+ <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/RAID_status_from_LSI_Megaraid_controllers_using_free_software.html">RAID status from LSI Megaraid controllers using free software</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 3rd March 2024
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>The last few days I have revisited RAID setup using the LSI
+Megaraid controller. These are a family of controllers called PERC by
+Dell, and is present in several old PowerEdge servers, and I recently
+got my hands on one of these. I had forgotten how to handle this RAID
+controller in Debian, so I had to take a peek in the
+<a href="https://wiki.debian.org/LinuxRaidForAdmins">Debian wiki page
+"Linux and Hardware RAID: an administrator's summary"</a> to remember
+that kind of software is available to configure and monitor the disks
+and controller. I prefer Free Software alternatives to proprietary
+tools, as the later tend to fall into disarray once the manufacturer
+loose interest, and often do not work with newer Linux Distributions.
+Sadly there is no free software tool to configure the RAID setup, only
+to monitor it. RAID can provide improved reliability and resilience in
+a storage solution, but only if it is being regularly checked and any
+broken disks are being replaced in time. I thus want to ensure some
+automatic monitoring is available.</p>
+
+<p>In the discovery process, I came across a old free software tool to
+monitor PERC2, PERC3, PERC4 and PERC5 controllers, which to my
+surprise is not present in debian. To help change that I created a
+<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/1065322">request for packaging of the
+megactl package</a>, and tried to track down a usable version.
+<a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/megactl/">The original project
+site</a> is on Sourceforge, but as far as I can tell that project has
+been dead for more than 15 years. I managed to find a
+<a href="https://github.com/hmage/megactl">more recent fork on
+github</a> from user hmage, but it is unclear to me if this is still
+being maintained. It has not seen much improvements since 2016. A
+<a href="https://github.com/namiltd/megactl">more up to date
+edition</a> is a git fork from the original github fork by user
+namiltd, and this newer fork seem a lot more promising. The owner of
+this github repository has replied to change proposals within hours,
+and had already added some improvements and support for more hardware.
+Sadly he is reluctant to commit to maintaining the tool and stated in
+<a href="https://github.com/namiltd/megactl/pull/1">my first pull
+request</A> that he think a new release should be made based on the
+git repository owned by hmage. I perfectly understand this
+reluctance, as I feel the same about maintaining yet another package
+in Debian when I barely have time to take care of the ones I already
+maintain, but do not really have high hopes that hmage will have time
+to spend on it and hope namiltd will change his mind.</p>
<a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_in_2018_.html">What is the most supported MIME type in Debian in 2018?</a>
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