mps LSI with 8.3 beta 2

[uutzinger]

The Readme file for FreeNAS 8.3 beta 2 states:

- The mps driver for 6gbps LSI SAS HBAs is version 13, which requires
phase 13 firmware on the controller. This is a hard requirement,
running older firmware can cause many woes, including the failure to
probe all of the attached disks, which can lead to degraded or
unavailable arrays.

However the firmware available on the LSI support website is version 14 and there is no version 13 available for download.
It looks like both FreeBSD 8.2 and 8.3 are going with older firmware (13?) while latest FreeBSD has a driver that looks like the one from LSI website for firmware version 14.

Does the recommendation in the readme file mean one should upgrade to version 14 and hope for the best?

Alternatively I could try building my own FreeNAS image file and install source code manually for driver version 14 and flash the firmware to version 14. That would be most complicated approach.

Urs

P.S. I am seeing that LSI has kernel module for mpslsi.ko in their FreeBSD download zip archive. FreeNAS does not have mpslsi.ko in /boot/kernel. I am not sure if that means one could upgrade the drivers more easily if they would not be compiled into kernel but made available as loadable modules.

 

[uutzinger]

This is going to be fun:

There is version 13 of the firmware on the support site. But one has to search the archive.

Worst scenario happened when I upgraded firmware on the LSI controllers first and then booted with a non matching older FreeNAS version. The Web interface GUI breaks and smartd is not working anymore. Switching the firmware back to the previous version will not solve the problem. Only a fresh install of FreeNAS and loading the backup config file got me back where I started.

Perhaps to make this work one needs to upgrade FreeNAS first. An upgrade needs at least one complete boot process which means one would run a newer driver on an older firmware for short time before flashing the controller.

Alternative is to flash the controller on an other machine and to install a fresh version of FreeNAS on a new UBS flash drive and then apply the backup config file for the FreeNAS. Hopefully 8.2.0 config is compatible with 8.3.0.

Based on source code I believe
FreeBSD 9 works with LSI firmware 14.
FreeBSD 8.2.0 works with firmware 11.
FreeBSD 8.3 works with firmware 13.

Its not clear how one can upgrade FreeNAS to 8.3 when one has older LSI controller firmware.

Urs

 

[andoy31]

Any difference mplsi.ko in freenas? I have an m1015 on version13 and works right off the box after flashing it to it-mode.

 

[uutzinger]

I do not have mplsi.ko in /boot/kernel which makes me conclude that mps driver is compiled into kernel.

On FreeNAS source tree for 8.2.0 there is patch for LSI driver and I do not know to what version it upgrades.
I know that firmware 11 works on FreeNAS 8.2
I know that firmware 14 is catastrophic for FreeNAS 8.2 *
We know that firmware 13 works with FreeNAS 8.3.

* Addendum: It is possible that when I upgraded my older firmware I had IT version on one controller and IR version on other controller. When changing from raid enabled firmware to regular host bus firmware without raid, the interface name might have changed and FreeNAS config interfered with starting the GUI correctly.

Main problem is that I do not know which version of LSI FreeBSD driver will work with which other firmware. That problem is a FreeBSD issue. FreeNAS issue is that if there is problem GUI will fail and not load. There still is ssh access but once the GUI breaks I could not get it working again by flashing back to older firmware.

IT firmware with same version is recommended for all LSI controllers in the system.

Second problem is that I do not know proper upgrade procedure. Do you flash board directly on FreeBSD?
On several of my newer computers I can not run sas2flash as there seems to be hardware problem for the flash utility (PAL?)
Do you upgrade FreeNAS first without LSI controllers and go through reboot. Then upgrade controllers on separate system and add them back to system? Flashing controllers first did not work for me.

 

[andoy31]

I would flash lsi card first using a uefi usb boot followed by a freenas upgrade.

 

[bhilgenkamp]

I am currently running version 14 firmware on my LSI HBA. Will this still work if I upgrade FreeNAS to ver 8.3.0-RELEASE? I'm currently running Beta 3 of 8.3.0, but when I saw the release notes I wanted to make sure. Do the release notes simply mean ver 13 is the lowest it will support, or does it mean ver 13 is the only version it supports?

 

[uutzinger]

I believe 13,14 and newer firmware should work but I have not tested it.
I assume this because newer firmware usually runs with older software but not the other way round.
Also 16 port controller gets hot and its possible 8 port controller gets hot during heavy load. I added a fan blowing onto the cards.

 

[bhilgenkamp]

Thanks, I ran the update and all seems good.