The IBM ServeRAID M1015 SAS/SATA controller (FRU 46M0861)

This page is to try to help if you're attempting to cross-flash an IBM M1015 SAS/SATA card to make it think that it's an LSI Logic 9211.8i card (also known as an "LSI SAS2008" card), e.g. for use in a SuperMicro server.

This kind of cross-flashing can also be done for a Dell Perc H310 (slightly more steps are needed than for the IBM M1015, see here), but this page only covers the M1015 as that's all I have at the moment.

So what does "cross-flash" mean? It means to flash a disk controller card (in this case, the IBM M1015) with firmware intended for another disk controller card that has sufficiently similar hardware (the LSI 9211.8i).

To use the M1015 card with FreeNAS 9.3, we need to flash the M1015 card in Initiator Target (IT) mode with the P16 firmware and no BIOS bootup delay (i.e. without the "option ROM" firmware).

If you're seeking to get your hands on one, the IBM part number for the M1015 is P/N 49Y4731 (ServeRAID-BR10il SAS/SATA Controller v2) which is equivalent to an LSI MegaRAID SAS 9240-9i card.

You could probably do other things with an M1015 card, this page is only to describe how to use the card with FreeNAS, because "used" IBM M1015 cards are currently far cheaper than the equivalent LSI card, and after following all of the steps necessary to flash the necessary IT firmware onto an LSI chipset based controller card you probably won't feel like giving a single penny of your money to LSI anyway.

The steps to flash the firmware using a desktop motherboard are quite convoluted, involving:

running commands under both a DOS shell and a UEFI shell.
searching for an elusive older firmware version archive and tools archive on the LSI site.

So I thought a page with some nice pictures and an example of a specific motherboard where this has been done might help (especially if you happen to have the same motherboard).

As the explanation is quite long, it'll probably take me some time to get it written up completely.

In the meantime, the most accurate explanation I've found is the one here written by Reyssor.

The files that need to be on a USB flash drive are as follows, and this USB flash drive needs to be a DOS-bootable drive (if you have a Microsoft machine, you can either use Rufus to create such a thing with FreeDOS or follow these steps, I won't attempt to go into further detail on how to make a USB flash drive DOS-bootable).

The UEFI-shell and flashing tools:

2118it.bin 
sas2flash.efi  
Shellx64.efi

The DOS-shell tools used to erase the M1015 firmware, to allow the above tools to "see" the card:

MegaRec.exe  
dos4gw.exe 
sbrempty.bin

The above files are located as follows:

Download Shell_Full.efi and name it Shellx64.efi
The MegaRec.exe and dos4gw.exe are located in this archive linked from this page which is not affiliated with LSI Logic. These tools are used to erase the firmware, otherwise the sas2flash.efi refuses to "see" the M1015 card and cannot flash the new firmware onto it, the error will be No LSI SAS adapters found!.
here is the LSI Logic page for the "LSI SAS 9211-8i" (note that that card has a different layout than the M1015 card wrt the direction the SFF-8087 ports are facing) but it only shows the P19 and P20 firmwares, so you need to edit the P20 firmware link and P20 flashing tool link to make them point to the P16 as follows P16 firmware link and P16 flashing tool link because FreeNAS 9.3 requires the P16 firmware and a new warning added in 9.3 will warn (with good reason) about any mismatch between the FreeNAS driver and the firmware version installed on the card. When viewing the firmware version using the LSI tool sas2flash.efi -listall it'll be shown as just 16.00.00.00 there's no mention of P16 in that version number.

Steps to Cross-flash to the `2118it.bin` firmware

Write down the hex numbers from the green label on the back of the M1015 card. Power off and unplug your machine and wait until the capacitors drain before inserting the M1015 card. Before you reboot your computer, make sure there is only one RAID card plugged in, don't insert both cards into the same machine, it makes things much more complicated! Just flash one card at a time.

If this is the first time you have a RAID controller card installed, do not panic if you see your computer getting "stuck" during boot, just wait, your M1015 card is initializing, it takes quite a few seconds to do this, at least that was the case for me.

First need to boot to DOS shell. To do this, insert your USB flash drive into the "top left" USB 3.0 connector on the back panel, and during booting press F8 to bring up a menu where you can select the partition to boot from, this should be the larger partition on your DOS-bootable USB stick. For me, I needed to select SanDisk U3 CruzerMicro? (1952MB).

If you try to flash the M1015 at this point you'll see the unhelpful message No LSI SAS adapters found!. The solution is that the M1015 firmware must first be erased from within the DOS shell, before the firmware can be flashed from the UEFI shell (see below).

Erasing the firmware is done using the following commands from within a DOS shell first.

Warning: doing this causes the card to no longer appear as a PCIe device to Linux until you are able to use a UEFI shell to flash it with the 2118it.bin firmware (which we'll do next in UEFI shell), so make sure you can launch a UEFI shell before running the following commands.

Also, if you don't already know the SAS address of your card from the green sticker on the back, you should query the card's SAS address and write it down before performing the following firmware wipe using the megarec tool (in order to avoid having to open the server and read the address written in teeny tiny characters on the little green label on the back of card). Apparently these SAS addresses only have to be unique within a given server, but it's safer to use the ones written on the card.

megarec -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin
megarec -cleanflash 0

Sometimes, during the megarec -cleanflash 0 you'll get this error:

Flash Chip Erasing Error
Error in downloading image.
Error code = 64
Failed to flash the image. Please retry recovery

I rebooted, saw this message:

RAID Adapter
Firmware Failed Validation!!!
Adapter needs to be reflashed.
Press Any Key to Continue

I pressed F8 and eventually re-entered the DOS shell and retried the above commands. This time, they worked OK, go figure. Others seem to have been less fortunate, see here.

Reboot into UEFI-shell now. You cannot usually flash the M1015 while running the DOS shell, because you'll get the dreaded ERROR: Failed to initialize PAL. Exiting Program. from running the sas2flsh.exe -list command, which means that you'll need to use UEFI as explained above instead.

Boot into UEFI shell, as follows:

For an ASRock Fatal1ty 990FX Killer motherboard, you'd need to, press F11 while booting, then select Built-in EFI shell.

For an ASUS P8-Z77V motherboard, press the Del key to enter the UEFI graphical screen (F8 is for boot device selection, so don't press that) then click the Exit/Advanced Mode button and choose Advanced Mode then click Exit again and this time you'll see the lovely Launch EFI Shell from filesystem device menu item, select it.

Type the following command to display what drives are detected by the motherboard (the -b flag causes map to pause for each full screen):

  map -b

Then once you find a drive you like (in this case, your USB flash drive), type the following command to mount it. In my case, the name of the USB flash drive was fs0.

  mount <yourdrive>

e.g.

  mount fs0

Then type the following command to change directory to that mounted filesystem:

  <yourdrive>:

e.g.

  fs0:

You can now do the usual UEFI shell stuff like ls, see here for more on this fun topic, and you thought bash was the last shell you'd ever need to learn?

At this point, the card's firmware has been wiped, so you cannot run the command sas2flash.efi -o -e 6 mentioned on other pages. The only commands you'll need are as follows. Change the addresses to match your cards, these are the addresses for my cards.

  sas2flash.efi -o -f 2118it.bin
  sas2flash.efi -o -sasadd 500605B0026A6750

Type the following command to verify the firmware version:

  sas2flash.efi -listall

After that, reboot and test that the controller card works. Note that there will NOT be any BIOS message seen any more while booting, because we didn't include the "option ROM". If you do want to see those messages, and don't mind the delay, you can use the following command to flash it alongside the firmware instead of the command above, but it seems that most FreeNAS users don't run their cards with the "option ROM" and it may cause unknown issues to have it installed. Less, it seems, is more.

         sas2flash.efi -o -f 2118it.bin -b mptsas2.rom

For my second M1015 card I used this SAS address:

  sas2flash.efi -o -f 2118it.bin
  sas2flash.efi -o -sasadd 500605B002B086C0

For my third M1015 card I used this SAS address:

  sas2flash.efi -o -f 2118it.bin
  sas2flash.efi -o -sasadd 500605B00260A130

For my fourth M1015 card I used this SAS address:

  sas2flash.efi -o -f 2118it.bin
  sas2flash.efi -o -sasadd 500605B002626E00

For my fifth M1015 card I used this SAS address:

  sas2flash.efi -o -f 2118it.bin
  sas2flash.efi -o -sasadd 500605B002AFA300

For my sixth M1015 card I used this SAS address:

  sas2flash.efi -o -f 2118it.bin
  sas2flash.efi -o -sasadd 500605B002611DC0

If you were using a slot on the the Asus P8Z77-V motherboard to perform the flashing, and you had another disk controller card in the same slot on that motherboard before you began, then when you put that card back, the original boot order that the motherboard used will likley now be "forgotten" because the card had temporarily been removed (even though you didn't change the boot order, the motherboard noticed that those drives were no longer present while the M1015 card was installed). So to set the boot order back to how it was before, you can go into the Asus P8Z77-V UEFI by pressing Del and in the UEFI screen clicking the Exit/Advanced Mode button and clicking on the Boot Menu button where you'll find a list entry with the name Hard Drive BBS Priorities, click on it. In this page, by clicking on any of the "drive slots" shown, you can choose the order the drives boot in. For me, it needs to be Boot Option #1 as WDC WD 1600JD-75HBBO and Boot Option #2 as A050 Samsung SSD 840 EVO 500GB, this is because grub is installed on the Western Digital drive (for dual-boot with Ubuntu), and Microsoft Windows 7 is installed on the Samsung SSD.

IBM M1015 (front):

IBM M1015 (back, shows the green label with the SAS address to use):

Linux Driver for the LSI 9211-8i card is `mpt2sas`

My distro is as follows:

DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=14.10
DISTRIB_CODENAME=utopic
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 14.10"

The boot-time messages are as follows:

[    0.905756] mpt2sas version 16.100.00.00 loaded
[    0.905933] scsi0 : Fusion MPT SAS Host
[    0.906217] mpt2sas0: 64 BIT PCI BUS DMA ADDRESSING SUPPORTED, total mem (16423736 kB)
[    0.906321] mpt2sas 0000:05:00.0: irq 48 for MSI/MSI-X
[    0.906341] mpt2sas0-msix0: PCI-MSI-X enabled: IRQ 48
[    0.906399] mpt2sas0: iomem(0x00000000f0cc0000), mapped(0xffffc90005b90000), size(16384)
[    0.906470] mpt2sas0: ioport(0x000000000000e000), size(256)

Manually doing a

modprobe -r mpt2sas
modprobe  mpt2sas

causes these messages if you do NOT have any SFF-8087 connectors plugged in (i.e. with no drives connected to the card):

[ 1372.098618] mpt2sas version 16.100.00.00 loaded
[ 1372.098928] scsi10 : Fusion MPT SAS Host
[ 1372.099528] mpt2sas0: 64 BIT PCI BUS DMA ADDRESSING SUPPORTED, total mem (16423736 kB)
[ 1372.099609] mpt2sas 0000:05:00.0: irq 48 for MSI/MSI-X
[ 1372.099654] mpt2sas0-msix0: PCI-MSI-X enabled: IRQ 48
[ 1372.099660] mpt2sas0: iomem(0x00000000f0cc0000), mapped(0xffffc90005b90000), size(16384)
[ 1372.099664] mpt2sas0: ioport(0x000000000000e000), size(256)
[ 1372.553651] mpt2sas0: Allocated physical memory: size(7445 kB)
[ 1372.553656] mpt2sas0: Current Controller Queue Depth(3307), Max Controller Queue Depth(3432)
[ 1372.553657] mpt2sas0: Scatter Gather Elements per IO(128)
[ 1372.787386] mpt2sas0: LSISAS2008: FWVersion(16.00.00.00), ChipRevision(0x03), BiosVersion(00.00.00.00)
[ 1372.787393] mpt2sas0: Protocol=(Initiator,Target), Capabilities=(TLR,EEDP,Snapshot Buffer,Diag Trace Buffer,Task Set Full,NCQ)
[ 1372.787491] mpt2sas0: sending port enable !!
[ 1372.791393] mpt2sas0: host_add: handle(0x0001), sas_addr(0x500605b002b086c0), phys(8)
[ 1372.806556] mpt2sas0: port enable: SUCCESS

For me, initially the drives were not being seen (because I hadn't pushed the SFF-8087 connector hard enough into its socket on the card, as I was worried about damaging the fragile socket or the flimsy-looking connector). Anyways, now the drives are showing up, and hardware burn-in and validation testing with ZFS can begin in earnest on Linux (in preparation for running the card in a FreeNAS? server). It's hard to imagine how this kind of SFF-8087 socket design was chosen for use in enterprise servers.

 mpt2sas version 16.100.00.00 loaded
 scsi13 : Fusion MPT SAS Host
 mpt2sas0: 64 BIT PCI BUS DMA ADDRESSING SUPPORTED, total mem (16423736 kB)
 mpt2sas 0000:05:00.0: irq 48 for MSI/MSI-X
 mpt2sas0-msix0: PCI-MSI-X enabled: IRQ 48
 mpt2sas0: iomem(0x00000000f0cc0000), mapped(0xffffc90005b90000), size(16384)
 mpt2sas0: ioport(0x000000000000e000), size(256)
 mpt2sas0: Allocated physical memory: size(7445 kB)
 mpt2sas0: Current Controller Queue Depth(3307), Max Controller Queue Depth(3432)
 mpt2sas0: Scatter Gather Elements per IO(128)
 mpt2sas0: LSISAS2008: FWVersion(16.00.00.00), ChipRevision(0x03), BiosVersion(00.00.00.00)
 mpt2sas0: Protocol=(Initiator,Target), Capabilities=(TLR,EEDP,Snapshot Buffer,Diag Trace Buffer,Task Set Full,NCQ)
 mpt2sas0: sending port enable !!
 mpt2sas0: host_add: handle(0x0001), sas_addr(0x500605b002b086c0), phys(8)
 scsi 13:0:0:0: Direct-Access     ATA      ST32000542AS     CC34 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6
 scsi 13:0:0:0: SATA: handle(0x0009), sas_addr(0x4433221107000000), phy(7), device_name(0x5000c50032bef27a)
 scsi 13:0:0:0: SATA: enclosure_logical_id(0x500605b002b086c0), slot(4)
 scsi 13:0:0:0: atapi(n), ncq(y), asyn_notify(n), smart(y), fua(y), sw_preserve(y)
 scsi 13:0:0:0: qdepth(32), tagged(1), simple(0), ordered(0), scsi_level(7), cmd_que(1)
 mpt2sas0: port enable: SUCCESS
 sd 13:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg11 type 0
 sd 13:0:0:0: [sdj] 3907029168 512-byte logical blocks: (2.00 TB/1.81 TiB)
 sd 13:0:0:0: [sdj] Write Protect is off
 sd 13:0:0:0: [sdj] Mode Sense: 7f 00 10 08
 sd 13:0:0:0: [sdj] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, supports DPO and FUA
  sdj: sdj1 sdj2 sdj3
 sd 13:0:0:0: [sdj] Attached SCSI disk

An initial sequential read test (just using dd on two drives to copy a raw partition on each of them to /dev/null) on two Western Digital 6TB WD60EFRX red drives shows iostat like this, which seems OK, averaging 178MB/s (which is the max these drives are capable of for sequential read).

avg-cpu:  %user   %nice %system %iowait  %steal   %idle
           2.33    0.00   17.36   32.90    0.00   47.41

Device:            tps    kB_read/s    kB_wrtn/s    kB_read    kB_wrtn
sda              17.00         0.00       132.00          0        132
sdb            1415.00    181120.00         0.00     181120          0
sdc            1471.00    188288.00         0.00     188288          0

avg-cpu:  %user   %nice %system %iowait  %steal   %idle
           2.79    0.00   16.50   39.34    0.00   41.37

Device:            tps    kB_read/s    kB_wrtn/s    kB_read    kB_wrtn
sda              14.00        12.00       104.00         12        104
sdb            1282.00    164096.00         0.00     164096          0
sdc            1375.00    176000.00         0.00     176000          0

avg-cpu:  %user   %nice %system %iowait  %steal   %idle
           3.29    0.00   16.46   30.38    0.00   49.87

Device:            tps    kB_read/s    kB_wrtn/s    kB_read    kB_wrtn
sda               2.00         0.00        12.00          0         12
sdb            1455.00    186240.00         0.00     186240          0
sdc            1494.00    191232.00         0.00     191232          0

Another sequential read/write test (just using dd to copy the contents of a raw partition into an ext4 filesystem on another drive) shows the transfer averaging around 161 MB/s which seems fine.

avg-cpu:  %user   %nice %system %iowait  %steal   %idle
           0.00    0.00    8.84   37.88    0.00   53.28

Device:            tps    kB_read/s    kB_wrtn/s    kB_read    kB_wrtn
sda              15.00         0.00        76.00          0         76
sdb            1361.00    174208.00         0.00     174208          0
sdc             356.00         0.00    182272.00          0     182272

avg-cpu:  %user   %nice %system %iowait  %steal   %idle
           0.00    0.00    9.16   30.79    0.00   60.05

Device:            tps    kB_read/s    kB_wrtn/s    kB_read    kB_wrtn
sda               3.00         8.00         4.00          8          4
sdb            1421.00    181888.00         0.00     181888          0
sdc             357.00         0.00    182784.00          0     182784

avg-cpu:  %user   %nice %system %iowait  %steal   %idle
           0.25    0.00    8.59   30.81    0.00   60.35

Device:            tps    kB_read/s    kB_wrtn/s    kB_read    kB_wrtn
sda               0.00         0.00         0.00          0          0
sdb            1318.00    168704.00         0.00     168704          0
sdc             355.00         0.00    181760.00          0     181760

The `FLReset+` flag.

For PCI Passthrough (known as IOMMU in Xen), the FLReset+ flag needs to be seen in the lspci output, which it is for these cards.

First IBM M1015 card:

lspci -vvnn

03:00.0 Serial Attached SCSI controller [0107]: LSI Logic / Symbios Logic SAS2008 PCI-Express Fusion-MPT SAS-2 [Falcon] [1000:0072] (rev 03)
        Subsystem: LSI Logic / Symbios Logic Device [1000:3020]
        Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
        Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
        Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 256 bytes
        Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 16
        Region 0: I/O ports at c000 [size=256]
        Region 1: Memory at c10c0000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
        Region 3: Memory at c0c80000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256K]
        Expansion ROM at c0c00000 [disabled] [size=512K]
        Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 3
                Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1+ D2+ AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot-,D3cold-)
                Status: D0 NoSoftRst+ PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-
        Capabilities: [68] Express (v2) Endpoint, MSI 00
                DevCap: MaxPayload 4096 bytes, PhantFunc 0, Latency L0s <64ns, L1 <1us
                        ExtTag+ AttnBtn- AttnInd- PwrInd- RBE+ FLReset+
                DevCtl: Report errors: Correctable+ Non-Fatal+ Fatal+ Unsupported+
                        RlxdOrd+ ExtTag- PhantFunc- AuxPwr- NoSnoop+ FLReset-
                        MaxPayload 128 bytes, MaxReadReq 512 bytes
                DevSta: CorrErr- UncorrErr- FatalErr- UnsuppReq- AuxPwr- TransPend-
                LnkCap: Port #0, Speed 5GT/s, Width x8, ASPM L0s, Exit Latency L0s <64ns, L1 <1us
                        ClockPM- Surprise- LLActRep- BwNot-
                LnkCtl: ASPM Disabled; RCB 64 bytes Disabled- CommClk+
                        ExtSynch- ClockPM- AutWidDis- BWInt- AutBWInt-
                LnkSta: Speed 2.5GT/s, Width x4, TrErr- Train- SlotClk+ DLActive- BWMgmt- ABWMgmt-
                DevCap2: Completion Timeout: Range BC, TimeoutDis+, LTR-, OBFF Not Supported
                DevCtl2: Completion Timeout: 50us to 50ms, TimeoutDis-, LTR-, OBFF Disabled
                LnkCtl2: Target Link Speed: 5GT/s, EnterCompliance- SpeedDis-
                         Transmit Margin: Normal Operating Range, EnterModifiedCompliance- ComplianceSOS-
                         Compliance De-emphasis: -6dB
                LnkSta2: Current De-emphasis Level: -6dB, EqualizationComplete-, EqualizationPhase1-
                         EqualizationPhase2-, EqualizationPhase3-, LinkEqualizationRequest-
        Capabilities: [d0] Vital Product Data
                Unknown small resource type 00, will not decode more.
        Capabilities: [a8] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
                Address: 0000000000000000  Data: 0000
        Capabilities: [c0] MSI-X: Enable+ Count=15 Masked-
                Vector table: BAR=1 offset=00002000
                PBA: BAR=1 offset=00003800
        Capabilities: [100 v1] Advanced Error Reporting
                UESta:  DLP- SDES- TLP- FCP- CmpltTO- CmpltAbrt- UnxCmplt- RxOF- MalfTLP- ECRC- UnsupReq- ACSViol-
                UEMsk:  DLP- SDES- TLP- FCP- CmpltTO- CmpltAbrt- UnxCmplt- RxOF- MalfTLP- ECRC- UnsupReq- ACSViol-
                UESvrt: DLP+ SDES+ TLP- FCP+ CmpltTO- CmpltAbrt- UnxCmplt- RxOF+ MalfTLP+ ECRC- UnsupReq- ACSViol-
                CESta:  RxErr- BadTLP- BadDLLP- Rollover- Timeout- NonFatalErr-
                CEMsk:  RxErr- BadTLP- BadDLLP- Rollover- Timeout- NonFatalErr+
                AERCap: First Error Pointer: 00, GenCap+ CGenEn- ChkCap+ ChkEn-
        Capabilities: [138 v1] Power Budgeting <?>
        Capabilities: [150 v1] Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV)
                IOVCap: Migration-, Interrupt Message Number: 000
                IOVCtl: Enable- Migration- Interrupt- MSE- ARIHierarchy-
                IOVSta: Migration-
                Initial VFs: 16, Total VFs: 16, Number of VFs: 0, Function Dependency Link: 00
                VF offset: 1, stride: 1, Device ID: 0072
                Supported Page Size: 00000553, System Page Size: 00000001
                Region 0: Memory at 00000000c10c4000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable)
                Region 2: Memory at 00000000c0cc0000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable)
                VF Migration: offset: 00000000, BIR: 0
        Capabilities: [190 v1] Alternative Routing-ID Interpretation (ARI)
                ARICap: MFVC- ACS-, Next Function: 0
                ARICtl: MFVC- ACS-, Function Group: 0
        Kernel driver in use: mpt2sas

Second IBM M1015 card:

lspci -vvnn

09:00.0 Serial Attached SCSI controller [0107]: LSI Logic / Symbios Logic SAS2008 PCI-Express Fusion-MPT SAS-2 [Falcon] [1000:0072] (rev 02)
        Subsystem: LSI Logic / Symbios Logic Device [1000:3020]
        Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
        Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
        Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 256 bytes
        Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 31
        Region 0: I/O ports at d000 [size=256]
        Region 1: Memory at c0ac0000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
        Region 3: Memory at c0680000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256K]
        Expansion ROM at c0600000 [disabled] [size=512K]
        Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 3
                Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1+ D2+ AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot-,D3cold-)
                Status: D0 NoSoftRst+ PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-
        Capabilities: [68] Express (v2) Endpoint, MSI 00
                DevCap: MaxPayload 4096 bytes, PhantFunc 0, Latency L0s <64ns, L1 <1us
                        ExtTag+ AttnBtn- AttnInd- PwrInd- RBE+ FLReset+
                DevCtl: Report errors: Correctable+ Non-Fatal+ Fatal+ Unsupported+
                        RlxdOrd+ ExtTag- PhantFunc- AuxPwr- NoSnoop+ FLReset-
                        MaxPayload 256 bytes, MaxReadReq 512 bytes
                DevSta: CorrErr- UncorrErr- FatalErr- UnsuppReq- AuxPwr- TransPend-
                LnkCap: Port #0, Speed 5GT/s, Width x8, ASPM L0s, Exit Latency L0s <64ns, L1 <1us
                        ClockPM- Surprise- LLActRep- BwNot-
                LnkCtl: ASPM Disabled; RCB 64 bytes Disabled- CommClk+
                        ExtSynch- ClockPM- AutWidDis- BWInt- AutBWInt-
                LnkSta: Speed 5GT/s, Width x8, TrErr- Train- SlotClk+ DLActive- BWMgmt- ABWMgmt-
                DevCap2: Completion Timeout: Range BC, TimeoutDis+, LTR-, OBFF Not Supported
                DevCtl2: Completion Timeout: 50us to 50ms, TimeoutDis-, LTR-, OBFF Disabled
                LnkCtl2: Target Link Speed: 5GT/s, EnterCompliance- SpeedDis-
                         Transmit Margin: Normal Operating Range, EnterModifiedCompliance- ComplianceSOS-
                         Compliance De-emphasis: -6dB
                LnkSta2: Current De-emphasis Level: -6dB, EqualizationComplete-, EqualizationPhase1-
                         EqualizationPhase2-, EqualizationPhase3-, LinkEqualizationRequest-
        Capabilities: [d0] Vital Product Data
                Unknown small resource type 00, will not decode more.
        Capabilities: [a8] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
                Address: 0000000000000000  Data: 0000
        Capabilities: [c0] MSI-X: Enable+ Count=15 Masked-
                Vector table: BAR=1 offset=00002000
                PBA: BAR=1 offset=00003800
        Capabilities: [100 v1] Advanced Error Reporting
                UESta:  DLP- SDES- TLP- FCP- CmpltTO- CmpltAbrt- UnxCmplt- RxOF- MalfTLP- ECRC- UnsupReq- ACSViol-
                UEMsk:  DLP- SDES- TLP- FCP- CmpltTO- CmpltAbrt- UnxCmplt- RxOF- MalfTLP- ECRC- UnsupReq- ACSViol-
                UESvrt: DLP+ SDES+ TLP- FCP+ CmpltTO- CmpltAbrt- UnxCmplt- RxOF+ MalfTLP+ ECRC- UnsupReq- ACSViol-
                CESta:  RxErr- BadTLP- BadDLLP- Rollover- Timeout- NonFatalErr-
                CEMsk:  RxErr- BadTLP- BadDLLP- Rollover- Timeout- NonFatalErr+
                AERCap: First Error Pointer: 00, GenCap+ CGenEn- ChkCap+ ChkEn-
        Capabilities: [138 v1] Power Budgeting <?>
        Capabilities: [150 v1] Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV)
                IOVCap: Migration-, Interrupt Message Number: 000
                IOVCtl: Enable- Migration- Interrupt- MSE- ARIHierarchy+
                IOVSta: Migration-
                Initial VFs: 16, Total VFs: 16, Number of VFs: 0, Function Dependency Link: 00
                VF offset: 1, stride: 1, Device ID: 0072
                Supported Page Size: 00000553, System Page Size: 00000001
                Region 0: Memory at 00000000c0ac4000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable)
                Region 2: Memory at 00000000c06c0000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable)
                VF Migration: offset: 00000000, BIR: 0
        Capabilities: [190 v1] Alternative Routing-ID Interpretation (ARI)
                ARICap: MFVC- ACS-, Next Function: 0
                ARICtl: MFVC- ACS-, Function Group: 0
        Kernel driver in use: mpt2sas

Further info

See here for further info about the M1015:

The M1015 native firmware "personality" is the same as an LSI 9240-8i, with the exception that Raid5 functionality is disabled unless you install a "key" onto the card.
The M1015 can be flashed successfully with the LSI 9240-8i firware from the LSI website using megacli, although access to Raid5 is still controlled by the raid key. In fact, there is some evidence that IBMs native load and LSIs 9240 load are identical, though that is difficult to confirm because IBMs firmware always seems to have a minor rev level difference which makes a simple bitwise compare impossible.
The M1015 can also be flashed with 9210-8i or 9211-8i using a procedure detailed earlier in this thread. It can apparently accept either the IR or IT load for these cards.
There is no "IT Mode" for the native M1015 or 9240 drivers. It simply is not needed. The reason people wanted the IT load when running as a 9211 is because the 9211 doesn't really do single disk passthrough correctly - it builds the disk as a single-drive raid 0, which puts nasty little headers on the disk and mucks up your ability to share disks directly with other systems. The 9240 firmware does not do this - any drive not part of a raid is just passed through directly as a single drive - and no special 'IT mode' driver is necessary.
The only reason to flash this card to a 9211 personality is to use it with an OS that does not support the 9240 (e.g., freeBSD). For others (Windows, Linux, Solaris, etc) the 9240 drivers are available and work well - some would suggest work better (e.g., the Solaris imr drivers for the 9240 do a better job of passing through disk temps and SMART).
john4200 has been using the 9240-8i firmware on his M1015 with the megaraid_sas linux driver, and found the megaraid_sas linux driver to be less buggy than the mpt2sas driver. The mpt2sas driver is the one that's used with the IT firmware. Some bug reports exist for the mpt2sas driver and IT firmware LSI cards, they're driver-related rather than firmware-related.
When reading about the M1015 card, if you're wondering what megacli is, that's only for if you want to update the 9240-8i kind of firmware corresponding to this card's "normal" megaraid_sas Linux driver (since the M1015 is a megaraid card), rather than cross-flash it to turn it into an LSI Logic 9211.8i card (also known as an "LSI SAS2008" card) using the mpt2sas driver. If you want to change the M1015 firmware so that you can use the mpt2sas Linux driver (like an LSI Logic 9211.8i), then you will need megarec to erase the old firmware and sas2flash to install the new firmware (this is the "cross-flashing" step), as described on this page. You should not try to use sas2flash on a card that is still a megaraid card, obviously.

Getting into an EFI shell

Getting into "Advanced Mode" in the P8Z77-V EFI:

Need to change "Secure Boot" to allow us into UEFI shell...:

Change to "Other OS":

Change to "Other OS":

In the "Exit" menu, see the "Lauch EFI Shell from filesystem device" menu item...:

See here for a video of launching the EFI shell...

See here for a video of clearing the existing firmware using the megarec -cleanflash 0 command.

See here for a video of how the magarec command sometimes fails.

Output during flashing the LSI P16 firmware onto the M1015 using the "sas2flash.efi -o -f 2118it.bin" command.:

More output during flashing the LSI P16 firmware onto the M1015 using the "sas2flash.efi -o -f 2118it.bin" command.:

Setting the SAS address of the M1015 card using the command "sas2flash.efi -o -sasadd 500605B0026A6750":

Checking the firmware version of the card using the "sas2flash.efi -listall" command, yes it's the P16 firmware, listed as 16.00.00.00:

The IBM ServeRAID M1015 SAS/SATA controller (FRU 46M0861)

Steps to Cross-flash to the 2118it.bin firmware

Linux Driver for the LSI 9211-8i card is mpt2sas

The FLReset+ flag.

Further info

Getting into an EFI shell

Steps to Cross-flash to the `2118it.bin` firmware

Linux Driver for the LSI 9211-8i card is `mpt2sas`

The `FLReset+` flag.