<link>https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/</link>
<atom:link href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/index.rss" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
+ <item>
+ <title>RAID status from LSI Megaraid controllers using free software</title>
+ <link>https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/RAID_status_from_LSI_Megaraid_controllers_using_free_software.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/RAID_status_from_LSI_Megaraid_controllers_using_free_software.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Sun, 3 Mar 2024 22:40:00 +0100</pubDate>
+ <description><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>
+
+<p>In any case, I created
+<a href="https://salsa.debian.org/debian/megactl">a draft package</a>
+based on the namiltd edition and put it under the debian group on
+salsa.debian.org. If you own a Dell PowerEdge server with one of the
+PERC controllers, or any other RAID controller using the megaraid or
+megaraid_sas Linux kernel modules, you might want to check it out. If
+enough people are interested, perhaps the package will make it into
+the Debian archive.</p>
+
+<p>There are two tools provided, megactl for the megaraid Linux kernel
+module, and megasasctl for the megaraid_sas Linux kernel module. The
+simple output from the command on one of my machines look like this
+(yes, I know some of the disks have problems. :).</p>
+
+<pre>
+# megasasctl
+a0 PERC H730 Mini encl:1 ldrv:2 batt:good
+a0d0 558GiB RAID 1 1x2 optimal
+a0d1 3067GiB RAID 0 1x11 optimal
+a0e32s0 558GiB a0d0 online errs: media:0 other:19
+a0e32s1 279GiB a0d1 online
+a0e32s2 279GiB a0d1 online
+a0e32s3 279GiB a0d1 online
+a0e32s4 279GiB a0d1 online
+a0e32s5 279GiB a0d1 online
+a0e32s6 279GiB a0d1 online
+a0e32s8 558GiB a0d0 online errs: media:0 other:17
+a0e32s9 279GiB a0d1 online
+a0e32s10 279GiB a0d1 online
+a0e32s11 279GiB a0d1 online
+a0e32s12 279GiB a0d1 online
+a0e32s13 279GiB a0d1 online
+
+#
+</pre>
+
+<p>In addition to displaying a simple status report, it can also test
+individual drives and print the various event logs. Perhaps you too
+find it useful?</p>
+
+<p>In the packaging process I provided some patches upstream to
+improve installation and ensure
+<ahref="https://github.com/namiltd/megactl/pull/2">a Appstream
+metainfo file is provided</a> to list all supported HW, to allow
+<a href="https://tracker.debian.org/isenkram">isenkram</a> to propose
+the package on all servers with a relevant PCI card.</p>
+
+<p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
+activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
+<b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
+
+</description>
+ </item>
+
<item>
<title>Frokostseminar om Noark 5 i Oslo tirsdag 2024-03-12</title>
<link>https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Frokostseminar_om_Noark_5_i_Oslo_tirsdag_2024_03_12.html</link>
</description>
</item>
- <item>
- <title>Invidious add-on for Kodi 20</title>
- <link>https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Invidious_add_on_for_Kodi_20.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Invidious_add_on_for_Kodi_20.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Thu, 10 Aug 2023 19:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
- <description><p>I still enjoy <a href="https://kodi.tv/">Kodi</a> and
-<a href="https://libreelec.tv/">LibreELEC</a> as my multimedia center
-at home. Sadly two of the services I really would like to use from
-within Kodi are not easily available. The most wanted add-on would be
-one making <a href="https://archive.org/">The Internet Archive</a>
-available, and it has
-<a href="https://kodi.wiki/view/Add-on:Internet_Archive">not been
-working</a> for many years. The second most wanted add-on is one
-using <a href="https://invidious.io/">the Invidious privacy enhanced
-Youtube frontent</a>. A plugin for this has been partly working, but
-not been kept up to date in the Kodi add-on repository, and its
-upstream seem to have given it up in April this year, when the git
-repository was closed. A few days ago I got tired of this sad state
-of affairs and decided to
-<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/kodi-invidious-plugin">have
-a go at improving the Invidious add-on</a>. As
-<a href="https://github.com/iv-org/invidious/issues/3872">Google has
-already attacked</a> the Invidious concept, so it need all the support
-if can get. My small contribution here is to improve the service
-status on Kodi.</p>
-
-<p>I added support to the Invidious add-on for automatically picking a
-working Invidious instance, instead of requiring the user to specify
-the URL to a specific instance after installation. I also had a look
-at the set of patches floating around in the various forks on github,
-and decided to clean up at least some of the features I liked and
-integrate them into my new release branch. Now the plugin can handle
-channel and short video items in search results. Earlier it could
-only handle single video instances in the search response. I also
-brushed up the set of metadata displayed a bit, but hope I can figure
-out how to get more relevant metadata displayed.</p>
-
-<p>Because I only use Kodi 20 myself, I only test on version 20 and am
-only motivated to ensure version 20 is working. Because of API changes
-between version 19 and 20, I suspect it will fail with earlier Kodi
-versions.</p>
-
-<p>I already
-<a href="https://github.com/xbmc/repo-plugins/pull/4363">asked to have
-the add-on added</a> to the official Kodi 20 repository, and is
-waiting to heard back from the repo maintainers.</p>
-
-<p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
-activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
-<b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
-</description>
- </item>
-
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