Thursday, October 03, 2019

[CentOS 8] solution for disks / RAID on LSI SAS2008 / 2016 controllers

Here's the step-by-step procedure I used yesterday to install CentOS 8 on a Dell T610, with a PERC H310 flashed to IT mode.
(reference: https://elrepoproject.blogspot.com/2019/08/rhel-80-and-support-for-removed-adapters.html)
If you are not booting the OS from the RAID, I think you can just mount the DUD iso below to install the patched driver rpm inside, and patch the dracut (5. below), without going through the whole process.



Hardware configuration:
H310 in IT mode
2 SATA SSDs and 4 SATA disks attached.
(did not use the RAID on controller but mdraid instead, for the IR mode does not support TRIM)
1.
prepare a install media and a flash drive, formatted with fat32, and copy the DUD iso file into the flash drive:
https://elrepo.org/linux/dud/el8/x86_64
You can also use tools like Rufus to create a bootable install flash drive, and use it as the DUD drive.
No need to process the DUD iso; just place it in the drive.
Note: In my case, I'm using the card in IT mode; the disks are not set into RAID with the card, so only the mpt3sas DUD is required.
If you have a IR mode (RAID via the controller) configuration, you may need the megaraid-sas DUD too.
2.
boot with the install media, and hit tab key in the boot menu, add 'inst.dd' to the command line, and then boot it.
3.
the installer will ask for a DUD before getting into the GUI.
It will list the block devices it found, find the one with vfat - that's your flash drive.
Then it will list DUD isos it found on the drive, enter the number of the entry, then a "checkbox" will appear before the entry.
Enter the number again so the "checkbox" is checked with a x. Now enter "c" to contiune.
4.
If everything works, you'll have your disks visible to the installer.
Install it as usual.
5.
The booting should has no problem, but DO NOT update kernel just yet.
According to the reference page, the dracut tool in RHEL / CentOS 8.0 is bugged and will NOT include the extra driver to the updated initrd. This will make the new kernel unbootable.
Setup network to download the patched dracut tools first, or copy it from other computer with flash drive:
http://elrepo.org/people/akemi/testing/el8/dracut/
Then install them with:
rpm -Uvh (downloaded rpm files).
6.
Now you can update the kernel.

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