HP PCIe IO Accelerators for ProLiant Servers - Manual (Page 30)

Linux environments 30
# rpm -e iomemory-vsl-2.6.18-194.el5-2.2.0.82-1.0
To install the new driver, see "Downloading and installing the driver and utilities using Linux (on page
21 )."
NOTE: When upgrading from version 1.2.7.x to version 2.x, a firmware upgrade is required.
For more information, see "Upgrading firmware using Linux (on page 27 )."
Each new release includes instructions. Make sure you read the Release Notes and the
installation instructions to ensure no loss of data.
Using the IO Accelerator as swap with Linux
To safely use the IO Accelerator as swap space, you must pass the swap_mode=1 kernel module
parameter. To do this, add the following line to the /etc/modprobe.d/iomemory_vsl file:
options iomemory_vsl preallocate_memory=1072,4997,6710,10345
where 1072,4997,6710,10345 are serial numbers obtained from the fio-status utility. Be sure to
use serial numbers for the IO Accelerator modules and not the adapter.
A 4K sector size format is required for swap. This reduces the driver memory footprint.
CAUTION: You must have 400MB of free RAM per 80GB of IO Accelerator capacity
(formatted to 4KB block size) to enable the IO Accelerator with pre-allocation enabled for
swap. Attaching an IO Accelerator with pre-allocation enabled and insufficient RAM might
result in the loss of user processes and system instability.
Using the Logical Volume Manager
If you add the IO Accelerator as a supported type, the LVM volume group management application
handles mass storage devices like the IO Accelerator. To use the LVM:
1. Locate the /etc/lvm/lvm.conf configuration file.
2. Edit the file to add an entry similar to the following:
types = [ “fio”, 16 ]
The parameter “16” represents the maximum number of partitions supported by the drive. For the IO
Accelerator, this can be any number from 1 upwards. Do not set this parameter to 0.
NOTE: For the IO Accelerator, HP recommends 16 for the partition setting.
Configuring RAID for Linux
You can configure two or more IO Accelerators into a RAID array using standard Linux procedures.
NOTE: If you are using RAID1 mirroring and one device fails, enter the fio-format
command on the replacement device (not the existing good device) before rebuilding the
RAID.
HP recommends that you do not use a RAID5 configuration.