Arch Linux

commonmanthemes

Member

Registered: 2010-09-27

Posts: 59

Assistance Making Arch RAID Driver from Source - LSI MegaRAID 9240-4i

Hey all-

I've been on Arch for about 6 months now and love it.  However, I just built out a new workstation and need some assistance trying to get my RAID card up and running.  Obviously, Arch Linux isn't going to be officially supported by any manufacturer, so I went with a card that fit the price and feature set I wanted and decided I'll do battle later.  Later is now and I'm a little stuck.  Here's what I have and know:

First, I went to http://www.lsi.com/storage_home/product … index.html and looked at the different drivers they had source code for.  I decided that the Slackware driver is probably the best place to start since rpms and debs are more distro-specific and since between the other two Slackware is more current than Scientific.  I have downloaded and extracted the source for the Slack driver and am in that directory with a dkms.conf, Makefile, megaraid_sas.c, megaraid_sas.h, and Module.supported in it, along with two folders worth of patches and the like.

My understanding is that since this driver isn't going to be available in the Arch Build System, I should follow the guide at http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Creating_Packages to make a PKGBUILD.  However, to be fair, I haven't coded since my C++ in college and it's been a while.  Specifically, I am lost at the "Download and test the installation" heading.  How am I to test the installation?  I'm on an Arch box right now and the whole point of this was to get something I could successfully install on Arch.

Ouside of being lost there, I assume that when this all finishes, I will have some module package either megaraid_sas.o or megaraid_sas.ko that I can drop into my install and set to load via rc.conf.

If anyone has any light they can shed on this subject, please reply.  If you need more info from me, please say so, so I can provide it.  I tried to at least give a solid overview in my initial post.

-Ryan

Last edited by commonmanthemes (2010-09-27 20:14:40)

Lone_Wolf

Member

From: Netherlands, Europe

Registered: 2005-10-04

Posts: 11,911

Re: Assistance Making Arch RAID Driver from Source - LSI MegaRAID 9240-4i

for future reference : the linux kernel supports many raid controllers (adaptec, areca, lsi meagraid sata etc ) check kernel source for details.

I recommend you add a non-raid drive to the megaraid system, and install arch on that drive.

Edit : Dieter says exactly what i wanted to say

Afaik the megaraid will write metadata on that disk.  So you loose some flexibility, say when your controller breaks.  I have my arch install on a disk which is connected to my motherboard directly. (without raid etc)

Next you should create your own pkgbuild .

This Aur pkgbuild for a highpoint sata raid controller (made by me sometime ago) should help you with writing your own : http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=12865

once you have built the package, use pacman -U to install it.
modprobe the megaraid_sas module .

check dmesg and/or /dev to see if your raid drives are now detected.
if they are, you can start mounting/accessing/testing the functionality of your raid drives.

Note : it is possible to install archlinux on drives that require an external kernel module, but that makes the process a lot more complicated.

Last edited by Lone_Wolf (2010-10-05 12:39:30)

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Dieter@be

Forum Fellow

From: Belgium

Registered: 2006-11-05

Posts: 2,000

Website

Re: Assistance Making Arch RAID Driver from Source - LSI MegaRAID 9240-4i

for future reference : the linux kernel supports many raid controllers (adaptec, areca, lsi meagraid sata etc ) check kernel source for details.

I recommend you add a non-raid drive to the megaraid system, and install arch on that drive.

Afaik the megaraid will write metadata on that disk.  So you loose some flexibility, say when your controller breaks.  I have my arch install on a disk which is connected to my motherboard directly. (without raid etc)

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< Daenyth> and he works prolifically
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commonmanthemes

Member

Registered: 2010-09-27

Posts: 59

Re: Assistance Making Arch RAID Driver from Source - LSI MegaRAID 9240-4i

Thank you both.  I didn't see this update until well after the fact, since I had already gotten it running.  The megaraid_sas module comes with the latest Arch installer by default and works (seemingly) fine.  I guess I should've booted Arch first...  (Our distro is truly awesome.)  I had used Ubuntu and Debian to fool around since they were supported by LSI and did not get the same results.

The whole point of my having the RAID was insane disk I/O on my boot volume, so putting it on a regular disk is out of the question.  My setup is an LSI 9240-4i and 4x Mushkin Callisto Deluxe 60GB SSD, so hopefully you can understand my stance.  (It peaks at 870MB/s reads under HD Tune.)