Summary
Instructions to detect the Intel® VROC RAID volume during the RHEL* operating system installation.
Description
After creating an Intel® VROC RAID 0/1/5 using the pre-OS environment options (UEFI/BIOS), the volume is not visible during the installation of the operating system and cannot be selected as the target for the installation.
Resolution
| Does the Linux* distribution come with inbox drivers? |
| It is important to confirm if the Linux* distribution and version come with the necessary inbox drivers. This can be reviewed in the Intel® Virtual RAID on CPU (Intel® VROC) Supported Configurations. Starting with RHEL 8.2, the driver is already included (inbox), so the steps shown below should not be necessary. |
If the required driver package is available for the desired distribution, follow the steps below. If this is not the case and a specific driver package is required, contact Intel Customer Support to confirm availability.
Note that two USB drives will be used in these instructions, one for the operating system and one for the driver package.
- Extract the contents of the driver package on a FAT32 USB key.
- Connect both USB keys to the target system.
- Boot/Launch the USB installation key.
- In the very first menu, edit the boot configuration options before starting the installation process.
- Pressing the <e> key should display the configuration menu, or check the on-screen options to confirm.
- In the configuration menu, look for the line linuxefi. Then, add inst.dd initcall_blacklist=vmd_drv_init to the end of the line, generally after quiet.
- As an example, the line should look similar to this: linuxefi /images... RHEL7_9... quiet inst.dd initcall_blacklist=vmd_drv_init
- The inst.dd forces the installer to display all available media to select the driver.
- The initcall_blacklist forces the installer to ignore the default driver.
- Press Ctrl+x to launch the operating system installer, or check the on-screen options to confirm.
- The available media list will be displayed to select the source of the new driver. Press the <r> key to refresh the list if no options are displayed here.
- Use the numbers to select the correct USB key. If the installer shows that the USB will be mounted as read-only, this is not a problem. After selecting the USB key, a list of the available drivers inside it will be displayed.
- Use the numbers to select the driver, and confirm it is marked with an X after it is selected.
- Press the <c> key to continue. The driver should be successfully extracted and the installation will continue. The installer will indicate on screen if new devices/volumes are discovered, which may take a few seconds.
- Continue with the RHEL installation. The Intel® VROC RAID 0/1/5/10 volume should be displayed as a possible installation target now.
- After the installation is complete, the system will restart for the first time, and it is necessary to edit the boot configuration options one last time.
- Pressing the <e> key should display the configuration menu, or check the on-screen options to confirm.
- In the configuration menu, look for the line linuxefi. Then, add initcall_blacklist=vmd_drv_init to the end of the line.
- As an example, the line should look similar to this: linuxefi /vmlinuz.. quiet... UTF8.... initcall_blacklist=vmd_drv_init
- The initcall_blacklist forces the operating system to ignore the default driver.
- Press Ctrl+x to launch the operating system installer, or check the on-screen options to confirm. If this step is not completed, the operating system will fail to boot after the installation.
- The operating system should boot normally. Once the operating system starts for the first time, it is necessary to permanently modify the boot parameter in GRUB before the system boot to include the initcall_blacklist=vmd_drv_init to prevent the system from using the default driver. If this is not done, the operating system will fail to boot the next time.
- Installing the ledmon and mdadm packages may also be required.