Installing Solaris 10 Fibre Channel Device Driver Patches Without an Immediate Reboot May Cause a System Panic

---

Installing Solaris 10 Fibre Channel Device Driver Patches Without an Immediate Reboot May Cause a System Panic

1. Impact

Installing certain Solaris 10 Fibre Channel Device Drivers patches (as listed below in section 2) may cause a system to panic if installation of those patches is followed by any event which causes the fcip driver to be reloaded before the system is rebooted.

The panic occurs as a result of the inconsistent fcip(7D) and fctl(7D) modules loaded in memory.

2. Contributing Factors

This issue can occur in the following releases:

SPARC Platform:

• Solaris 10 with patch 125184-05 through 125184-08 and without patch 125184-09

x86 Platform:

• Solaris 10 with patch 125185-05 through 125185-08 and without patch 125185-09
  

Note: This issue can only occur if the new fcip driver is reloaded prior to a system reboot.

The fcip driver can be reloaded by the act of installing certain other patches or running other system services.

Once 125184-05/125185-05 or later has been installed and the system rebooted, installations of later revisions of these patch will not cause this issue to occur.

For example SPARC platforms, this issue may occur when doing the following:

By first installing patch 125184-05 (Solaris 10 Fibre Channel Device Driver) followed by patch 119081-25 (Solaris 10 CD-ROM Install Boot Image Patch) without a reboot between patch installations.

For x86 platforms, this may occur when doing the following:

By first installing patch 125185-05 (Solaris 10 Fibre Channel Device Driver) followed by patch 119082-25 (SunOS 5.10 CD-ROM Install Boot Image Patch) without a reboot between patch installations.

Notes:

1. Solaris 8 and 9 and OpenSolaris are not impacted by this issue.
2. This condition has been seen to occur when installing the SPARC recommended patch clusters dated prior to 06-June-2008.
3. This issue has not been seen in the x86 clusters which do not have the patch installation order which triggers this issue.
4. This issue has not been seen in the Sun Alert clusters which include the Sun Fibre Channel Device Drivers patch at a revision lower than -05.
5. The installation of the CD-ROM Install Boot Image Patches is not the only event which will trigger this issue.

3. Symptoms

There are no predictable symptoms that would indicate the system will panic.

4. Workaround

To avoid this issue, reboot immediately after the affected patches (listed in section 2) have been installed.

5. Resolution

This issue is addressed in the following releases:

SPARC Platform:

• Solaris 10 with patch 125184-09 or later
  

x86 Platform:

• Solaris 10 with patch 125185-09 or later

This Sun Alert notification is being provided to you on an "AS IS" basis. This Sun Alert notification may contain information provided by third parties. The issues described in this Sun Alert notification may or may not impact your system(s). Sun makes no representations, warranties, or guarantees as to the information contained herein. ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT, ARE HEREBY DISCLAIMED. BY ACCESSING THIS DOCUMENT YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT SUN SHALL IN NO EVENT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, PUNITIVE, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES THAT ARISE OUT OF YOUR USE OR FAILURE TO USE THE INFORMATION CONTAINED HEREIN. This Sun Alert notification contains Sun proprietary and confidential information. It is being provided to you pursuant to the provisions of your agreement to purchase services from Sun, or, if you do not have such an agreement, the Sun.com Terms of Use. This Sun Alert notification may only be used for the purposes contemplated by these agreements.

Copyright 2000-2009 Sun Microsystems, Inc., 4150 Network Circle, Santa Clara, CA 95054 U.S.A. All rights reserved.

Modification History

05-Aug-2008: Updated Impact, Contributing Factors, Symptoms and Workaround sections
26-Jan-2009: Updated Contributing Factors and Resolution sections
28-Jan-2009: Updated Contributing Factors and Resolution sections; now Resolved

Attachments

This solution has no attachment