Dell PowerEdge Expandable RAID controller

useful links:

• On Dell's PERC 5/
• http://linux.dell.com/debian_9g.shtml
• How To Manage Dell Servers using OMSA - OpenManage Server Administrator On Linux

A few pointers for people trying to get Dell's PERC 6/i RAID monitoring working under Ubuntu, and any other linux for that matter. It also applies to PERC 5/i too, and… other stuff

First, visit Dells Linux site. Have a poke about, see what's there.

Next, we need to download a tool to get information from your array. Download LSI's MegaRAID CLI tool for linux. It comes as a .RPM, so if you're an ubuntu user, you can convert it to a .deb using alien, or convert it to a .tar.gz.

 # alien --to-tgz MegaCli-1.01.39-0.i386.rpm

You then have a CLI tool you can use to get all your data now! For example:

 # ./opt/MegaRAID/MegaCli/MegaCli64 -LDInfo -Lall -aALL | grep State State: Optimal

One thing I spent a while figuring out was how to get the rebuild progress, so here's how:

 # ./opt/MegaRAID/MegaCli/MegaCli64 -PDRbld -ShowProg -PhysDrv \[32:1\] -aALL

There's also a really useful cheat sheet for common tasks

Don't forget to actually monitor this output with nagios, or your favorite monitoring tool!

Debian repository

 #raid
 deb ftp://ftp.sara.nl/pub/sara-omsa dell sara

install dellomsa

 apt-get install dellomsa

see manual: Dell OpenManage™ Storage Management User's Guide CLI

# /opt/dell/srvadmin/oma/bin/omconfig storage controller action=createvdisk controller=0 raid=r1 size=max adisk=0:0:2,0:0:3 readpolicy=ara writepolicy=wb

Fallowing things in kernel must be compiled as modules

 # IPMI
 CONFIG_IPMI_HANDLER=m
 CONFIG_IPMI_PANIC_EVENT=y
 CONFIG_IPMI_PANIC_STRING=y
 CONFIG_IPMI_DEVICE_INTERFACE=m
 CONFIG_IPMI_SI=m
 CONFIG_IPMI_WATCHDOG=m
 CONFIG_IPMI_POWEROFF=m

  CONFIG_DELL_RBU=m
  CONFIG_DCDBAS=m

to access PERC

 #/opt/dell/srvadmin/oma/bin/omreport storage -?

omreport         Reports component properties.

The available command(s) are:

Command          Description
adisk            Display array disk(s) properties. DEPRECATED: please  
use pdisk
pdisk            Display physical disk(s) properties.
vdisk            Display virtual disk(s) properties.
controller       Display controller(s) properties.
enclosure        Display enclosure properties.
channel          Display channel properties. DEPRECATED: please use  
connector
battery          Display battery properties.
globalinfo       Display global storage properties.
connector        Display connector properties.

see:

• http://www.brandl.net/pe2550/
• grab file afaapps_2.6-3_i386.deb

see: http://www.drugphish.ch/~ratz/mpt-status/readme.txt

 07:08.0 SCSI storage controller: LSI Logic / Symbios Logic SAS1068 PCI-X Fusion-MPT SAS (rev 01)
         Subsystem: Dell SAS 5/iR Adapter RAID Controller

The status of this RAID card can be read using mpt-status, in Gentoo this package is available as sys-block/mpt-status. Here's an example of the output:

 # mpt-status
 ioc0 vol_id 0 type IM, 2 phy, 148 GB, state OPTIMAL, flags ENABLED
 ioc0 phy 1 scsi_id 32 ATA      WDC WD1600JS-75N 2E04, 149 GB, state ONLINE, flags NONE
 ioc0 phy 0 scsi_id 1 ATA      WDC WD1600JS-75N 2E04, 149 GB, state ONLINE, flags NONE

The latest 'check_mpt' script can be found on Nagios Exchange. Download it and put it in your libexec folder, for me on gentoo its '/usr/nagios/libexec/'. Open the file, and make sure the 'use lib' line points to the correct place.

The script uses sudo to run mpt-status, so you'll need to modify your /etc/sudoers - adding a line like this:

 %nagios ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:/usr/sbin/mpt-status

Next, you need to configure nagios, your filenames might be different from the names I use below. /etc/nagios/commands.cfg : Note, the -c param refers to the number of disks you expect to be active.

 define command{
   command_name  check_mpt
   command_line  $USER1$/check_mpt -c 2
}

/etc/nagios/localhost.cfg

 define service{
   use                  local-service
   host_name            localhost
   service_description  mpt - Dell Raid
  check_command        check_mpt
}

Reload nagios, on gentoo, it's /etc/init.d/nagios reload