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Latest version seems to be provided as afaapps-4.1-0.i386.rpm out of an archive available on support site as afa-apps-snmp.2807420-A04.tar.gz. The RPM can be converted to .deb package which will then run fine.
 * Latest version seems to be provided as afaapps-4.1-0.i386.rpm out of an archive available on support site as afa-apps-snmp.2807420-A04.tar.gz. The RPM can be converted to .deb package which will then run fine.
 * however, the version of afacli in afaapps-4.1-0.i386.rpm seems not to be working for etch on my PE4400 (strace-ing doesn't help much)... had to revert to version provided in the version in afaapps-2.6-0.tar.gz...

Linux and HW raid - an administrators summary

For RAID to be useful in an enterprise environment, one needs to get a warning when a disk fails, and be able to replace this disk without having to reboot. This page is a summary of the status of some (most/all) hw raid drivers supported by the default linux kernel. The following criteria is being considered:

  • Driver name
    • Name of kernel module. If the name changes between kernel versions, remember to include info in the detailed info section.
  • Supported
    • Supported by linux kernel? Is the kernel driver needed for this raid system available in the default kernel?
  • Status
    • RAID status easily available? Is there a text file in /proc/ or similar reporting the status of the RAID systems? If not, is the source for some command line tool available which can report this status? (Minimum status info is OK or degraded (ie some disk is faulty/missing). If such info is easily available, monitoring tools can be written to detect and report failures.
  • Cmd tool
    • Command line tools for manipulating the raid? Is the source for a command line interface tool available for adding and removing disks from the raid set? This is a must when maintaining a lot of machines using for instance a serial line console. The source must be acceptable into debian/main
  • GUI tool
    • GUI tool for manipulating the raid? Some find it easier to use graphical tools. Same source requirements as the command line tools.
  • Debian Installer
    • Is the hardware supported by the Debian installer. If not, please report bug with workaround if known.

Summary of all known drivers

Driver name

Supported

Status

Cmd tool

GUI tool

Debian-installer

3w-xxxx

Yes

No

Yes*

No

Yes

3w-9xxx

?

?

Yes*

?

?

aacraid

Yes

No*

No*

?

?

arcmsr

Yes

No*

Yes*

*

Yes

cciss

Yes

Yes

?

?

Yes

DAC960

Yes

Yes

?

?

Yes

dpt_i2o

Yes

?

Yes

?

?

gdth

Yes

Yes

No*

?

Yes

ips

Yes

No*

No*

No*

Yes

megaraid

Yes

?

?

?

?

megaraid_mbox

Yes

?

?

?

?

megaraid_sas

?

?

?

?

?

megaraid2

Yes

Yes

?

?

No

mptscsih

Yes

?

Yes

?

?

Details about individual drivers

3w-xxxx

There is a CLI from 3Ware which supports all functions of the card, tw_cli.

Hardware using this driver:

3w-9xxx

There is a CLI from 3Ware which supports all functions of the card, tw_cli.

Hardware using this driver:

aacraid

Adaptec provides RPMs with binaries for a command line tool afacli, capable of manipulating the raid sets, and with some effort extracting the current status of the raids.

Dell also provides some admin tools in binary form. See [http://linux.dell.com/storage.shtml#aacraid], under the Management Utility heading.

  • Latest version seems to be provided as afaapps-4.1-0.i386.rpm out of an archive available on support site as afa-apps-snmp.2807420-A04.tar.gz. The RPM can be converted to .deb package which will then run fine.
  • however, the version of afacli in afaapps-4.1-0.i386.rpm seems not to be working for etch on my PE4400 (strace-ing doesn't help much)... had to revert to version provided in the version in afaapps-2.6-0.tar.gz...

Hardware using this driver: Dell ?PowerEdge 2650, Adaptec SCSI RAIDs 2200S, 2120S, SATA RAID 2810SA, Perc 3/Di controllers, ...

NB: I had some problems with Adaptec 2810SA. Debian kernel freezes (rejected IO to offline devices) in case array becomes downgraded (ie one disk failed). I've (had?) to patch kernel with adaptec driver, and kernel stops freezing with one drive fail -- AlexanderVlasov

arcmsr

Areca is a fairly new player on the SATA Hardware Raid market, but they offer unprecedented features and have excellent driver support for Linux. Their hardware supports raid-6 in addition to the other levels, and online expansion + migration as well. The driver is in the main kernel as of 2.6.19, but debian supports it since etch (2.6.18) They have, amongst others, an 'archttp' module which enables a webinterface(!) to the card which offers full functionality. Archttp is statically linked so it will run in virtually all circumstances. Since it offers both a wide range of monitoring and maintenance functions, archttp + a webbrowser is all you'll ever need, and it fullfills, IMHO, the functions of CLI, GUI and proc entry all in one. (Well, you really have to see it.) Beware: archttp tries to use /dev/ttyS0, so if you use it in any other way you should take care about this issue. See http://zulu.in.ua/areca-raid-management-utils/ru/ (sorry, russian language only) CLI tool (statically linked i386 and amd64 binaries) also can be downloaded from ftp site.

Hardware using this driver: All ARECA SATA controllers

cciss

The source for a daemon detecting status changes and reporting it to syslog and as SNMP traps [http://starbreeze.knoware.nl/~spark/compaq/ is available] and packaged for debian as cpqarrayd. Some information is available in /proc/driver/cciss/cciss0. There is a tool [http://sourceforge.net/projects/array-info array-info] available to extract the RAID status for cciss devices.

More tools can be found at [http://cciss.sourceforge.net/#cciss_utils], including cciss_vol_status which will report RAID status for cciss devices.

Hardware using this driver: Various servers from Compaq/HP, HP ?ProLiant DL380 G5

DAC960

Status info is available in /proc/rd/status. Dont use this with 2.4 kernels on machines with more than 1GB, as the driver has some problems accessing memory above 1GB

Hardware using this driver:

dpt_i2o

The source for some command line utils are available at [http://i2o.shadowconnect.com/download.php], and packaged for debian as raidutils.

Hardware using this driver: Adaptec SCSI RAIDs 2000S, 2100S, IDE RAID 2400A

gdth

Status info is available in /proc/scsi/gdth/0. Some tools and drivers are available [http://www.icp-vortex.com/english/support/faq/linux_e.htm from the vendor]. Some linux tools are available on a CD included with the controller. Debian packages storcon and srcd are hidden in ir1_linux_utils_2.12.zip downloadable from [http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scripts-df/Detail_Desc.asp?agr=N&ProductID=897&DwnldID=7497 Intel Download service] (2.16, i386) or [http://www.icp-vortex.com/english/download/rz_neu/linux/linux_e.htm ICP Vortex site] (2.17, i386 & amd64)

Hardware using this driver: ICP Vortex GDT6118RD, Intel RAID Controller SRCZCR, Intel SATA RAID Controller SRCS14L

ips

Info on BIOS-version and RAID configuration is available from /proc/scsi/ips/0. This file do(es?) not contain the RAID status. There is a precompiled command line tool ipssend available from the vendor CD. It can be used to get information on the RAID status, and also be used to configure and administrate the raid. There is also a graphical raid tool ?RaidMan available in RPM format from the vendor CD. The command line tool is also available from [http://linux-ha.org/download/ipssend.gz Linux-HA].

Hardware using this driver: IBM Netfinity 5500, IBM Netfinity 5600, IBM eserver xSeries 226, IBM eserver xSeries 345.

megaraid

Status info is supposed to be available in /proc/megaraid/*/raiddrives-*. This was not the case on at least one Dell ?PowerEdge 2550 machine. Some tools and drivers are available [http://linux.dell.com/files/megaraid/ from the vendor].

Hardware using this driver:

megaraid_mbox + megaraid_mm

Hardware using this driver: Intel SATA-RAID controllers

Note: To use the Intel SRCS28X controller with more than 4GB of system RAM you need ad least firmware revision 814B.

megaraid_sas

Hardware using this driver: Dell ?PowerEdge 2900

megaraid2

RAID-status is available from /proc/megaraid/*/raiddrives-* and disk-status from /proc/megaraid/*/diskdrives-ch*.

I had to rebuild initrd.img to get the megaraid2 driver on the ramdisk. The procedure I used was:

echo megaraid2>>/etc/mkinitrd/modules
mkinitrd -o /boot/initrd.img-megaraid2

Then I rebooted, and made sure that grub used the new initrd.img-megaraid2

Hardware using this driver: Dell PowerEdge 2850 megaraid_mbox [linux 2.6.9] Not aware of any method of detecting the RAID status for this RAID.

Hardware using this driver: Dell PowerEdge 2450, Dell PowerEdge 2850

mptscsih

RAID status is available using a the free [http://www.red-bean.com/~mab/mpt-status.html mpt-status tool].

Hardware using this driver: Sun v20Z, IBM eServer 325/326.


CategoryHardware