Booting to Nvme VMD for Linux

一、 Prepare

1:HW(HardWare)

1. Intel Nvme SSD P4600
2. Driver Usb Disk
3. Manual Install RHEL8.0 Usb Disk

2: SW(SoftWare)

1. Linux driver rpm package
2. REHL-8.0.0-20190404.2-x86-dvd1.iso
3. rufus-3.8.exe: a tool for making startup disk

二、 Linux RHEL Driver Update Disk

1. Create Disk File Structure

a. download kmod-iavmd-1.0-80_1.el8.x86_64.rpm and iavmd-1.0-80_1.el8.src.rpm
b.mkdir DUD
c. cd DUD
d. mkdir -p rpms/x86_64
e. mkdir src
f. echo “Driver Update Disk version 3” > rhdd3
g. cp rpms/x86_64/
h. cp src/

2. Create repodata

a. createrepo rpms/

3. Create DUD Image

a. genisoimage -r -J -joliet-long -o
example: genisoimage -r -J -joliet-long -o dud.iso DUD/

4. Burn image

a. insert Usb Disk and use cmd: fisk -l to look this disk location.
b. dd if=dud.iso of=/dev/<sd***N***>

Note: In RHEL installer, boot with ‘inst.dd’ and other parameters(such as initcall_blacklist=vmd_drv_init)

三、Make manual install startup Disk

1. Format Usb Disk
2. download REHL-8.0.0-20190404.2-x86-dvd1.iso
3. open rufus-3.8.exe and click the select option, choose REHL-8.0.0-20190404.2-x86-dvd1.iso
4. click start option and wait for completion

四、BIOS Setting

1. Plug an Nvme P4600 into the top slot of the riser on the left side of the server.
2. power on and boot to BIOS. See blew picture, we can see INTEL SSDPED1K015TA-PHKS833200F31P5CGN, so make sure that Nvme SSD P4600 recognize.

a) EDKII -> Socket 0 Configuration -> IIO Configuration -> IOU1(x4x4x4x4)
b) EDKII -> Socket 0 Configuration -> IIO Configuration -> Intel VM Technology -> Intel® VMD for Volume Managment Device on Socket 0 -> VMD Config for IOU 1 (Enable/disable VMD VMD port A/B/C/D )

c) Save and Reset.

五、RHEL8.0 Installion with VMD 2.0 replacement driver update disk

1. Connect these two Usb disk, power on the system.

2. Select Install Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.0.0 and press ‘e’ and add ‘noapic inst.dd initcall_blacklist=vmd_drv_init’

3. press ‘ctrl + x’ start Boot, and you will see the interactive driver Disk device selection menu, and select ‘r’ ,you will see:

4. select 2 (you may see the different Label), list the rpms, and select the rpm:

5. press ’ c’ to continue,

6. again press ‘c’ to continue, this will starts the RHEL 8.0 installion.

7. Progress through the installation, Once installation has completed,reboot the system. During first boot, select the RHEL 8.0 kernel and press ‘e’. add ‘initcall_blacklist=vmd_drv_init’ , then boot.

8. Finally, To make this permanent after booting, run:
   grub2-editenv - set "$(grub2-editenv - list | grep kernelopts) initcall_blacklist=vmd_drv_init"