Running RHEL 8 on Dell R710/610 via Raid Controller Retrofit

A while back, I wrote a blog post that outlined a process of injecting deprecated storage controller drivers into RHEL 8 via a Driver Update Disk.

In a nutshell, this process allows you to install RHEL 8 on the R710/R610 (11th Gen)

This process worked fine, unless you wanted to yum update your server. Rather than attempt to find a repeatable process of injecting drivers prior to updating, I decided to upgrade my RAID controller to one that was supported.

My 11th generation, R710, came with a Perc H700. Identified below.

# lspci -knn | grep 'RAID bus controller'
03:00.0 RAID bus controller [0104]: Broadcom / LSI MegaRAID SAS 2108 [Liberator] [1000:0079] (rev 05)

Based on feedback from friends and co-workers. I purchased a PERC H330, which I believe ships with the 13th Gen Dell rackmount servers.

These cards can be found for pretty cheap on Ebay. Make sure that you order one with the correct bracket based on your needs (full-height/half-height).

Plus you will need 2 new cables. You are looking for SFF8643 to SFF8087 (mini SAS HD to mini SAS). They are also cheap and can be found on Ebay/Amazon

Output from one of my Dell R710s. Note I did not remove the original card.

# lspci -knn | grep 'RAID bus controller'
03:00.0 RAID bus controller [0104]: Broadcom / LSI MegaRAID SAS 2108 [Liberator] [1000:0079] (rev 05)
05:00.0 RAID bus controller [0104]: Broadcom / LSI MegaRAID SAS-3 3108 [Invader] [1000:005d] (rev 02)

Afterthoughts

I’ve only performed this swap on one of my R710s, I have 2 more as well as 2 R610s. Below are are few things to consider if you are looking to perform a similar upgrade

Take a hard look at your existing server. Do you need to purchase a full sized pci card or a mini card? This may likely be the case on the 1u servers and may be a blocker for you
Remove the old card. The server does not quite like having a raid controller installed without cables.
If you buy a full-sized pci card, make sure you get one with the bracket that you need (full height vs. half height vs. no bracket)
You might want to find a cable with 90 degree connectors for the backplane. Mine fit fine on the 710, but I have heard that the 90 degree connector is best for 1U servers.
You may want to consider upgrading your 11th generation server to an 12th generation Dell, R720/R620s can be purchased relatively cheaply and the RAM and disks in your 11th gen will work in a newer 12th generation. (note that the 11th gen Dell CPUs are socket LGA1366, while the 12th gen Dells utilize socket LGA2011)

Additional Resources

https://docs.redhat.com/en/documentation/red_hat_enterprise_linux/8/html/considerations_in_adopting_rhel_8/hardware-enablement_considerations-in-adopting-rhel-8#removed-adapters_hardware-enablement

12/22/2020

RHEL 8/CentOS 8: Install and Enable Libvirt

[root@bastion ~]$  dnf module install virt

[root@bastion ~]$  dnf install virt-install virt-viewer

[root@bastion ~]$  systemctl start libvirtd
[root@bastion ~]$  systemctl enable libvirtd
[root@bastion ~]$  systemctl status libvirtd
● libvirtd.service - Virtualization daemon
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/libvirtd.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Mon 2020-12-14 15:16:44 EST; 8s ago
     Docs: man:libvirtd(8)
           https://libvirt.org
 Main PID: 33522 (libvirtd)
    Tasks: 19 (limit: 32768)
   Memory: 22.2M
   CGroup: /system.slice/libvirtd.service
           ├─33522 /usr/sbin/libvirtd --timeout 120
           ├─33653 /usr/sbin/dnsmasq --conf-file=/var/lib/libvirt/dnsmasq/default.conf --leasefile-ro --dhcp-script=/usr/libexec/libvirt_leaseshelper
           └─33654 /usr/sbin/dnsmasq --conf-file=/var/lib/libvirt/dnsmasq/default.conf --leasefile-ro --dhcp-script=/usr/libexec/libvirt_leaseshelper

[root@bastion ~]$  virsh list --all
 Id   Name   State
--------------------

12/14/2020

Installing RHEL 8.1 on Dell R710/R610 with H700 Raid Controller

Introduction

A large number of storage controller drivers have been removed from RHEL 8.x, which means that the Dell R710/R610 with the H700 RAID controller, no longer supports RHEL 8.x natively. While this fact is unfortunate for a lot of hobbyists with their own homelabs, you can still install RHEL 8.x on these machines with the use of a driver update disk (DUD).

Setup

Using the link below, navigate and download the deprecated drivers.

https://elrepo.org/linux/dud/el8/x86_64

For Dell the R710/R610, you are specifically looking for the megaraid_sas drivers. See output below from R610.

# dmesg | grep raid
[ 1.402339] megaraid_sas 0000:03:00.0: FW now in Ready state
[ 1.402346] megaraid_sas 0000:03:00.0: 64 bit DMA mask and 32 bit consistent mask
[ 1.402571] megaraid_sas 0000:03:00.0: irq 34 for MSI/MSI-X
[ 1.402593] megaraid_sas 0000:03:00.0: firmware supports msix : (0)

The specific DUD iso that you need for RHEL 8.1 is shown below.

https://elrepo.org/linux/dud/el8/x86_64/dd-megaraid_sas-07.707.51.00-1.el8_1.elrepo.iso

Installation

The install process is as follows.

Download RHEL 8.x media and burn to dvd or usb drive
Download deprecated drivers in iso format and burn to usb drive
Boot with both RHEL 8.x media and DUD mounted
The installer should detect the DUD iso and install the proper drivers

Special Note: In my testing (3 systems) the DUD was not automatically detected by Anaconda. I suggest using the method below.

Troubleshooting

When you burn your DUD a usb stick, that the usb drive’s volume label is OEMDRV. This was the default when I burned the iso. The RHEL installer (anaconda) will look for this label on any and all available disks and should automatically recognize the DUD and mount the usb drive.

However, if this does not occur during the install process, and the installer still does not see your disks, you may need to reboot and this time interrupt the installer with the TAB key and append the following to your boot options.