SUMMARY: Embedded / PCI HBA LSI RAID monitoring utility for Linux / RHEL on Sun hardware (eg. x4200)?

I wrote:

>>>> We're kickstarting RHEL on a number of Sun x4NNN systems --
>>>> x4100/x4200/m2/x4150 etc. and soon likely x4170m2.  I've not been able to
find
>>>> a good CLI tool to monitor the state of HBA/hardware mirror volumes.
Under
>>>> Solaris we grudgingly use raidctl for this purpose.  lsiutil seems to be
able
>>>> to see these HBA's on at least some systems, but doesn't seem to provide
a
>>>> convenient way to check for failed disks via script.
>>>>
>>>> I need to either identify a usable tool, or figure out the Linux MD
system.
>>>> Ohhhhhh how I miss ZFS.
>>>>
>>>> One advantage of the HBA mirroring approach is avoiding the hassle of
BIOS
>>>> boot devices if the primary mirror disk were to frotz.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks for any experiences here that can be shared.  Sun seems to
distribute a
>>>> graphical tool, which obviously isn't suitable.


I received a couple of suggestions to use the Linux MD software mirroring
system.  While I've planned to revisit the layer cake that is
MD/LVM/$filesystem, after having enjoyed the luxury of ZFS, it's hard to go
back in time 15 years like that.  Note that I wasn't asking for suggestions on
which direction to go, but rather for an HBA RAID monitoring tool.  That said,
MD appeals only that it can do 3-way mirroring -- unlike every RAID HBA that
I've encountered from Adaptec, LSI, or HP.  This ubiquitous shortcoming has
left me speechless.   HBA mirroring appeals in one compelling aspect, though:
not having to hassle with BIOS boot device issues if the first disk in the
boot mirror pair goes bad.  But I digress...


mpt-status was mentioned a couple of times.  I'm a bit wary of mpt-status
since it smells of abandonware -- the last version was 5-6 years ago.  Many
sites that mention this tool link to a site that's no longer available, but I
was able to find binary and source RPM's here:

http://sven.stormbind.net/mpt-status-rhel/

Some manual device creation may be required.

The best response was from Gurudatta N.R who directed me to Oracle's Hardware
Management Pack.    One has to wade through the Flash on support.oracle.com to
find it, but I eventually grabbed the latest version 2.2 packages, for RHEL
and for Soalris 10.  Included is a raidconfig utility that is exactly what I
was looking for.  Being available both on Solaris and RHEL was a bonus.

Thanks to all who replied.


> On 1/26/2012 2:17 PM, Anthony D'Atri wrote:
>
>> I need to either identify a usable tool, or figure out the Linux MD
system.
>> Ohhhhhh how I miss ZFS.
>
> Linux softraid is pretty easy to use; as I recall kickstart should be able
to automatically set up the mirror for you. +1 on the ZFS though.
>
>> One advantage of the HBA mirroring approach is avoiding the hassle of BIOS
>> boot devices if the primary mirror disk were to frotz.
>
> Theoretically you should be able to define the hard drive ordering in the
bios so we would automatically boot off of the second half of the mirror at
the first one was missing.
>
>> Thanks for any experiences here that can be shared.  Sun seems to
distribute a
>> graphical tool, which obviously isn't suitable.
>
> I don't know about their current hardware, but we have some older x4100's
with LSI controllers, and mpt-status seems to work reasonably well:
>
> # lspci | grep LSI
> 02:03.0 SCSI storage controller: LSI Logic / Symbios Logic SAS1064 PCI-X
Fusion-MPT SAS (rev 02)
>
>
> # mpt-status -i 2
> ioc0 vol_id 2 type IM, 2 phy, 67 GB, state OPTIMAL, flags ENABLED
> ioc0 phy 1 scsi_id 4 SEAGATE  ST973401LSUN72G  0556, 68 GB, state ONLINE,
flags NONE
> ioc0 phy 0 scsi_id 3 SEAGATE  ST973401LSUN72G  0556, 68 GB, state ONLINE,
flags NONE
>
>
> --
> Paul B. Henson  |  (909) 979-6361  |  http://www.csupomona.edu/~henson/
> Operating Systems and Network Analyst  |  henson@csupomona.edu
> California State Polytechnic University  |  Pomona CA 91768
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