HighPoint SSD7103 User manual

SSD7103 Linux Debian10.3.0 Installation Guide
HighPoint NVMe RAID Controller
SSD7103 Linux Debian 10.3.0
Installation Guide
Version 1.0
Copyright © 2019 HighPoint Technologies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Last updated on April 3, 2020

SSD7103 Linux Debian10.3.0 Installation Guide
i
Table of Contents
1 Overview.......................................................................................................................................1
2 Installing Linux Debian on SSD7103 controller........................................................................1
Step 1 PrepareYour Hardware for Installation .........................................................................1
Step 2 Check System EFI Settings............................................................................................1
Step 3 Flash UEFI Rom to SSD7103........................................................................................3
Step 4 Create Array...................................................................................................................4
Step 5 Prepare the Driver Diskette............................................................................................5
Step 6 Install Linux Debian.......................................................................................................5
3 Monitoring the Driver .................................................................................................................8
4 Installing RAID Management Software.....................................................................................8
5 Rebuilding Driver Module for System Update..........................................................................8

SSD7103 Linux Debian10.3.0 Installation Guide
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1 Overview
The purpose of this document is to provide clear instructions on how to install Linux
Debian on the SSD7103 controller.
For Debian-10.3.0 (kernel: 4.19.0-8-amd64)
Mirror link:
https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/amd64/iso-dvd/debian-10.3.0-amd64-DVD-1
.iso
MD5: 2052d0bea07085b5552632859b7e8d85
2 Installing Linux Debian on SSD7103 controller
If you would like to install Linux Debian onto drives attached to SSD7103 controller,
please perform the following operations:
Step 1 Prepare Your Hardware for Installation
After you attach your NVMe SSD to SSD7103 controller, you can use SSD7103 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 SSD7103 controller, from your system.
Note
SSD7103 only support EFI boot. If you have other SCSI adapters installed, you must
make sure the SSD7103 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, and then from SSD7103 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.After you finish installation, set SSD7103 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 SSD7103 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 withASUS 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 SSD7103
a. Unzip SSD7103 UEFI package to root dir(/) of a USB flash driver,and insert the
USB flash drive to the motherboard;
b. Booting from the UEFI USB flash and enter the UEFI environment ;
c. Command with"SSD7103.nsh", flash UEFI rom to SSD7103 Controller and
reboot;

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Step 4 Create Array
a. Attach four NVMe SSD to SSD7103 Controller ;
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:

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e. Command "create RAID0 ".
Create RAID0 array with all disks and with maximum capacity.
f. Command "exit"；
g. For more command usages, refer toAppendix A.
Step 5 Prepare the Driver Diskette
Extract HighPoint_NVMe_Debian_10.3.0_x86_64_vx.x.x_xx_xx_xx.tar.gz to top(/)
directory of an USB flash drive. It will look like:
Step 6 Install Linux Debian
a. Please confirm the status of the network environment before performing the following
operations. In order to ensure normal installation, it is recommended to install the system
in an environment without a network.
b. Insert the USB flash drive to the target system.
c. Booting from Installation DVD disc (EFI mode).

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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. After the second installation completes "Loading additional components"，
Then the screen shows that" [!!] Partition disks".
Press "ALT+F2"(Graphical install please press"CTRL+ALT+F2") to switch to the shell
on console 2, and the then execute following commands to copy the driver contents:.
# 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

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# 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 SSD7103 driver.
f. Then press "ALT+F1" (Graphical install please press"ALT+F5")to switch back to
installation screen and continue the installation as usual.
g. When the screen shows that" [!!] Partition disks"，select "<Go Back>".
h. Back to" [!] Debian installer main menu"，select the disc again.
i. When the screen shows that " [!!] Finish the installation",

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press "ALT+F2"(Graphical install please press"ALT+F5") to the shell and type the
following commands:
# sh /tmp/hptdd/postinst.sh ← Install SSD7103 driver.
A message will be displayed that the driver has been installed successfully.
j. Press "ALT+F1" to switch back to installation screen and finish the installation.
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 SSD7103 controller. Installation of the management
software is optional but recommended.
Please refer to HighPoint RAID Management Software documents for more information.
5 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 REAME file distributed with HighPoint SSD7103 open source package
on how to build and install the driver module.