[plug] IBM ServeRAID (was: Help request)

[Denis Brown]

At 10:46 10/03/2004 +0800, Ryan wrote:
>On Wed, 2004-03-10 at 06:12, Denis Brown wrote:
> > > I use my 2.2r6 Potato CD for IBM ServerRAID installs - works like a
> > > bought one.  I forget what kernel is on that CD, but all the kernels on
> > > the Woody ones ignore the ServerRAID controller.

<snip>

> > Just goes to show the value of this list...   I'll grab and burn a copy of
> > the 2.2r6 in case it gets me out of sticky situations in future.   Thanks
> > for the info.
>
>I can make you a copy of mine if you can't (be bothered) track(ing) it
>down.

Thanks, Ryan.   I'll have a hunt around first of all and if that fails I'll 
contact you off-list.

>More info for you about these.  I have several IBM PC Server 330s thanks
>to eBay.  6 Tray hot-swap HDD cage, Dual PII and the obvious ServeRAID
>card.  These machines were released in 1997 and cost somewhere between
>US$15-20K - about AU$500 now with HDDs :)

Sweet!   What size HDs, out of interest?

>   Fantastic machines when you
>have no money, just a bit noisy - one of mine is named 'wind-tunnel' for
>this reason.
>
>It has an integrated ServeRAID II card in it, your one probably has a 6M
>or 6i?

Yes, a 6i.

>PC 330s - at least 6 years their former.  I recently downloaded FW:6.11
>(probably the same release of the ServeRAID CD image you downloaded) and
>thought I'd have no chance of it still working.  To my great surprise
>I'm now running 6.11
>
>Therefore, ancient kernels work with the new cards.  There might be the
>odd new feature they don't support, but they get it working.

Sounds good :-)   I recall reading in the ServeRAID setup that they 
recommend updating the drivers before updating the S'RAID software but as 
you say, the backwards compatibility is wonderful.

>I also make extensive use of the ipssend utility which you can butcher
>out of the RMPs they offer for the ServeRAID manager (or ask me for
>it).

I've seen reference to ipssend but have not yet trodden the path.   IIRC 
they [IBM] offer sources so it should be reasonable to compile it for Debian.

>   I also made some dodgy scripts that ran via cron to check the
>state of the drives in the array using ipssend (ask me for them if
>interested).

Yes, definitely interested thanks!

There have been some discussions on this list over time, talking about RAID 
controllers that hide incipient failures at the native drive 
level.   Perhaps it was Craig (Ringer) who told of a swag of new drives 
that failed without the controller bothering to tell of the fun and games, 
until it was too late.   So this might be an opportune time to start a 
thread about how to discover native drive status in the context of a 
(hardware) RAID setup?

<useful links snipped>

>Picture of one of mine here:
>
>http://gallery.slowest.net/albums/slowest-net-rebuild/Picture_0119.sized.jpg

Marvellous.   And a colour-matched filing cabinet, no less!

Cheers and thanks,
Denis