Supported ioctl() operations¶

For compatibility with applications written for the cciss(4) and hpsa(4) drivers, many, but not all of the ioctl(2) operations supported by the hpsa driver are also supported by the smartpqi driver. The data structures used by these operations are described in the Linux kernel source file include/linux/cciss_ioctl.h.

CCISS_DEREGDISK, CCISS_REGNEWDISK, CCISS_REGNEWD

These operations all do exactly the same thing, which is to cause the driver to re-scan for new devices. This does exactly the same thing as writing to the smartpqi-specific host rescan attribute.

CCISS_GETPCIINFO

This operation Returns the PCI domain, bus, device and function and "board ID" (PCI subsystem ID).

CCISS_GETDRIVVER

This operation returns the driver version in four bytes, encoded as:

(major_version << 28) | (minor_version << 24) |


        (release << 16) | revision
    

CCISS_PASSTHRU

Allows BMIC and CISS commands to be passed through to the controller.

Boot options¶

disable_device_id_wildcards={0|1}

Disables support for device ID wildcards. The default value is 0.

disable_heartbeat={0|1}

Disables support for the controller's heartbeat check. This parameter is used for debugging purposes. The default value is 0, leaving the controller's heartbeat check active.

disable_ctrl_shutdown={0|1}

Disables support for shutting down the controller in the event of a controller lockup. The default value is 0.

lockup_action={none|reboot|panic}

Specifies the action the driver takes when a controller lockup is detected. The default action is none.

parameter	action
none	take controller offline only
reboot	reboot the system
panic	panic the system

Device nodes¶

Logical drives are accessed via the SCSI disk driver (sd), tape drives via the SCSI tape driver (st), and the RAID controller via the SCSI generic driver (sg), with device nodes named /dev/sd*, /dev/st*, and /dev/sg*, respectively.

SmartPQI-specific host attribute files in /sys¶

/sys/class/scsi_host/host*/rescan

The host rescan attribute is a write-only attribute. Writing to this attribute will cause the driver to scan for new, changed, or removed devices (e.g., hot-plugged tape drives, or newly configured or deleted logical drives) and notify the SCSI mid-layer of any changes detected. Usually this action is triggered automatically by configuration changes, so the user should not normally have to write to this file. Doing so may be useful when hot-plugging devices such as tape drives or entire storage boxes containing pre-configured logical drives.

/sys/class/scsi_host/host*/version

The host version attribute is a read-only attribute. This attribute contains the driver version and the controller firmware version.

For example:

$ 
cat /sys/class/scsi_host/host1/version
driver: 1.1.2-126
firmware: 1.29-112
    

/sys/class/scsi_host/host*/lockup_action

The host lockup_action attribute is a read/write attribute. This attribute will cause the driver to perform a specific action in the unlikely event that a controller lockup has been detected. See OPTIONS above for an explanation of the lockup_action values.

SmartPQI-specific disk attribute files in /sys¶

In the file specifications below, c stands for the number of the appropriate SCSI controller, b is the bus number, t the target number, and l is the logical unit number (LUN).

/sys/class/scsi_disk/c:b:t:l/device/raid_level

The raid_level attribute is read-only. This attribute contains the RAID level of each logical drive.

For example:

$ 
cat /sys/class/scsi_disk/4:0:0:0/device/raid_level
RAID 0
    

/sys/class/scsi_disk/c:b:t:l/device/sas_address

The sas_address attribute is read-only. This attribute contains the unique identifier of the disk.

For example:

$ 
cat /sys/class/scsi_disk/1:0:3:0/device/sas_address
0x5001173d028543a2
    

/sys/class/scsi_disk/c:b:t:l/device/ssd_smart_path_enabled

The ssd_smart_path_enabled attribute is read-only. This attribute is for ioaccel-enabled volumes. (Ioaccel is an alternative driver submission path that allows the driver to send I/O requests directly to backend SCSI devices, bypassing the controller firmware. This results in an increase in performance. This method is used for HBA disks and for logical volumes comprised of SSDs.) Contains 1 if ioaccel is enabled for the volume and 0 otherwise.

For example:

$ 
cat /sys/class/scsi_disk/1:0:3:0/device/ssd_smart_path_enabled
0
    

Configuration¶

To configure a Microsemi Smart Family controller, refer to the User Guide for the controller, which can be found by searching for the specific controller at https://storage.microsemi.com/.