blog/data/2024-03-03-raid-disk-megactl.txt

   1 Title: RAID status from LSI Megaraid controllers using free software
   2 Tags: english, raid, isenkram
   3 Date: 2024-03-03 22:40
   4
   5 <p>The last few days I have revisited RAID setup using the LSI
   6 Megaraid controller.  These are a family of controllers called PERC by
   7 Dell, and is present in several old PowerEdge servers, and I recently
   8 got my hands on one of these.  I had forgotten how to handle this RAID
   9 controller in Debian, so I had to take a peek in the
  10 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/LinuxRaidForAdmins">Debian wiki page
  11 "Linux and Hardware RAID: an administrator's summary"</a> to remember
  12 what kind of software is available to configure and monitor the disks
  13 and controller.  I prefer Free Software alternatives to proprietary
  14 tools, as the later tend to fall into disarray once the manufacturer
  15 loose interest, and often do not work with newer Linux Distributions.
  16 Sadly there is no free software tool to configure the RAID setup, only
  17 to monitor it. RAID can provide improved reliability and resilience in
  18 a storage solution, but only if it is being regularly checked and any
  19 broken disks are being replaced in time.  I thus want to ensure some
  20 automatic monitoring is available.</p>
  21
  22 <p>In the discovery process, I came across a old free software tool to
  23 monitor PERC2, PERC3, PERC4 and PERC5 controllers, which to my
  24 surprise is not present in debian.  To help change that I created a
  25 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/1065322">request for packaging of the
  26 megactl package</a>, and tried to track down a usable version.
  27 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/megactl/">The original project
  28 site</a> is on Sourceforge, but as far as I can tell that project has
  29 been dead for more than 15 years.  I managed to find a
  30 <a href="https://github.com/hmage/megactl">more recent fork on
  31 github</a> from user hmage, but it is unclear to me if this is still
  32 being maintained.  It has not seen much improvements since 2016.  A
  33 <a href="https://github.com/namiltd/megactl">more up to date
  34 edition</a> is a git fork from the original github fork by user
  35 namiltd, and this newer fork seem a lot more promising.  The owner of
  36 this github repository has replied to change proposals within hours,
  37 and had already added some improvements and support for more hardware.
  38 Sadly he is reluctant to commit to maintaining the tool and stated in
  39 <a href="https://github.com/namiltd/megactl/pull/1">my first pull
  40 request</A> that he think a new release should be made based on the
  41 git repository owned by hmage.  I perfectly understand this
  42 reluctance, as I feel the same about maintaining yet another package
  43 in Debian when I barely have time to take care of the ones I already
  44 maintain, but do not really have high hopes that hmage will have time
  45 to spend on it and hope namiltd will change his mind.</p>
  46
  47 <p>In any case, I created
  48 <a href="https://salsa.debian.org/debian/megactl">a draft package</a>
  49 based on the namiltd edition and put it under the debian group on
  50 salsa.debian.org.  If you own a Dell PowerEdge server with one of the
  51 PERC controllers, or any other RAID controller using the megaraid or
  52 megaraid_sas Linux kernel modules, you might want to check it out.  If
  53 enough people are interested, perhaps the package will make it into
  54 the Debian archive.</p>
  55
  56 <p>There are two tools provided, megactl for the megaraid Linux kernel
  57 module, and megasasctl for the megaraid_sas Linux kernel module. The
  58 simple output from the command on one of my machines look like this
  59 (yes, I know some of the disks have problems. :).</p>
  60
  61 <pre>
  62 # megasasctl
  63 a0       PERC H730 Mini           encl:1 ldrv:2  batt:good
  64 a0d0       558GiB RAID 1   1x2  optimal
  65 a0d1      3067GiB RAID 0   1x11 optimal
  66 a0e32s0     558GiB  a0d0  online   errs: media:0  other:19
  67 a0e32s1     279GiB  a0d1  online
  68 a0e32s2     279GiB  a0d1  online
  69 a0e32s3     279GiB  a0d1  online
  70 a0e32s4     279GiB  a0d1  online
  71 a0e32s5     279GiB  a0d1  online
  72 a0e32s6     279GiB  a0d1  online
  73 a0e32s8     558GiB  a0d0  online   errs: media:0  other:17
  74 a0e32s9     279GiB  a0d1  online
  75 a0e32s10    279GiB  a0d1  online
  76 a0e32s11    279GiB  a0d1  online
  77 a0e32s12    279GiB  a0d1  online
  78 a0e32s13    279GiB  a0d1  online
  79
  80 #
  81 </pre>
  82
  83 <p>In addition to displaying a simple status report, it can also test
  84 individual drives and print the various event logs.  Perhaps you too
  85 find it useful?</p>
  86
  87 <p>In the packaging process I provided some patches upstream to
  88 improve installation and ensure
  89 <ahref="https://github.com/namiltd/megactl/pull/2">a Appstream
  90 metainfo file is provided</a> to list all supported HW, to allow
  91 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/isenkram">isenkram</a> to propose
  92 the package on all servers with a relevant PCI card.</p>
  93
  94 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
  95 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
  96 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
  97