04-29-2011
Help Setting up Linux Raid Server
I just built a home computer with 3TB hard drives I wanted to set up in a RAID 5 and load Ubuntu server onto it.
The first thing I did was set up the drives in a RAID 5 using just the motherboard chipset software to do it, so a 'hardware' RAID basically.
I installed Windows first to see if all the hardware works ok (that seemed the easiest way to verify it) and with the exception of the ethernet card (which needed a driver disk to work) everything was plug n' play and worked wonderfully. After that I booted the Windows install disk again to delete the partitions, hoping Ubuntu 10.10 server would create its own.
The problem I'm having is no matter what I've tried (deleting and recreating the RAID 5 setup, departitioning the drives), whenever I try to install Ubuntu it won't recognize the RAID as a valid disk. Ironically, it did at first, because I installed windows to verify the hardware. The ethernet card wasn't working automatically in the Ubuntu setup, (although it found the unformatted RAID drive), so I installed windows and figured out it was just the drivers that needed to be installed.
So now when I try to install Ubuntu, it finds the ethernet card perfectly and connects to the internet during the installation...but that actually stinks because it's telling me it's still accessing the drivers from the drives that I thought I formatted. Once it gets to the storage part of the installation afterwards, it can't find the RAID drive anymore. I tells me to choose a disk from the list, but the list is blank. So I can't install on it.
If I remove the RAID entirely and just keep the drives as 3 separate IDE drives, it finds every drive perfectly and can install to either one I choose. But I don't want this, I definitely need them RAIDed.
I would appreciate any advice at all on this, or even suggestions on another way of doing it. I've heard many people claim to dislike hardware RAIDs for linux servers and recommend using a software RAID instead. I am new to either, so I'd be happy to consider a software RAID if I knew it would be better/easier.
Any suggestion on a distrobution would be nice, too. I think I like the KDE interface, making me consider Kubuntu, but primarily I just want a server with the trimmings to access it from afar...LAMP,Email,SSH, and Remote Desktop.
Thanks for any advice!
Will P.
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HPSA(4) Linux Programmer's Manual HPSA(4)
NAME
hpsa - HP Smart Array SCSI driver
SYNOPSIS
modprobe hpsa [ hpsa_allow_any=1 ]
DESCRIPTION
hpsa is a SCSI driver for HP Smart Array RAID controllers.
Options
hpsa_allow_any=1: This option allows the driver to attempt to operate on any HP Smart Array hardware RAID controller, even if it is not
explicitly known to the driver. This allows newer hardware to work with older drivers. Typically this is used to allow installation of
operating systems from media that predates the RAID controller, though it may also be used to enable hpsa to drive older controllers that
would normally be handled by the cciss(4) driver. These older boards have not been tested and are not supported with hpsa, and cciss(4)
should still be used for these.
Supported hardware
The hpsa driver supports the following Smart Array boards:
Smart Array P700M
Smart Array P212
Smart Array P410
Smart Array P410i
Smart Array P411
Smart Array P812
Smart Array P712m
Smart Array P711m
StorageWorks P1210m
Configuration details
To configure HP Smart Array controllers, use the HP Array Configuration Utility (either hpacuxe(8) or hpacucli(8)) or the Offline ROM-based
Configuration Utility (ORCA) run from the Smart Array's option ROM at boot time.
FILES
Device nodes
Logical drives are accessed via the SCSI disk driver (sd(4)), tape drives via the SCSI tape driver (st(4)), and the RAID controller via the
SCSI generic driver (sg(4)), with device nodes named /dev/sd*, /dev/st*, and /dev/sg*, respectively.
HPSA-specific host attribute files in /sys
/sys/class/scsi_host/host*/rescan
This is a write-only attribute. Writing to this attribute will cause the driver to scan for new, changed, or removed devices (e.g,.
hot-plugged tape drives, or newly configured or deleted logical drives, etc.) and notify the SCSI midlayer of any changes detected.
Normally a rescan is triggered automatically by HP's Array Configuration Utility (either the GUI or the command-line variety); thus,
for logical drive changes, the user should not normally have to use this attribute. This attribute may be useful when hot plugging
devices like tape drives, or entire storage boxes containing preconfigured logical drives.
/sys/class/scsi_host/host*/firmware_revision
This attribute contains the firmware version of the Smart Array.
For example:
# cd /sys/class/scsi_host/host4
# cat firmware_revision
7.14
HPSA-specific disk attribute files in /sys
/sys/class/scsi_disk/c:b:t:l/device/unique_id
This attribute contains a 32 hex-digit unique ID for each logical drive.
For example:
# cd /sys/class/scsi_disk/4:0:0:0/device
# cat unique_id
600508B1001044395355323037570F77
/sys/class/scsi_disk/c:b:t:l/device/raid_level
This attribute contains the RAID level of each logical drive.
For example:
# cd /sys/class/scsi_disk/4:0:0:0/device
# cat raid_level
RAID 0
/sys/class/scsi_disk/c:b:t:l/device/lunid
This attribute contains the 16 hex-digit (8 byte) LUN ID by which a logical drive or physical device can be addressed. c:b:t:l are
the controller, bus, target, and lun of the device.
For example:
# cd /sys/class/scsi_disk/4:0:0:0/device
# cat lunid
0x0000004000000000
Supported ioctl() operations
For compatibility with applications written for the cciss(4) driver, many, but not all of the ioctls supported by the cciss(4) driver are
also supported by the hpsa driver. The data structures used by these ioctls are described in the Linux kernel source file
include/linux/cciss_ioctl.h.
CCISS_DEREGDISK, CCISS_REGNEWDISK, CCISS_REGNEWD
These three ioctls all do exactly the same thing, which is to cause the driver to rescan for new devices. This does exactly the
same thing as writing to the hpsa-specific host "rescan" attribute.
CCISS_GETPCIINFO
Returns PCI domain, bus, device and function and "board ID" (PCI subsystem ID).
CCISS_GETDRIVVER
Returns driver version in three bytes encoded as:
(major_version << 16) | (minor_version << 8) |
(subminor_version)
CCISS_PASSTHRU, CCISS_BIG_PASSTHRU
Allows "BMIC" and "CISS" commands to be passed through to the Smart Array. These are used extensively by the HP Array Configuration
Utility, SNMP storage agents, and so on. See cciss_vol_status at <http://cciss.sf.net> for some examples.
SEE ALSO
cciss(4), sd(4), st(4), cciss_vol_status(8), hpacucli(8), hpacuxe(8),
<http://cciss.sf.net>, and Documentation/scsi/hpsa.txt and Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-bus-pci-devices-cciss in the Linux kernel source
tree
Linux 2012-08-05 HPSA(4)