '1:D'eprecated, '1:U'nmaintained, and '1:H'ardware removed (explicitly disabled from use).

The use of "recognized" ('1')within the following discussion simply means that the adatpers's PCI IDs are listed within pci alias output from the modinfo command. And vice-versa, being "unrecognized" ('0') means the adapters's PCI IDs are not listed within the driver's pci alias output.

The current five pairs of adapter status are shown here and used within the 'RHEL' columns within the tables below.

• '1:S', Supported - recognized/fully supported, fully maintained
• '1:D', Deprecated - recognized/fully supported in current release, to be removed in a future major release
• '1:U', Unmaintained, untested, no support available
• '1:H', Hardware disabled, recognized by the driver but is no longer usable/supported within RHEL
• '0:R', Removed, unrecognized/removed or otherwise not present within the driver's pci table.

NOTE	The three new additional adapter status also have kernel critical priority messages output from the driver as follows: 1:D - Warning: Deprecated Hardware is detected: lpfc:0x10df:0x0724 @ 00:00:01 will not be maintained in a future major release and may be disabled 1:U - Warning: Unmaintained hardware is detected: megaraid_sas:0073:1000 @ 0000:01:00.0 1:H - Warning: Disabled Hardware is detected: mpt3sas:0072:1000 @ 0000:1a:00.0 is no longer enabled in this release.
NOTE	A status of '0:R' means that the adapter's PCI ID is not present within the driver's pci table and is therefore the adapter has a 'R'emoved status. The only difference between '0:R' and '1:H' is that with '1:H' an event message is output from the driver that serves an explicit reminder that the adapter within the message is listed within the kernel's release notes as being removed or disabled and is unsupported.
NOTE	"Fully maintained" just means that security and bug fixes will be added as normally would happen with any fully supported code within the kernel that is shipped by Red Hat and as covered by Production Support. As oppsed to adapters that are "Unmaintained" where bug fixes may be added but at the sole discretion of Red Hat.

Driver: lpfc

Driver: qla2xxx

Driver: megaraid_sas

Driver: mpt3sas

Driver: aacraid

Diagnostic Steps

• See Considerations in adopting RHEL 9 in Chapter 13 Hardware Enablement
• See Considerations in adopting RHEL 8 in Chapter 11 Hardware Enablement
  • Also see the individual minor kernel release notes such as
    • 8.5 release notes specifically Section "9.19 Deprecated and unmaintained devices"
    • 8.6 release notes Section "9.19 Deprecated and unmaintained devices"

This solution is part of Red Hat’s fast-track publication program, providing a huge library of solutions that Red Hat engineers have created while supporting our customers. To give you the knowledge you need the instant it becomes available, these articles may be presented in a raw and unedited form.