Smart Array P440 – create RAID 5 using Smart Storage Administrator

This article is to show how to create RAID 5 in Smart Array P440 hardware controller and what kind of migration is possible from RAID 5 on this controller.

Existing RAID 5 could be migrated to RAID 0 or RAID 5 (so the RAID Level transformation is possible) with different Stip size (any of the supported in the controller) on-the-fly with no data loss!

No data loss is available to the tested server HP ProLiant DL160 GEN9, check the manual for your generation.
You may check our more detail article on how to start HPE Smart Storage Administrator on your server here: Review of Smart Array P440 on a server HP ProLiant DL160 Gen9 using iLO – create, modify, delete array and view controller settings

There are the steps to create RAID 5 using Smart Storage Administrator:

STEP 1) Click on “Create Array” to create a new array.

main menu
Logical Devices

Keep on reading!

Smart Array P440 – create RAID 0 using Smart Storage Administrator

This article is to show how to create RAID 0 in Smart Array P440 hardware controller and what kind of migration is possible from RAID 0 on this controller.

Existing RAID 0 could be migrated only to the same RAID 0 (so no possible RAID Level transformation) with different Stip size (any of the supported in the controller) on-the-fly with no data loss!

You may check our more detail article on how to start HPE Smart Storage Administrator on your server here: Review of Smart Array P440 on a server HP ProLiant DL160 Gen9 using iLO – create, modify, delete array and view controller settings

There are the steps to create RAID 0 using Smart Storage Administrator:

STEP 1) Click on “Create Array” to create a new array.

main menu
Logical Devices

Keep on reading!

Review of Smart Array P440 on a server HP ProLiant DL160 Gen9 using iLO – create, modify, delete array and view controller settings

This article is to present how you can connect to the iLO remote keyboard, mouse and video (KVM) to create, migrate or view the arrays in hardware controller Smart Array P440. You are going to see multiple screenshots of the graphical user interface of Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Smart Storage Administrator (3.10.3.0)

This is not a command line manual of the command line tool to manage the Smart Array P440. This is the HP’s GUI utility, which you can enter by pressing F10 on server start. So to enter it you must restart your server and you must have physical access to the server or remote access over the Internet with your browser to use the HP’s KVM (keyboard, mouse, video) branded iLO – HP Integrated Lights-Out. With HP iLO you can manage your server as if you are physically in front of it. Check out more here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_Integrated_Lights-Out

Here are the steps you can do to manage your Smart Array P440 on a modern HP server – HP ProLiant DL160 Gen9. Our server is powered Off state. This is summery what you can see in the following screenshots: first, we open the web interface of the HP iLO by typing the IP of the iLO. Then we click on “Java Web Start” on the Overview page (it is accessible in the Remote Console menu, too). We are going to create an array and then go through most of the controller and application settings. Read ahead to see the whole process…

SCREENSHOT 1) The login page of the HPE iLO ProLiant – the HP’s KVM of your server.

Write your login credentials and click on “Log In”.

main menu
HPE iLO ProLiant web login page

Keep on reading!

bind – dns server queries statistics with statistics-file

There is an option “statistics-file” in the BIND9 configuration for query statistics. It will give you statistics for

  • Incoming Requests – total number of queries
  • Incoming Queries – queries by record type
  • Outgoing Queries – queries by record type per view
  • Name Server Statistics – extended queries statistics by network connection type (UDP, TCP or IPv4 and IPv6 interface), by type of answer (authoritative, non authoritative and so on) and more
  • Zone Maintenance Statistics – transfer and system queries
  • Resolver Statistics – recursive queries
  • Cache DB RRsets – cached resources records sets
  • Socket I/O Statistics – statistics numbers for UDP, TCP (for both IPv4 and IPV6) sockets and connections opened, closed, failure
  • Per Zone Query Statistics – so you can see how many queries you have for a zone in a view (and the transfers if the server is a slave)

In named.conf:

options {
....
    statistics-file "/var/log/named.stats";
    zone-statistics yes ;
....

But if you check in /var/log this file might be missing even your BIND server has been running for months!

This is because the statistics and the file is generated on request and is a snapshot at the moment you do the request

To request from the BIND server to generate the file is pretty easy:

root@srv ~ # rndc stats
root@srv ~ #

No standard output and you should have the stats file generated:

root@srv ~ # ls -altr /var/log/named.stats 
-rw-r--r-- 1 named named 174997 Apr  7 01:43 /var/log/named.stats

The generated requests are appended in the file with a UNIX timestamp.

....
--- Statistics Dump --- (1550561292)
+++ Statistics Dump +++ (1551233218)
....

Keep on reading!

Gentoo kde-frameworks/kdewebkit failed compilation with Qt5WebKit could not be found because dependency is required

Updating the KDE Plasma Desktop in our Gentoo workstations this time failed with

CMake Error at /usr/share/cmake/Modules/CMakeFindDependencyMacro.cmake:48 (find_package):
  Found package configuration file:

    /usr/lib64/cmake/Qt5WebKit/Qt5WebKitConfig.cmake

  but it set Qt5WebKit_FOUND to FALSE so package "Qt5WebKit" is considered to
  be NOT FOUND.  Reason given by package:

  Qt5WebKit could not be found because dependency is required to have exact
  version 5.11.x.

It was strange because the previous emerge included the QT upgrade from old 5.11.2 to 5.12.1 and this dependency should have been resolved properly before:

emerge -vau $(qlist -IC|grep dev-qt|sort|uniq)

But apparently despite that the emerge built all QT libraries in dependency order the “dev-qt/qtwebkit” was built against the old QT libraries. And this is what is saying the above error!

The solution is really simple just rebuild the dev-qt/qtwebkit

root@srv ~ # emerge -va dev-qt/qtwebkit

These are the packages that would be merged, in order:

Calculating dependencies... done!
[ebuild   R    ] dev-qt/qtwebkit-5.212.0_pre20180120:5/5.212::gentoo  USE="X geolocation hyphen jit multimedia opengl printsupport qml -gles2 -gstreamer -nsplugin 
-orientation -webp" 0 KiB

Total: 1 package (1 reinstall), Size of downloads: 0 KiB

Would you like to merge these packages? [Yes/No] yes

Keep on reading!

nginx with php fpm (fastcgi) and the warning – an upstream response is buffered to a temporary file /var/cache/nginx/fastcgi_temp

As the web grows and the technology advances the page size of the web sites also grows or just some times you might want to output a big chunk of data from your application server – PHP-FPM (but it could be any of another ruby, python, C, Django and more), for example.
Here is a fast configuration tip (note this is not the proxy-related warning!):

The default nginx buffers per CGI connection are too small

Here is what to do in your nginx configuration file:
First, look for a line “include /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;” or similar and add or edit if they exist after this line:

        fastcgi_buffer_size 16k;
        fastcgi_buffers 32 16k;

Check out more for the buffers here http://nginx.org/en/docs/http/ngx_http_fastcgi_module.html#fastcgi_buffers
The warning should stop if it does not stop you can try raising them. It could consume more memory but could lower the IO usage of your disks and improve the performance of your site or whatever backend works!

Here is the warning in our nginx error logs. We got this warning when using php-fpm and the php output size was 325965 bytes (~320K).

2019/04/04 09:56:05 [warn] 24451#24451: *44269838 an upstream response is buffered to a temporary file /var/cache/nginx/fastcgi_temp/0/12/0019966120 while reading upstream, client: 10.10.10.10, server: srv17.srv.en, request: "GET /api/20140102/product HTTP/1.1", upstream: "fastcgi://127.0.0.1:9000", host: "srv17.srv.en"
2019/04/04 09:56:07 [warn] 24451#24451: *44269849 an upstream response is buffered to a temporary file /var/cache/nginx/fastcgi_temp/2/12/0019966122 while reading upstream, client: 10.10.10.11, server: srv17.srv.en, request: "GET /api/20140102/product HTTP/1.1", upstream: "fastcgi://127.0.0.1:9000", host: "srv17.srv.en"
2019/04/04 09:56:09 [warn] 24450#24450: *44269856 an upstream response is buffered to a temporary file /var/cache/nginx/fastcgi_temp/7/12/0019966127 while reading upstream, client: 10.10.10.12, server: srv17.srv.en, request: "GET /api/20140102/product HTTP/1.1", upstream: "fastcgi://127.0.0.1:9000", host: "srv17.srv.en"

Supermicro H11SSL-i and AMD EPYC 7351P with Linux installed – system (GCC flags),kernel and device information

Here is what you can expect if you have new Linux kernel 5.0.1 installed on H11SSL-i with AMD EPYC 7351P. Here you can see what is inside the BIOS – Supermicro H11SSL-i BIOS screenshot review – AMD EPYC 7351P 16-Core Processor

  • 3x SATA Controllers – SATA controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 51)
  • 2x Ethernet Controllers – Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation I210 Gigabit Network Connection (rev 03)
  • 8x RAM DDIM in eight-channel mode

lspci – devices

Note there are 3 SATA controllers (SATA controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 51)) for a total of 16 SATA physical onboard ports (8 of them are ordinary SATA physical ports on the board and for the other 8 you will need a cable – Supermicro MiniSAS HD to 4 SATA)!

00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Root Complex
00:01.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
00:01.1 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe GPP Bridge
00:01.2 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe GPP Bridge
00:01.4 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe GPP Bridge
00:01.5 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe GPP Bridge
00:02.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
00:03.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
00:04.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
00:07.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
00:07.1 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Internal PCIe GPP Bridge 0 to Bus B
00:08.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
00:08.1 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Internal PCIe GPP Bridge 0 to Bus B
00:14.0 SMBus: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH SMBus Controller (rev 59)
00:14.3 ISA bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH LPC Bridge (rev 51)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 0
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 1
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 2
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 3
00:18.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 4
00:18.5 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 5
00:18.6 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 6
00:18.7 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 7
00:19.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 0
00:19.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 1
00:19.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 2
00:19.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 3
00:19.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 4
00:19.5 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 5
00:19.6 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 6
00:19.7 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 7
00:1a.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 0
00:1a.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 1
00:1a.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 2
00:1a.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 3
00:1a.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 4
00:1a.5 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 5
00:1a.6 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 6
00:1a.7 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 7
00:1b.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 0
00:1b.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 1
00:1b.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 2
00:1b.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 3
00:1b.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 4
00:1b.5 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 5
00:1b.6 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 6
00:1b.7 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 7
01:00.0 PCI bridge: ASPEED Technology, Inc. AST1150 PCI-to-PCI Bridge (rev 04)
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ASPEED Technology, Inc. ASPEED Graphics Family (rev 41)
03:00.0 USB controller: ASMedia Technology Inc. ASM1042A USB 3.0 Host Controller
04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation I210 Gigabit Network Connection (rev 03)
05:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation I210 Gigabit Network Connection (rev 03)
06:00.0 Non-Essential Instrumentation [1300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 145a
06:00.2 Encryption controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Platform Security Processor
06:00.3 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] USB 3.0 Host controller
07:00.0 Non-Essential Instrumentation [1300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 1455
07:00.1 Encryption controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 1468
07:00.2 SATA controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 51)
20:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Root Complex
20:01.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
20:02.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
20:03.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
20:03.1 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe GPP Bridge
20:03.2 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe GPP Bridge
20:04.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
20:07.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
20:07.1 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Internal PCIe GPP Bridge 0 to Bus B
20:08.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
20:08.1 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Internal PCIe GPP Bridge 0 to Bus B
21:00.0 USB controller: ASMedia Technology Inc. ASM1042A USB 3.0 Host Controller
22:00.0 USB controller: ASMedia Technology Inc. ASM1042A USB 3.0 Host Controller
23:00.0 Non-Essential Instrumentation [1300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 145a
23:00.2 Encryption controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Platform Security Processor
23:00.3 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] USB 3.0 Host controller
24:00.0 Non-Essential Instrumentation [1300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 1455
24:00.1 Encryption controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 1468
40:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Root Complex
40:01.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
40:02.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
40:03.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
40:04.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
40:07.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
40:07.1 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Internal PCIe GPP Bridge 0 to Bus B
40:08.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
40:08.1 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Internal PCIe GPP Bridge 0 to Bus B
41:00.0 Non-Essential Instrumentation [1300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 145a
41:00.2 Encryption controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Platform Security Processor
42:00.0 Non-Essential Instrumentation [1300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 1455
42:00.1 Encryption controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 1468
42:00.2 SATA controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 51)
60:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Root Complex
60:01.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
60:02.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
60:03.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
60:04.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
60:07.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
60:07.1 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Internal PCIe GPP Bridge 0 to Bus B
60:08.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
60:08.1 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Internal PCIe GPP Bridge 0 to Bus B
61:00.0 Non-Essential Instrumentation [1300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 145a
61:00.2 Encryption controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Platform Security Processor
62:00.0 Non-Essential Instrumentation [1300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 1455
62:00.1 Encryption controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 1468
62:00.2 SATA controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 51)

Keep on reading!

Supermicro H11SSL-i BIOS screenshot review – AMD EPYC 7351P 16-Core Processor

This article is just a bunch of screenshots with a short description of the Supermicro H11SSL-i BIOS. This setup is AMD based and uses one of the AMD multi-core beasts

AMD EPYC 7351P

, it has 16 cores with 32 threads and 8th channel memory!
The BIOS is pretty standard for Supermicro servers and supports dual UEFI and Bios-legacy modes.
The motherboard has

  • 16x SATA 3 ports (though 8 of them are ordinary SATA physical ports on the board and for the other 8 you will need a cable – Supermicro MiniSAS HD to 4 SATA)
  • 1xM.2 Interface: 1 PCI-E 3.0 x4
  • 3xPCI-E 3.0 x16 and 3xPCI-E 3.0 x8

You can use this motherboard without external controller for storage box with at least 16 disc without expander/extender!

All of your 16 disks will be connected to separate SATA3 6Gbps port!

More for the motherboard here: https://www.supermicro.com/Aplus/motherboard/EPYC7000/H11SSL-i.cfm

SCREENSHOT 1) The main BIOS menu of motherboard Sumpermicro H11SSL-i with version 1.0c.

All of the following screenshots are made with this BIOS version.

main menu
Supermicro H11SSL-i BIOS Main menu

Keep on reading!

Unpack centos 7 initramfs file with and without dracut skipcpio

In CentOS 7 the initramfs consists of two concatenated gzipped cpio files. If you want to check what files and probably configuration files are included you can unpack it, but you should use

the dracut tool skipcpio

/usr/lib/dracut/skipcpio <initramfs-file> | zcat | cpio -id --no-absolute-filenames

The following is the output of a CentOS 7

[root@srv ~]# mkdir initramfs-unpacked
[root@srv ~]# cd initramfs-unpacked/
[root@srv initramfs-unpacked]# /usr/lib/dracut/skipcpio /boot/initramfs-3.10.0-957.10.1.el7.x86_64.img | zcat | cpio -id --no-absolute-filenames
164026 blocks
[root@srv initramfs-unpacked]# ls -al
общо 52
drwxr-xr-x. 12 root root 4096  1 Apr 11,48 .
dr-xr-x---.  5 root root 4096  1 Apr 11,48 ..
lrwxrwxrwx.  1 root root    7  1 Apr 11,48 bin -> usr/bin
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root 4096  1 Apr 11,48 dev
drwxr-xr-x.  9 root root 4096  1 Apr 11,48 etc
lrwxrwxrwx.  1 root root   23  1 Apr 11,48 init -> usr/lib/systemd/systemd
lrwxrwxrwx.  1 root root    7  1 Apr 11,48 lib -> usr/lib
lrwxrwxrwx.  1 root root    9  1 Apr 11,48 lib64 -> usr/lib64
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root 4096  1 Apr 11,48 proc
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root 4096  1 Apr 11,48 root
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root 4096  1 Apr 11,48 run
lrwxrwxrwx.  1 root root    8  1 Apr 11,48 sbin -> usr/sbin
-rwxr-xr-x.  1 root root 3117  1 Apr 11,48 shutdown
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root 4096  1 Apr 11,48 sys
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root 4096  1 Apr 11,48 sysroot
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root 4096  1 Apr 11,48 tmp
drwxr-xr-x.  7 root root 4096  1 Apr 11,48 usr
drwxr-xr-x.  3 root root 4096  1 Apr 11,48 var
[root@srv initramfs-unpacked]# ls -al /boot/
общо 114812
dr-xr-xr-x.  6 root root     4096 30 Mar  2,36 .
dr-xr-xr-x. 19 root root     4096 30 Mar  2,37 ..
-rw-r--r--.  1 root root   151923 18 Mar 15,10 config-3.10.0-957.10.1.el7.x86_64
drwxr-xr-x.  3 root root     4096 28 Jan 20,52 efi
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root     4096 30 Mar  2,29 grub
drwx------.  5 root root     4096 29 Mar 13,50 grub2
-rw-------.  1 root root 44256471 28 Jan 20,57 initramfs-0-rescue-05cb8c7b39fe0f70e3ce97e5beab809d.img
-rw-------.  1 root root 44821343 29 Mar 13,50 initramfs-3.10.0-957.10.1.el7.x86_64.img
-rw-------.  1 root root 10982937 30 Mar  2,36 initramfs-3.10.0-957.10.1.el7.x86_64kdump.img
drwx------.  2 root root    16384 29 Mar 13,46 lost+found
-rw-r--r--.  1 root root   314087 18 Mar 15,10 symvers-3.10.0-957.10.1.el7.x86_64.gz
-rw-------.  1 root root  3544363 18 Mar 15,10 System.map-3.10.0-957.10.1.el7.x86_64
-rwxr-xr-x.  1 root root  6639808 28 Jan 20,57 vmlinuz-0-rescue-05cb8c7b39fe0f70e3ce97e5beab809d
-rwxr-xr-x.  1 root root  6643904 18 Mar 15,10 vmlinuz-3.10.0-957.10.1.el7.x86_64
-rw-r--r--.  1 root root      171 18 Mar 15,10 .vmlinuz-3.10.0-957.10.1.el7.x86_64.hmac

You can see the init is handled by systemd!

Not using dracut skipcpio

early_cpio – dracut set this file at the beginning of the CentOS 7 initramfs. It contains the CPU microcode.
You can check it with “file” command and if it shows: “ASCII cpio archive (SVR4 with no CRC)” there is a microcode prepended to the initramfs file.

And here without the dracut skipcpio tool with an example:

  1. cpio the original initramfs and write down the number of blocks reported
  2. use dd to skip the first blocks from the above step
  3. Uncompress (and unpack) the file created by dd – this is the real initramfs file.

Here is how you can do it:

[root@srv ~]# file /boot/initramfs-3.10.0-957.10.1.el7.x86_64.img
/boot/initramfs-3.10.0-957.10.1.el7.x86_64.img: ASCII cpio archive (SVR4 with no CRC)
[root@srv ~]# mkdir initramfs-unpacked-3
[root@srv ~]# cd initramfs-unpacked-3
[root@srv initramfs-unpacked-3]# cat /boot/initramfs-3.10.0-957.10.1.el7.x86_64.img | cpio -idmv
.
early_cpio
kernel
kernel/x86
kernel/x86/microcode
kernel/x86/microcode/AuthenticAMD.bin
kernel/x86/microcode/GenuineIntel.bin
3412 blocks
[root@srv initramfs-unpacked-3]# dd if=/boot/initramfs-3.10.0-957.10.1.el7.x86_64.img of=initramfs-tmp.img bs=512 skip=3412
84129+1 records in
84129+1 records out
43074399 bytes (43 MB) copied, 0.191311 s, 225 MB/s
[root@srv initramfs-unpacked-3]# ls
early_cpio  initramfs-tmp.img  kernel
[root@srv initramfs-unpacked-3]# file initramfs-tmp.img 
initramfs-tmp.img: gzip compressed data, from Unix, last modified: Fri Mar 29 13:49:41 2019, max compression
[root@srv initramfs-unpacked-3]# zcat ./initramfs-tmp.img | cpio -idm
164026 blocks
[root@srv initramfs-unpacked-3]# ls -al
total 42128
drwxr-xr-x. 13 root root     4096 Apr  1 12:38 .
dr-xr-x---. 10 root root     4096 Apr  1 12:38 ..
lrwxrwxrwx.  1 root root        7 Apr  1 12:38 bin -> usr/bin
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root     4096 Apr  1 12:38 dev
-rw-r--r--.  1 root root        2 Mar 29 13:49 early_cpio
drwxr-xr-x.  9 root root     4096 Apr  1 12:38 etc
lrwxrwxrwx.  1 root root       23 Apr  1 12:38 init -> usr/lib/systemd/systemd
-rw-r--r--.  1 root root 43074399 Apr  1 12:35 initramfs-tmp.img
drwxr-xr-x.  3 root root     4096 Mar 29 13:49 kernel
lrwxrwxrwx.  1 root root        7 Apr  1 12:38 lib -> usr/lib
lrwxrwxrwx.  1 root root        9 Apr  1 12:38 lib64 -> usr/lib64
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root     4096 Mar 29 13:49 proc
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root     4096 Mar 29 13:49 root
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root     4096 Mar 29 13:49 run
lrwxrwxrwx.  1 root root        8 Apr  1 12:38 sbin -> usr/sbin
-rwxr-xr-x.  1 root root     3117 Nov  2 17:40 shutdown
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root     4096 Mar 29 13:49 sys
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root     4096 Mar 29 13:49 sysroot
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root     4096 Mar 29 13:49 tmp
drwxr-xr-x.  7 root root     4096 Apr  1 12:38 usr
drwxr-xr-x.  3 root root     4096 Apr  1 12:38 var

megacli – FW error description: The current operation is not allowed … offline or missing virtual drives

Probably everyone who has ever touched LSI controllers and the megacli tool has had this error or he is going to have it for sure! It’s only a matter of time when you receive it when creating or replacing a disk! No this is not another article for this error!!!

FW error description: The current operation is not allowed because the controller has data in cache for offline or missing virtual drives.

Probably you want to replace a failed disk and you have inserted the new one and you cannot add it into the RAID array or something similar. In our case, the drive failed and even stopped working, the slot showed “missing drive” status. We replace the hard drive and it was in “Unconfigured(Good), Spun Up”

You have to use exactly the name of the Virtual Drive with the zero leading if any and even you may use double quotes

root@srv ~ # megacli -DiscardPreservedCache -L"08" -a0
                                     
Adapter #0

Virtual Drive(Target ID 08): Preserved Cache Data Cleared.

Exit Code: 0x00

As you can see: “Target ID 08“, the ID is 08, NOT 8!

Here are some unsuccessful tries (even with 08 was unsuccessful – it might be from our cli version or shell, but it did not work!). Note the last command to get the status for all devices:

root@srv ~ # megacli -DiscardPreservedCache -L8 -a0
                                     
Adapter 0: No Virtual Drive has Preserved Cache Data.

Exit Code: 0x00
root@srv ~ # megacli -DiscardPreservedCache -L08 -a0
                                     
Adapter 0: No Virtual Drive has Preserved Cache Data.

Exit Code: 0x00

root@srv ~ # megacli -GetPreservedCacheList -a0
                                     
Adapter #0

Virtual Drive(Target ID 08): Missing.

Exit Code: 0x00

It reports there is no drive with preserved cache on the very ID, YOU TYPED, but then getting the Preserved cached list there is a drive in the list because 8 is different from 08.

For farther problems getting your new disk in the array you can check our tested replace procedure: megacli – restart a rebuild with a disk in failed state