LSI 9210-8i not detected in 18.04, what am I missing?

[averyfreeman]

I'm coming from an ESXi background where LSI SAS2008 drivers were provided by default. I'm excited about moving to Ubuntu so I am really hoping this will be a viable system for me to migrate to. Anybody have any ideas of what I need to do?

I seem to remember FreeNAS 9, DSM 3 and FreeBSD 10.1-RELEASE having them OTB, too. So what's up with Ubuntu, how come it's so hard to get the most common SAS controller working on it? I thought it was supposed to be *the* server distro these days - "marketspeech marketspeech cloud", and all that.

So anyway, moving (slowly) away from ESXi to LXC/LXD container platforms and need SAS2008 functionality - want to use LSI 9210-8i with my shiny new Ubuntu 18.04 on ZFS installation, but can't appear to find drivers for SAS2008 cards for this version of Ubuntu - latest one was 14.04, which are `mpt2sas-20.00.04.00-1_Ubuntu14.04.amd64.deb` - got it off the official LSI/Avago/Broadcom website.


I installed it and I appear to have some related drivers listed under `lsmod`, but can't get any helper programs to recognize card.


For example:


local@ubuntu:~$ lsmod | egrep "mpt|scsi"
mptctl 40960 0
mptbase 102400 1 mptctl
mpt3sas 241664 0
raid_class 16384 1 mpt3sas
scsi_transport_sas 40960 1 mpt3sas



I do *not* see the `mpt2sas` driver loaded, but it *is* under `/dev/`:



local@ubuntu:~$ ls /dev | grep mpt
mpt2ctl
mpt3ctl
mptctl



However,



local@ubuntu:~$ insmod mpt2sas
insmod: ERROR: could not load module mpt2sas: No such file or directory



I seem to have found some related modules with:



local@ubuntu:~$ find /lib/modules/$(uname -r) -type f -name '*.ko' | grep mpt


/lib/modules/4.15.0-23-generic/kernel/drivers/scsi/mpt3sas/mpt3sas.ko
/lib/modules/4.15.0-23-generic/kernel/drivers/message/fusion/mptctl.ko
/lib/modules/4.15.0-23-generic/kernel/drivers/message/fusion/mptscsih.ko
/lib/modules/4.15.0-23-generic/kernel/drivers/message/fusion/mptbase.ko
/lib/modules/4.15.0-23-generic/kernel/drivers/message/fusion/mptspi.ko
/lib/modules/4.15.0-23-generic/kernel/drivers/message/fusion/mptfc.ko
/lib/modules/4.15.0-23-generic/kernel/drivers/message/fusion/mptlan.ko
/lib/modules/4.15.0-23-generic/kernel/drivers/message/fusion/mptsas.ko


So I installed them with `modprobe -i`:


local@ubuntu:~$ sudo modprobe -i mptsas
local@ubuntu:~$ sudo modprobe -i mptspi
local@ubuntu:~$ sudo modprobe -i mptbase
local@ubuntu:~$ sudo modprobe -i mptctl



And now I see:



local@ubuntu:~$ lsmod | grep mpt
mptspi 24576 0
scsi_transport_spi 32768 1 mptspi
mptsas 61440 0
mptscsih 40960 2 mptsas,mptspi
mptctl 40960 0
mptbase 102400 4 mptctl,mptscsih,mptsas,mptspi
mpt3sas 241664 0
raid_class 16384 1 mpt3sas
scsi_transport_sas 40960 2 mpt3sas,mptsas



So that's a little better. But still no new drives are being loaded under `/dev`, and management software is like 'uh-uh':




local@ubuntu:~$ megactl
No LSI MegaRAID cards found. You may try megasasctl instead.


local@ubuntu:~$ sudo megactl
No LSI MegaRAID cards found. You may try megasasctl instead.


local@ubuntu:~$ sudo megasasctl
No LSI MegaRAID SAS cards found. You may try megactl instead.


local@ubuntu:~$ sudo lsiutil

LSI Logic MPT Configuration Utility, Version 1.56, March 19, 2008

0 MPT Ports found

Scanning processes...
Scanning processor microcode...
Scanning linux images...

Running kernel seems to be up-to-date.

The processor microcode seems to be up-to-date.

No services need to be restarted.

No containers need to be restarted.

No user sessions are running outdated binaries.


local@ubuntu:~$ sudo megaclisas-status
No MegaRAID or PERC adapter detected on your system!





Do I need to compile a new initramfs and reboot after the `insmod/modprobe -i` of the kernel modules?


Thanks!

[neilanthonystuckey]

This may help. I struggled with the same.

http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/bionic/man4/mfi.4freebsd.html I ended up having to get a card on that list i could not get the 9210 to work properly.