Need Recommendation for RAID Monitoring Software

[Matt Roth]

 >> On 2/23/06, Matt Roth <mroth at imminc.com> wrote:
 >>
 >> List users,
 >>
 >> We are running Fedora Core 3 on multiple Dell PowerEdge servers.  Each
 >> machine has an onboard LSI Logic PERC 4e/Si RAID controller, megaraid
 >> drivers (2.20), and two SCSI disks configured in a RAID 1 (mirrored).
 >>
 >> As part of our backup routine, we pull out a drive from each machine and
 >> swap in a new one.  The pulled drives are stored as backups, and the
 >> mirrors are rebuilt on the new disks.
 >>
 >> This has been working well for us, but we have not been able to find
 >> software that allows us to monitor the rebuild.  The only ways that we
 >> can tell when it is complete are by monitoring the drive activity lights
 >> or by rebooting the server and going into the RAID controller's firmware
 >> utility.  The first method is error-prone and the second method is not a
 >> valid option, because we need to keep the machines available during the
 >> rebuild.
 >>
 >> I'm fairly certain that there is Dell software for RAID monitoring from
 >> the OS, but it is Windows specific.  I would greatly appreciate it if
 >> someone could recommend a text-mode software package for FC3 that offers
 >> the same functionality as well as the ability to monitor the RAIDs for
 >> disk failures.
 >
 > On 2/23/06, Matt Morgan <minxmertzmomo at gmail.com> wrote:
 >
 > Dell makes their management software available for Linux. They even
 > have a yum repo! Consider joining the linux-poweredge list:
 >
 > http://lists.us.dell.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-poweredge
 >
 > And get general info at http://linux.dell.com/ .
 >
 > I installed the dell openmanage stuff recently, but I don't really
 > know how to use it. So I'll stop there.
 >
 > Good luck,
 > Matt

Matt,

Thank you for the suggestions.  I downloaded perc-apps-A08.tar.gz from 
the Dell support website and installed DellMgr and MegaMon.

DellMgr provides access to the RAID controller's firmware utility from 
the command line.  Unfortunately, the formatting of the screen gets 
scrambled over a telnet session, but it is excellent from a local terminal.

MegaMon is a daemon process that reports RAID activity (hardware health, 
drive degradation/failure, rebuild progress, etc.) to a log file and 
root mail.  I believe it can also be configured to send emails based on 
certain events.  It looks to be a good fit, but I have a couple of 
concerns.  I've read that it has stability problems and top shows it 
consuming more memory over time (0.0% last night, 0.5% right now).  If 
either of these turn out to be a legitimate concern, I will just cron 
off a nightly  restart of the process.

If anyone has any experience with either of these utilities, please let 
me know of any tips or problems I should look out for.

Thanks again,

Matthew Roth
InterMedia Marketing Solutions
Software Engineer and Systems Developer