Loading the Driver via udev or Init Script

There are two main methods for loading the Fusion-IO Driver: udev and the iodrive script. The default method of loading is udev.

Using Udev to Load the Driver

Most modern linux distributions use udev to facilitate driver loading. Usually it just works, behind the scenes, loading drivers.

Udev automatically loads drivers for installed hardware on the system. It does this by walking through the devices on the PCI bus, and then loading any driver that has been properly configured to work with that device. This way, drivers are able to be loaded, without having to use scripts or modify configuration files. The Fusion IO drivers are properly configured, and udev will properly find, and attempt to load the drivers.

But, there are some cases where loading by udev is not appropriate, or can have issues.

Udev will wait 180 seconds for the driver to load, then it will exit. In most cases, this is plenty of time. (Even with multiple ioDrives installed). But, if the drives were shut down improperly, loading the driver, and attaching the drives takes longer than the 180 seconds. In this case, udev will exit. The drivers will not exit, and will continue working on attaching the drives.

It is not always a problem when udev exits. The drivers will eventually load, and then you will be able to use the attached block devices. But, if the drivers do take too long to load, udev does exit, and filesystems are set to be mounted in the fstab, then the system fsck will fail, and the system will stop booting. In most distributions the user will drop into a single-user mode, or repair mode.

Again, this is normal behavior, and, after the driver finishes rescanning and attaching the drive, a reboot will fix things. For most users, this will not happen enough to be an issue.

But, for installations with many devices, or for server installations where dropping into single user mode is unacceptable, there is an alternative method for driver loading that does not have these issues.

Using Init Scripts to Load the Driver

The ioDriver packages provide init scripts that are installed on all supported linux distributions. These scripts typically resided in /etc/init.d/iodrive or /etc/rc.d/iodrive. The scripts are used to load and start the driver, and mount filesystems, after the system is up. This method avoids completly the udev behavior described above. (It will wait, as long as it takes, for drives to be attached)

Follow the instructions based your driver version.

(jump to: Using Init Scripts to Load the 1.2.x Driver)

Using Init Scripts to Load the 2.x.x Driver

Step 1: Modifying /etc/modprobe.d/iomemory-vsl.conf

Edit /etc/modprobe.d/iomemory-vsl.conf, and uncomment the blacklist line:

Before:

# To keep ioDrive from auto loading at boot, uncomment below
# blacklist fio-driver

After:

# To keep ioDrive from auto loading at boot, uncomment below
blacklist fio-driver

This keeps udev from automatically loading the driver

Step 2: Modifying /etc/fstab

Add noauto to the options in the appropriate line in the /etc/fstab. This will keep the OS from trying to check the drive for errors on boot.

Before:

LABEL=/ / ext3 defaults 1 1
LABEL=/boot /boot ext3 defaults 1 2
tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs defaults 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
LABEL=SWAP-sda5 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/fioa1  /iodrive_mountpoint ext3 defaults 1 2

After:

LABEL=/ / ext3 defaults 1 1
LABEL=/boot /boot ext3 defaults 1 2
tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs defaults 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
LABEL=SWAP-sda5 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/fioa1  /iodrive_mountpoint ext3 defaults,noauto 0 0

Step 3: Modifying /etc/sysconfig/iomemory-vsl

Edit /etc/sysconfig/iomemory-vsl, and uncomment ENABLED=1 to enable the init script.

Before:

# If ENABLED is not set (non-zero) then iomemory-vsl init script will not be
# used.
#ENABLED=1

After:

# If ENABLED is not set (non-zero) then iomemory-vsl init script will not be
# used.
ENABLED=1

While editing /etc/sysconfig/iomemory-vsl, add the mountpoint to the MOUNTS variable so it will be automatically attached and mounted:

Before:

# An IFS separated list of mount points to mount once the driver is
# loaded. These mount points should be listed in /etc/fstab with
# "noauto" as one of the mount options.
# Example /etc/fstab:
#/dev/fioa /mnt/fioa ext3 defaults,noauto 0 0
#/dev/fiob /mnt/firehose ext3 defaults,noauto 0 0
# Example: MOUNTS="/mnt/fioa /mnt/firehose"
MOUNTS=""

After:

# An IFS separated list of mount points to mount once the driver is
# loaded. These mount points should be listed in /etc/fstab with
# "noauto" as one of the mount options.
# Example /etc/fstab:
#/dev/fioa /mnt/fioa ext3 defaults,noauto 0 0
#/dev/fiob /mnt/firehose ext3 defaults,noauto 0 0
# Example: MOUNTS="/mnt/fioa /mnt/firehose"
MOUNTS="/iodrive_mountpoint"

Step 4: Verifying the Status of the Init Script

Make sure the iodrive script loads at run levels 1 through 5 (runlevel 0 is shutdown and runlevel 6 is reboot).
Please run:

$ chkconfig iomemory-vsl on

$ chkconfig --list iomemory-vsl

 iomemory-vsl 0:off 1:on 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off

Using Init Scripts to Load the 1.2.x Driver

Step 1: Modifying /etc/modprobe.d/iodrive

Edit /etc/modprobe.d/iodrive, and uncomment the blacklist line:

Before:

# To keep ioDrive from auto loading at boot, uncomment below
# blacklist fio-driver

After:

# To keep ioDrive from auto loading at boot, uncomment below
blacklist fio-driver

This keeps udev from automatically loading the driver

Step 2: Modifying /etc/fstab

Add noauto to the options in the appropriate line in the /etc/fstab. This will keep the OS from trying to check the drive for errors on boot.

Before:

LABEL=/ / ext3 defaults 1 1
LABEL=/boot /boot ext3 defaults 1 2
tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs defaults 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
LABEL=SWAP-sda5 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/fioa1  /iodrive_mountpoint ext3 defaults 1 2

After:

LABEL=/ / ext3 defaults 1 1
LABEL=/boot /boot ext3 defaults 1 2
tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs defaults 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
LABEL=SWAP-sda5 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/fioa1  /iodrive_mountpoint ext3 defaults,noauto 0 0

Step 3: Modifying /etc/sysconfig/iodrive

Edit /etc/sysconfig/iodrive, and add the mountpoint to the MOUNTS variable, so that it will be automatically attached and mounted:

Before:

# An IFS separated list of mount points to mount once the driver is
# loaded. These mount points should be listed in /etc/fstab with
# "noauto" as one of the mount options.
# Example /etc/fstab:
#/dev/fioa /mnt/fioa ext3 defaults,noauto 0 0
#/dev/fiob /mnt/firehose ext3 defaults,noauto 0 0
# Example: MOUNTS="/mnt/fioa /mnt/firehose"
MOUNTS=""

After:

# An IFS separated list of mount points to mount once the driver is
# loaded. These mount points should be listed in /etc/fstab with
# "noauto" as one of the mount options.
# Example /etc/fstab:
#/dev/fioa /mnt/fioa ext3 defaults,noauto 0 0
#/dev/fiob /mnt/firehose ext3 defaults,noauto 0 0
# Example: MOUNTS="/mnt/fioa /mnt/firehose"
MOUNTS="/iodrive_mountpoint"

Step 4: Verifying the Status of the Init Script

Make sure the iodrive script loads at run levels 1 through 5 (runlevel 0 is shutdown and runlevel 6 is reboot).
Please run:

$ chkconfig iodrive on

$ chkconfig --list iodrive

 iodrive 0:off 1:on 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off