Install OpenStack with Fuel on HP RAID Controllers

Posted: May 29, 2015
Categories: kernel, centos, hp, raid

I just ran into a small problem, and as it took me time to find the solution, here it is.

Problem

To install OpenStack nodes through Fuel's interface (stable version 6.0), a bootstrap image (based on CentOS) is sent via PXE. Even though it contains the hpsa driver, it failed to recognize any disk on our HP SmartArray P440ar RAID Controller. Digging through dmesg gave me:

HP HPSA Driver (v 2.0.2-1)
hpsa 0000:03:00.0: unrecognized board ID: 0x21bf103c

Hence, the Nailgun agent reported no disks, and the installation of these nodes couldn't go further.

Solution

Running modinfo hpsa gives us the needed option: hpsa_allow_any. From the docs:

hpsa_allow_any:Allow hpsa driver to access unknown HP Smart Array hardware (int)

With this option set the SmartArray got recognized.

If you want to do this live, run (as root):

modprobe -r hpsa
modprobe hpsa hpsa_allow_any=1

Or if you want Fuel to report the disk by the agent after bootstrap has launched (that's what you need if you're in my situation), add this in the Kernel parameters in the Settings tab of Fuel: hpsa.hpsa_allow_any=1 (fix pointed by Fabrizio in a comment).