MRSAS(4)

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 amr(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.

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
A tunable is provided to adjust the mrsas driver's behaviour when attaching to a card. By default, the driver will attach to all known cards with high probe priority. For “Thunderbolt” series cards this behavior can be changed to attaching via the mfi(4) driver by setting the following tunable value in loader.conf(5):

    hw.mrsas.mfi_enable=1

By default, the driver will use MSI if it is supported. This behavior can be turned off by setting the following tunable value in loader.conf(5):

    hw.mrsas.msi.enable=0

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

    hw.mrsasX.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):

    hw.mrsasX.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):

    hw.mrsasX.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 dev.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.

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

SEE ALSO
amr(4), cam(4), mfi(4), pci(4), device.hints(5), camcontrol(8)

HISTORY
The mrsas driver first appeared in FreeBSD 10.1 and was ported to DragonFly 3.9.

mfi(4) 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: DragonFly 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>. It was ported to DragonFly by Sascha Wildner <swildner@dragonflybsd.org>.

TODO
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 for /dev/mfid? device nodes). It is recommended to use the approriate device nodes in /dev/serno instead. They should be available for all controllers supported by mrsas.

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

mrsas will not work with mfiutil(8).