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>
4 <title>Petter Reinholdtsen - Entries from March
2024</title>
5 <description>Entries from March
2024</description>
6 <link>https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/
</link>
10 <title>RAID status from LSI Megaraid controllers using free software
</title>
11 <link>https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/RAID_status_from_LSI_Megaraid_controllers_using_free_software.html
</link>
12 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/RAID_status_from_LSI_Megaraid_controllers_using_free_software.html
</guid>
13 <pubDate>Sun,
3 Mar
2024 22:
40:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
14 <description><p
>The last few days I have revisited RAID setup using the LSI
15 Megaraid controller. These are a family of controllers called PERC by
16 Dell, and is present in several old PowerEdge servers, and I recently
17 got my hands on one of these. I had forgotten how to handle this RAID
18 controller in Debian, so I had to take a peek in the
19 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/LinuxRaidForAdmins
">Debian wiki page
20 "Linux and Hardware RAID: an administrator
's summary
"</a
> to remember
21 that kind of software is available to configure and monitor the disks
22 and controller. I prefer Free Software alternatives to proprietary
23 tools, as the later tend to fall into disarray once the manufacturer
24 loose interest, and often do not work with newer Linux Distributions.
25 Sadly there is no free software tool to configure the RAID setup, only
26 to monitor it. RAID can provide improved reliability and resilience in
27 a storage solution, but only if it is being regularly checked and any
28 broken disks are being replaced in time. I thus want to ensure some
29 automatic monitoring is available.
</p
>
31 <p
>In the discovery process, I came across a old free software tool to
32 monitor PERC2, PERC3, PERC4 and PERC5 controllers, which to my
33 surprise is not present in debian. To help change that I created a
34 <a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/
1065322">request for packaging of the
35 megactl package
</a
>, and tried to track down a usable version.
36 <a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/megactl/
">The original project
37 site
</a
> is on Sourceforge, but as far as I can tell that project has
38 been dead for more than
15 years. I managed to find a
39 <a href=
"https://github.com/hmage/megactl
">more recent fork on
40 github
</a
> from user hmage, but it is unclear to me if this is still
41 being maintained. It has not seen much improvements since
2016. A
42 <a href=
"https://github.com/namiltd/megactl
">more up to date
43 edition
</a
> is a git fork from the original github fork by user
44 namiltd, and this newer fork seem a lot more promising. The owner of
45 this github repository has replied to change proposals within hours,
46 and had already added some improvements and support for more hardware.
47 Sadly he is reluctant to commit to maintaining the tool and stated in
48 <a href=
"https://github.com/namiltd/megactl/pull/
1">my first pull
49 request
</A
> that he think a new release should be made based on the
50 git repository owned by hmage. I perfectly understand this
51 reluctance, as I feel the same about maintaining yet another package
52 in Debian when I barely have time to take care of the ones I already
53 maintain, but do not really have high hopes that hmage will have time
54 to spend on it and hope namiltd will change his mind.
</p
>
56 <p
>In any case, I created
57 <a href=
"https://salsa.debian.org/debian/megactl
">a draft package
</a
>
58 based on the namiltd edition and put it under the debian group on
59 salsa.debian.org. If you own a Dell PowerEdge server with one of the
60 PERC controllers, or any other RAID controller using the megaraid or
61 megaraid_sas Linux kernel modules, you might want to check it out. If
62 enough people are interested, perhaps the package will make it into
63 the Debian archive.
</p
>
65 <p
>There are two tools provided, megactl for the megaraid Linux kernel
66 module, and megasasctl for the megaraid_sas Linux kernel module. The
67 simple output from the command on one of my machines look like this
68 (yes, I know some of the disks have problems. :).
</p
>
72 a0 PERC H730 Mini encl:
1 ldrv:
2 batt:good
73 a0d0
558GiB RAID
1 1x2 optimal
74 a0d1
3067GiB RAID
0 1x11 optimal
75 a0e32s0
558GiB a0d0 online errs: media:
0 other:
19
76 a0e32s1
279GiB a0d1 online
77 a0e32s2
279GiB a0d1 online
78 a0e32s3
279GiB a0d1 online
79 a0e32s4
279GiB a0d1 online
80 a0e32s5
279GiB a0d1 online
81 a0e32s6
279GiB a0d1 online
82 a0e32s8
558GiB a0d0 online errs: media:
0 other:
17
83 a0e32s9
279GiB a0d1 online
84 a0e32s10
279GiB a0d1 online
85 a0e32s11
279GiB a0d1 online
86 a0e32s12
279GiB a0d1 online
87 a0e32s13
279GiB a0d1 online
92 <p
>In addition to displaying a simple status report, it can also test
93 individual drives and print the various event logs. Perhaps you too
94 find it useful?
</p
>
96 <p
>In the packaging process I provided some patches upstream to
97 improve installation and ensure
98 <ahref=
"https://github.com/namiltd/megactl/pull/
2">a Appstream
99 metainfo file is provided
</a
> to list all supported HW, to allow
100 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/isenkram
">isenkram
</a
> to propose
101 the package on all servers with a relevant PCI card.
</p
>
103 <p
>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
104 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
105 <b
><a href=
"bitcoin:
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a
></b
>.
</p
>
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