Leap 16.0 and ARC-1223-8I RAID

English Hardware
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I have just migrated from Leap 15.6 (which all worked successfully, until I tried to mix online texlive with the SuSE distributed version, which trashed texlive!). Suspected random syslinks now pointing to deleted files. Attempted to remove suspicious symlinks, but gave up.

I decided to install Leap 16.0, which appeared successful. However, I now find my Areca RAID ARC-1223-8I is not even visible in my BIOS. Never had trouble upgrading or re-installing before. Apparently, I need to install ArcHttp Proxy Server, but it is unclear how this is done.

My guess is that the Leap 16.0 kernel no longer supports RAID ARC-1223-8I. Is this correct? What can I do?

Anyone have any experience?

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According to the Leap 16.0 kernel-default config the module is not configured anymore

> zcat /proc/config.gz |grep ARCMSR
# CONFIG_SCSI_ARCMSR is not set
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@alee Hi, it’s still built in Tumbleweed, because the Leap 16.0 base is from SUSE, they have dropped support for it. You would need to build as a kmp, sign etc if using secure boot.

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Hi rawar and Malcolm: Something seems crazy here. I have been using my RAID system over many Leap versions — most recently under Leap 15.6. OK, sometimes I have “upgraded” rather than “re-installed”, but I have used both. Surely this implies the kernel was coping with my RAID subsystem. I very much do not want to lose it! Apart from anything else, it contains all my serious data.

Other issues (just now) with Leap 16.0. No Tc/Tk, and there appear to be no man pages. As yast2 appears to have been dropped, it is no longer easy to find stuff you need to get things working. Fit for purpose?

So how do I cope with these issues — in detail, please. I do not claim to be an expert, but have now been struggling for several days. Mentions of ARECA and arcmsr within openSuSE seem to be very old, and almost no useful information seems available on Leap 16.0.

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Just tried:

> zcat /proc/config.gz |grep ARCMSR
# CONFIG_SCSI_ARCMSR is not set

Confirms earlier. What now?

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@alee yes, things have changed. The Leap 16.0 base is not maintained/built by openSUSE, it’s built and maintained by SUSE. So any additions etc are the responsibility of the openSUSE Community.

It may take a bug report to get the acrmsr module added, maybe in the extra or optional kernel package(s)?

Check the Forum left panel for a link to bug reporting. Perhaps post back a link to the report here.

You need to install and use Myrlyn for package management or zypper from a terminal…

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My MB is a X870E AORUS ELITE WIFI7 ICE, which I don’t think comes with a TPM — although there is mention of a “TPM header”. Is this going to be a problem?

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@alee no, should be fine, I’m running Leap on boards without TPM 2.0 >= 1.38.

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Have you tried kernel:stable:backports?
https://bugzilla.suse.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1261533

1 Like
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It is not related to your raid problem but as far as I know, your motherboard is an AMD AM5 board. All AMD AM5 CPUs have an fTPM 2.0 embedded in the CPU. So even if you don’t need one for Leap 16.0, you have a TPM 2.0 anyway.

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My thanks to all responders to my original query. However, I remain
confused.

To recap, I recently re-installed my SuSE Linux from Leap 15.6 to 16.0
— to find access to my ARECA RAID had disappeared, not even visible
in the BIOS. My (unchanged) MB is a Gigabyte X870E AORUS ELITE WIFI7
ICE, and the RAID storage sub-system was an Areca RAID ARC-1223-8I
(configured as RAID-6). A zcat query on Leap 16.0 confirmed:

CONFIG_SCSI_ARCMSR is not set.

I have been digging out information; a manual relevant to ARC-1223-8I
indicates that after hardware installation, the … SAS RAID
controller must be configured … before they are ready to use. The
user interface for these tasks can be accessed through the built-in
configuration that resides in the controller’s firmware. In addition,
the CD contains the software utility that can monitor, test, and
support the 6Gb/s SAS RAID controller. The software utility and McRAID
storage manager can configure and monitor the 6Gb/s SAS RAID
controller via ArcHttp proxy server interface. To install the ArcHttp
… download from www.areca.com.tw .

From https://www.areca.us/support/downloads.html, Type: SAS/SATA RAID
Adapters/Mezzaine Adapters Model: Discontinued Item: Driver/Utility
OS: Linux, we have 2023/12/26 arcmsr source, and Driver for OpenSuse
15.6 as 1.50.OX.16.

Given this information, perhaps there is some possibility of
resurrecting Leap 15.6 RAID software, and thereafter modifying to Leap
16.0.

I decided to fully re-install (not repair) to Leap 15.6 to initiate
the first step. Readers may recall my earlier statement that the RAID
appeared to work fine on Leap 15.6.

During Leap 15.6 installation, the RAID was evidently visible to the
installation — indeed I needed to persuade the installation to
install onto my SSD drive (NOT the RAID), and gave permission for
initial full erasure of the SSD.

After installation, I was initially able to mount the RAID as
removable (data was intact!), and thereafter modify /etc/fstab for
power-on mounting — also with intact data. Note: I had not
installed any new software. Under Leap 15.6:

zcat /proc/config.gz |grep ARCMSR
CONFIG_SCSI_ARCMSR=m

I guess the ArcHttp proxy server interface (in the controller’s
firmware?) had remained within the RAID card, and continued operation.
The CONFIG_SCSI_ARCMSR=m seems (in my ignorance) to be present in the
Leap 15.6 software. Can anyone please clarify this for me?

From earlier responses I got the impression that support for my ARECA
RAID had been dropped some time ago. Does anyone know when? The
above seems to suggest that support was available in Leap 15.6, so
16.0 seems to be the boundary.

Reading openSUSE documentation, I gather there was planned a 6-month
overlap in support between Leap 15.6 and 16.0. Does anyone know when
the 15.6 support ends?

Malcolm’s comment: “The Leap 16.0 base is not maintained/built by
openSUSE, it’s built and maintained by SUSE. So any additions etc are
the responsibility of the openSUSE Community” is worrying to me. The
result of openSUSE development has been (up to Leap 15.6) a solid,
predictable, and useful OS that the developers should be proud of. My
(OK, early) look at 16.0 has been much less favourable — although I
can understand the difficulties of trying to keep up with bug-fixes in
a new base. However, YAST2 seems to have been replaced by Discover (?)
which seems to offer very few packages in their glorious image
presentation. Furthermore, I cannot find any equivalent of the list of
huge numbers of items seen for Leap 15.6 (and earlier), and Discover
seems not to offer the same level of “discovery” that YAST2 supported.

My gut feeling, to date, is to stick with Leap 15.6 until 16.x has
matured to a point where it will actually be useful.

Sauerland suggested “Have you tried kernel:stable:backports?”. Is
that approach any different from sticking with 15.6?

I spotted some version control software under 16.0. Would this be
100% compatible with my ancient RCS? — that I have been using over
more decades than I care to admit. I would hope to be able to
interpret my old files,v RCS archives in case I need to identify
differences etc (rcsdiff).

And what has happened to all those manpages?

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@alee Hi, the only way that it will get added back is via a bug report, you need to find out from the kernel maintainers why it’s been disabled etc…

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Hi Malcolm: I added my comments to existing Bugzilla Bug 1261533, where another has been using Areca ARC-1280 to produce a RAID-based system into which he installed Leap-15.0. Guess what: cannot install Leap-16.0! Responses were:

Martin Wilck 2026-05-06 11:12:08 UTC (to initial bug report):

I am sorry to disappoint you. Areca ARC-1280 has been out of support for a long time. SUSE removed it from the SLE16 kernel in 2023 in an attempt to reduce maintenance burden.

Areca provides drivers on https://www.areca.com.tw/support/downloads.html, but only for 15.x.

AFAICS, we still include the driver in the kernel-default package from the Kernel:stable:Backport project. That’s your only option at this time.

https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Kernel:/stable:/Backport/16.0/

It would be possible to create an arcmsr KMP package, but currently no such thing exists.

Martin Wilck 2026-05-14 09:45:10 UTC (to my addition):

I will look into this when I have time, which is currently not the case. So if you want to take action yourself, feel free to do so. You can find lots of examples e.g. in the “hardware” project on OBS. You can take any such package, put in a tarball of the arcmsr driver from SL-16.0 and make some obvious adaptations for module names and paths.

As explained above, I am not confident about a DIY approach — and attempts to install a (modified) Leap-16.0 means I lose my machine, with a lengthy re-installation for Leap-15.0 if my attempt fails.

I feel I’ll need to stick to 15.0 for the moment, and look before I Leap.

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And what is OBS, and where do I find it?

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Hi, the openSUSE Build Service https://build.opensuse.org/

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At least you got that far. I spent two days installing OS16 on a flash drive only to have it crash. Can we have a choice in the installer? The old Yast installer worked beautifully. I could even raid my drives. Now, I have to put nomeset in the grub to have Agama actually load. I am afraid to use it on my teaching computer as I do not want to trash it. As a professor at a college, I use openSuSE to teach a linux class. Agama is not user friendly. I am not sure what to do at this point for the Fall Semester Linux class…

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@Master_Rod You likely need to look at using a profile (json) to add RAID, else manually assemble from the Agama CLI. Look at tagging the install media with a password, then can log into the system remotely via Web UI or ssh…

Anyway, you should start a new topic on your specific issues…

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