HighPoint SSD7000 Series User manual

Linux Debian on SSD7000 Installation Guide
SSD7000 Controller
Linux Debian
Installation Guide
Copyright © 2023 HighPoint Technologies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Last updated on March 17, 2023

Linux Debian on SSD7000 Installation Guide
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Table of Contents
1 Overview ......................................................................................................................................... 1
2 Installing Linux Debian on SSD7000 controller ......................................................................... 1
Step 1 Prepare Your Hardware for Installation ...........................................................................1
Step 2 Check System EFI Settings ............................................................................................. 1
Step 3 Flash UEFI Rom to SSD7000 ......................................................................................... 3
Step 4 Create Array .....................................................................................................................3
Step 5 Prepare the Driver Diskette ............................................................................................. 4
Step 6 Install Linux Debian ........................................................................................................ 5
3 Monitoring the Driver ................................................................................................................... 8
4 Installing RAID Management Software ...................................................................................... 8
5 Trouble Shooting ............................................................................................................................ 9
6 Rebuilding Driver Module for System Update ........................................................................... 9

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1 Overview
The purpose of this document is to provide clear instructions on how to install Linux
Debian on the SSD7000 controller.
Supported system: Debian10.1 /10.2 /10.3 /10.4 /10.5 /10.6 /10.7/ 10.8/10.9/11.3/
11.4/11.5/11.6
Supported controller: SSD7580A/7580B/7540/7505/7502/7202/7105/7103
2 Installing Linux Debian on SSD7000 controller
If you would like to install Linux Debian onto drives attached to SSD7000 controller,
please perform the following operations:
Step 1 Prepare Your Hardware for Installation
After you attach your NVMe SSD to SSD7000 controller, you can use SSD7000 EFI
Utility to configure your NVMe SSD as RAID arrays, or just use them as single disks.
Before installation, you must remove all the NVMe SSD, which are not physically attached
to SSD7000 controller, from your system.
Note
SSD7000 only support EFI boot. If you have other SCSI adapters installed, you must
make sure the SSD7000 controller EFI will be loaded firstly. If not, try to move it to
another PCI slot. Otherwise you may be unable to boot up your system.
Step 2 Check System EFI Settings
In your system EFI SETUP menu, change Boot Sequence in such a way that the system
will first boot from EFI CDROM or EFI a USB flash drive, and then from SSD7000
RAID. Refer to your motherboard EFI manual to see how to set boot sequence.
If your EFI settings do not support such a boot sequence, you can first set it to boot from
EFI CDROM or EFI a USB flash drive. After you finish installation, set SSD7000 RAID
as the first boot device to boot up the system.
1. Set UEFI setting with SuperMicro X11DPi-NT motherboard as an example.
a. "Advanced->PCIe/PCI/PnP Configuration->CPUSlot PCI-E OPROM"
to "EFI". Suppose SSD7000 is connected to motherboard CPU1 Slot 2 PCI-E X16,
then you should set "CPU1 Slot 2 PCI-E X16 OPROM" to "EFI";

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b. Disable "Secure Boot", set "Attempt Secure Boot" to "Disabled".
2. Set UEFI setting with ASUS PRIME X299 -DELUXE motherboard as an example:
a. Set "Boot from Storage Devices" to "UEFI driver first";
b. And "Boot Device Control" to "UEFI Only" or "UEFI and Legacy OPROM";

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c. Set "OS Type" to "Other OS".
Step 3 Flash UEFI Rom to SSD7000
a. Unzip SSD7000 UEFI package to root dir(/) of a USB flash drive, and insert the
USB flash drive to the motherboard;
b. Booting from the UEFI USB flash and enter the UEFI environment;
c. Command with “go.nsh”, flash UEFI rom to SSD7000 Controller and reboot;
Step 4 Create Array
a. Attach four NVMe SSD to SSD7000 Controller;

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Note
Make sure your USB flash partition format is NTFS or FAT32.
b. Boot, in the presence of the motherboard Log screen, there will be NVMe SSD
information：
c. Enter the motherboard’s Boot List and select start from UEFI USB flash:
d. Command “ArrayCreate.efi” to enter the Utility:
e. Command “create RAID0”.
Create RAID0 array with all disks and with maximum capacity.
f. Command “exit”；
g. For more command usages, refer to Appendix A.
Step 5 Prepare the Driver Diskette
Extract HighPoint_NVMe_Debian_11.6.0_x86_64_vx.x.x_xx_xx_xx.tar.gz to top(/)

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directory of an USB flash drive. It will look like:
Step 6 Install Linux Debian
a. Before you do the following, verify the status of your network environment. To
ensure a proper installation, it is recommended to disconnect the network and install
the system in a network less environment.
b. Insert the USB flash drive to the target system.
c. Booting from Installation DVD disc (EFI mode).
d. When the Installation screen appears, press ‘e’ to edit boot command line option.
On the edit command window, move the cursor to the end of line "linux /install/vmlinuz...
", and append "modprobe.blacklist=nvme " (double quotation mark are not include).
Press CTRL-x or F10 to start the system.
e. When the following window appears during the installation process,
Press "Ctrl+ALT+F2" to switch to the shell on console 2, and the then execute following
commands to copy the driver contents:

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# mkdir /hptdd ← Create mount point for USB flash drive
# mount /dev/sda1 /hptdd/ ← Mount the USB flash drive to /hptdd
# cp -a /hptdd/hptdd /tmp/ ← Copy driver installation file to system temporary
directory
# umount /hptdd ← Unmount the USB flash drive
When the USB flash drive is unmounted, please unplug the USB flash drive from the
mainboard. And then execute following command to install driver to install the Linux
Debian.
# sh /tmp/hptdd/preinst.sh ← Load SSD7000 driver.
f. Then press “Ctrl+ALT+F5” to switch back to installation screen and continue the
installation as usual.
g. Now click the “Go Back” button to detect the hptnvme disk.
h. Now click the “Detect disks” button and “Continue” to detect the hptnvme disk.

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i. When the screen shows that “Finish the installation”.
press “Ctrl+ALT+F2” to the shell and type the following commands:
#sudo sh /tmp/hptdd/postinst.sh ← Install SSD7000 driver.
A message will be displayed that the driver has been installed successfully.
j. Press “Ctrl+ALT+F5” to switch back to installation screen and finish the installation.
k. Opensource driver needs to be installed after system installation, please connect to the
internet:
Linux opensource driver link, open the following link to enter the "Software Download"
page to download:
SSD7502/7505/7540: https://www.highpoint-tech.com/gen4-nvme-m2
SSD7105/7202: https://www.highpoint-tech.com/gen3-nvme-m2-bootable
SSD7580A/7580B: https://www.highpoint-tech.com/gen4-nvme-u2
Run the .bin file to install the driver package.
sh hptnvme_g5_linux_src_vxx.x.x_xx_xx_xx.bin

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l. Follow the prompts to complete the driver installation.
m. After the installation is complete, you can perform system update operations.
3 Monitoring the Driver
Once the driver is running, you can monitor it through the Linux proc file system support.
There is a special file under /proc/scsi/hptnvme /. Through this file you can view driver
status and send control commands to the driver.
Note
The file name is the SCSI host number allocated by OS. If you have no other SCSI cards
installed, it will be 0. In the following sections, we will use x to represent this number.
Using the following command to show driver status:
#cat /proc/scsi/hptnvme /x
This command will show the driver version number, physical device list and logical device
list.
4 Installing RAID Management Software
HighPoint RAID Management Software is used to configure and keep track of your hard
disks and RAID arrays attached to SSD7000 controller. Installation of the management
software is optional but recommended.
Please refer to HighPoint RAID Management Software documents for more information.

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5 Trouble Shooting
If you do not install the system or update the kernel according to the installation manual, the
system will crash and you will not be able to enter. Please follow the steps below.
a. Select the default (kernel: 5.10.0-20-amd64) and enter the system.
b. Install Linux Opensource driver.
c. Linux Opensource driver link, open the following link to enter the "Software
Download" page to download:
SSD7502/7505/7540: https://www.highpoint-tech.com/gen4-nvme-m2
SSD7105/7202: https://www.highpoint-tech.com/gen3-nvme-m2-bootable
SSD7580A/7580B: https://www.highpoint-tech.com/gen4-nvme-u2
Run the .bin file to install the driver package.
sh hptnvme_g5_linux_src_vxx.x.x_xx_xx_xx.bin
d. Follow the prompts to complete the driver installation.
e. After the installation is complete, you can perform system update operations.
6 Rebuilding Driver Module for System Update
When the system updates the kernel packages, the driver module hptnvme.ko should be built
and installed manually before reboot.
Please refer to the README file distributed with HighPoint SSD7000 opensource package
on how to build and install the driver module.

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Appendix A
Support command: help/info/quit/exit/create/delete.
Create Command
Syntax
Create Array Type (RAID0/RAID1/RAID10) Member Disk list (1/1,1/2|*)
Capacity (100|*)
Examples
<<< create RAID0
<<< create RAID0 *
<<< create RAID0 * *
Create RAID0 array with all disks and with maximum capacity.
<<< create RAID1 1/1, 1/3 10
Create RAID1 array with disk 1/1 and 1/3 and with 10GB capacity.
<<< create RAID10
<<< create RAID10 *
<<< create RAID10 * *
Create RAID10 array with all disks and with maximum capacity.
Delete Command
Syntax
delete {array ID}
Examples
<<< delete 1
Delete the first array from Logical device list.
<<< delete 2
Delete the second array from Logical device list.
Info Command
Syntax
info
Display physical device list and logical list
Exit Command
Syntax
Q/q/quit/exit
Quit the application
Help Command
Syntax
H/h/help
This is help message.