Ubuntu Manpage: mrsas — LSI MegaRAID 6Gb/s and 12Gb/s SAS+SATA RAID controller driver

Provided by: freebsd-manpages_11.1-3_all

NAME

     mrsas — LSI MegaRAID 6Gb/s and 12Gb/s SAS+SATA RAID controller driver

SYNOPSIS

     To compile this driver into the kernel, place the following lines in your kernel
     configuration file:

           device pci
           device mrsas

     Alternatively, to load the driver as a module at boot time, place the following line in
     loader.conf(5):

           mrsas_load="YES"

DESCRIPTION

     The mrsas driver will detect LSI's next generation (6Gb/s and 12Gb/s) PCI Express SAS/SATA
     RAID controllers.  See the HARDWARE section for the supported devices list.  A disk (virtual
     disk/physical disk) attached to the mrsas driver will be visible to the user through
     camcontrol(8) as /dev/da? device nodes.  A simple management interface is also provided on a
     per-controller basis via the /dev/mrsas? device node.

     The mrsas name is derived from the phrase "MegaRAID SAS HBA", which is substantially
     different than the old "MegaRAID" Driver mfi(4) which does not connect targets to the cam(4)
     layer and thus requires a new driver which attaches targets to the cam(4) layer.  Older
     MegaRAID controllers are supported by mfi(4) and will not work with mrsas, but both the
     mfi(4) and mrsas drivers can detect and manage the LSI MegaRAID SAS 2208/2308/3008/3108
     series of controllers.

     The device.hints(5) option is provided to tune the mrsas driver's behavior for LSI MegaRAID
     SAS 2208/2308/3008/3108 controllers.  By default, the mfi(4) driver will detect these
     controllers.  See the PRIORITY section to know more about driver priority for MR-Fusion
     devices.

     mrsas will provide a priority of (-30) (between BUS_PROBE_DEFAULT and
     BUS_PROBE_LOW_PRIORITY) at probe call for device id's 0x005B, 0x005D, and 0x005F so that
     mrsas does not take control of these devices without user intervention.

HARDWARE

     The mrsas driver supports the following hardware:

     [ Thunderbolt 6Gb/s MR controller ]
     •   LSI MegaRAID SAS 9265
     •   LSI MegaRAID SAS 9266
     •   LSI MegaRAID SAS 9267
     •   LSI MegaRAID SAS 9270
     •   LSI MegaRAID SAS 9271
     •   LSI MegaRAID SAS 9272
     •   LSI MegaRAID SAS 9285
     •   LSI MegaRAID SAS 9286
     •   DELL PERC H810
     •   DELL PERC H710/P

     [ Invader/Fury 12Gb/s MR controller ]
     •   LSI MegaRAID SAS 9380
     •   LSI MegaRAID SAS 9361
     •   LSI MegaRAID SAS 9341
     •   DELL PERC H830
     •   DELL PERC H730/P
     •   DELL PERC H330

CONFIGURATION

     To disable Online Controller Reset(OCR) for a specific mrsas driver instance, set the
     following tunable value in loader.conf(5):

           dev.mrsas.X.disable_ocr=1

     where X is the adapter number.

     To change the I/O timeout value for a specific mrsas driver instance, set the following
     tunable value in loader.conf(5):

           dev.mrsas.X.mrsas_io_timeout=NNNNNN

     where NNNNNN is the timeout value in milli-seconds.

     To change the firmware fault check timer value for a specific mrsas driver instance, set the
     following tunable value in loader.conf(5):

           dev.mrsas.X.mrsas_fw_fault_check_delay=NN

     where NN is the fault check delay value in seconds.

     The current number of active I/O commands is shown in the dev.mrsas.X.fw_outstanding
     sysctl(8) variable.

DEBUGGING

     To enable debugging prints from the mrsas driver, set the hw.mrsas.X.debug_level variable,
     where X is the adapter number, either in loader.conf(5) or via sysctl(8).  The following
     bits have the described effects:

           0x01    Enable informational prints.

           0x02    Enable tracing prints.

           0x04    Enable prints for driver faults.

           0x08    Enable prints for OCR and I/O timeout.

           0x10    Enable prints for AEN events.

PRIORITY

The mrsas driver will always set a default (-30) priority in the PCI subsystem for selection
of MR-Fusion cards. (It is between BUS_PROBE_DEFAULT and BUS_PROBE_LOW_PRIORITY). MR-
Fusion Controllers include all cards with the Device IDs - 0x005B, 0x005D, 0x005F.

The mfi(4) driver will set a priority of either BUS_PROBE_DEFAULT or BUS_PROBE_LOW_PRIORITY
(depending on the device.hints setting) in the PCI subsystem for selection of MR-Fusion
cards. With the above design in place, the mfi(4) driver will attach to a MR-Fusion card
given that it has a higher priority than mrsas.

Using /boot/device.hints (as mentioned below), the user can provide a preference for the
mrsas driver to detect a MR-Fusion card instead of the mfi(4) driver.

hw.mfi.mrsas_enable="1"

At boot time, the mfi(4) driver will get priority to detect MR-Fusion controllers by
default. Before changing this default driver selection policy, LSI advises users to
understand how the driver selection policy works. LSI's policy is to provide priority to
the mfi(4) driver to detect MR-Fusion cards, but allow for the ability to choose the mrsas
driver to detect MR-Fusion cards.

LSI recommends setting hw.mfi.mrsas_enable="0" for customers who are using the older mfi(4)
driver and do not want to switch to mrsas. For those customers who are using a MR-Fusion
controller for the first time, LSI recommends using the mrsas driver and setting
hw.mfi.mrsas_enable="1".

Changing the default behavior is well tested under most conditions, but unexpected behavior
may pop up if more complex and unrealistic operations are executed by switching between the
mfi(4) and mrsas drivers for MR-Fusion. Switching drivers is designed to happen only one
time. Although multiple switching is possible, it is not recommended. The user should
decide from Start of Day which driver they want to use for the MR-Fusion card.

The user may see different device names when switching from mfi(4) to mrsas. This behavior
is Functions As Designed and the user needs to change the fstab(5) entry manually if they
are doing any experiments with mfi(4) and mrsas interoperability.

FILES

     /dev/da?     array/logical disk interface
     /dev/mrsas?  management interface

HISTORY

     The mrsas driver first appeared in FreeBSD 10.1.

     mfi Driver: mfi(4) is the old FreeBSD driver which started with support for Gen-1
     Controllers and was extended to support up to MR-Fusion (Device ID = 0x005B, 0x005D,
     0x005F).

     mrsas Driver: mrsas is the new driver reworked by LSI which supports Thunderbolt and onward
     products.  The SAS+SATA RAID controller with device id 0x005b is referred to as the
     Thunderbolt controller throughout this man page.

     cam aware HBA drivers: FreeBSD has a cam(4) layer which attaches storage devices and
     provides a common access mechanism to storage controllers and attached devices.  The mrsas
     driver is cam(4) aware and devices associated with mrsas can be seen using camcontrol(8).
     The mfi(4) driver does not understand the cam(4) layer and it directly associates storage
     disks to the block layer.

     Thunderbolt Controller: This is the 6Gb/s MegaRAID HBA card which has device id 0x005B.

     Invader Controller: This is 12Gb/s MegaRAID HBA card which has device id 0x005D.

     Fury Controller: This is the 12Gb/s MegaRAID HBA card which has device id 0x005F.

AUTHORS

     The mrsas driver and this manual page were written by Kashyap Desai <Kashyap.Desai@lsi.com>.

TODO

     The driver does not support big-endian architectures at this time.

     The driver does not support alias for device name (it is required when the user switches
     between two drivers and does not want to edit /etc/fstab manually).

     The mrsas driver exposes devices as /dev/da?, whereas mfi(4) exposes devices as /dev/mfid?.

     mrsas does not support the Linux Emulator interface.

     mrsas will not work with mfiutil(8).