SMART with LSI Megaraid Controller

[efes]

Hi!

I have a LSI Megaraid controller with four WD 2TB Ent.storage disk on it. Nas4free runs fine with ZFS, speed and overall performance is quite good.
I only have problem with using SMART monitoring and reporting.

I've enabled smart correctly, but the service could not start. My disk devices recognized by mfid0-mfid3.

Diagnostics|Information|S.M.A.R.T. says: /dev/mfid3: To monitor disks on LSI RAID load mfip.ko module and run 'smartctl -a /dev/passX' to show SMART information Please specify device type with the -d option.

So, I did so. After kldload-ed the mfip.ko module, I was able to get the smart status of the disks through the mentioned passX device with smartclt, and specified the device type (sat) also:

smartctl /dev/pass4 -a -d sat

With this syntax, SMART working, as expected!

The GUI only allowed to specify the "sat" parameter (Disks|Management|Disk|Edit), which is really great, but this isn't enogh for my situation, because the generated smartd.conf always contains the detected mfidX devices, not the workable passX devices. passX drives are exports of the raid devices through mfi driver, so I suppose, they are intentional.

So my question is how could the generated smartd.conf cheated or the GUI config altered for the use of these passX devices for SMART monitoring instead of the detected (and working..) mfidX devices?

Thanks for your answers!
eFeS

[b0ssman]

you might want to flash your controller to it mode firmware.

what is your actual controller?

[efes]

Based on pciconf: MegaRAID SAS 2108 [Liberator]
It's an LSI MegaRAID SAS 9260-4i card, with SATA drives.

[b0ssman]

you card is the more expensive raid version that cant be flashed to a dumb hba.

see https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?th ... owd.11901/

[efes]

OK, I got it. All my disks are an individual virt.drive, so this is working quite well. I know, if there would be a problem with the controller, it would be tricky to get the data back if something goes wrong, need an exact same controller, and my chances are little to get everything working again. I know it, and accepted it.

But is there any way - besides of simple manual script writing/cron - to hack the GUI (or the generator script of the smartd.conf file), and only swap the device names? It would be great, if SMART status could be checked through the GUI aslo. I would like to accomplish only this...

- /etc/rc.d/smartd generates the /var/etc/smartd.conf file, which will be used by smartd, handled by the GUI. I realized, that I need to modify _devicespecialfile and/or _devicefilepath variables.
- /etc/rc.d/smartd uses /etc/configxml.sub
- /etc/configxml.subr uses /conf/config.xml

What if I manually modify the disks smart section's "devicefilepath" entry? If I change the device path here from mfid0 to pass2 would it be cause any harm elsewhere?

[b0ssman]

you could try the postinit script to copy your smartd.conf and then restarting the service
http://wiki.nas4free.org/doku.php?id=do ... nd_scripts

[efes]

Well, I'm unable to restart the service without overwriting the smartd.conf file...

[b0ssman]

i dont understand what you mean

cp /somewhere/smartd.conf /var/etc/smartd.conf && /etc/rc.d/smartd start

[efes]

When "/etc/rc.d/smartd" called, it gets parameters from /conf/config.xml and generates /var/etc/smartd.conf file from them. So it does not matter anyithing, if I overwrite the config BEFORE calling /etc/rc.d/smartd.

Anyway, I modified config.xml - as I suggested above -, and that worked without a problem. At last the smartd service is running and it uses the passX device through the generated smartd.conf. The only "porblem" is , that the GUI not changed: Diagnostics|Information|S.M.A.R.T. still not working...

[b0ssman]

tbh just get yourself an ibm m1015 flash it to it mode and move away from your virtual drives.
it will be less hassle in the long run.

[efes]

Well, you're probably right, but I'm not in a position to buy anything. I have to use and make this storage work with the supported configuration.

Anyway, I've just realized, that the GUI pages are actually pure PHP. So I only had to modify diag_info_smart.php. I could use the postinit script tecnhique you mentioned before, here.

And a little addition: despite of the supported extra SMART attribute - which is handled correctly during smartd.conf generation - SMART diagnostic pages of the GUI not uses it, hoewer this file contains definition for this:

Code: Select all

if(!empty($diskv['smart']['devicetypearg'])){
$devicetype_arg = "-d ".$diskv['smart']['devicetypearg'];
}

But $devicetype_arg always empty, even if I specify it at Disks|Management|Disk|Edit. So I had to specify this too by hand.

[apollo567]

true Efes, I tested some of the improvements in the webgui which Redantz once developed for the LSI Controller

[efes]

Wow, it's a good news - and probably another thread also... I could gladly be a part of any kind of testing, if this would be necessary.
My config is:
- quad core Intel Xeon CPU E31220 @ 3.10GHz,
- Intel S1200BTL motherboard,
- 20GB Kingston 1333Mhz DDR3 ECC RAM
I use the storage mainly for an iSCSI target for a Xen cluster.

I'm looking forward any impovements with this version of RAID card. It seems to me, that on OS level everything is correct and working well. Only the GUI not able to handle the specific - and, well, to tell the truth, little weird - working method of this card.

Thanks again!

[sunshine]

Wow!

I need the exact same thing!! Please see this thread: viewtopic.php?f=56&t=8670

[KnustKnut]

is there anything new about it? I have also the same problem with an LSI MegaRaid controller. (unfortunaly I have to use it, because the controller is onboard and the disks are directly attached to it)
smart works with fine with /dev/passX. Simply an option to add the passX devices in the WebGUI smart interface would be perfect!

[sunshine]

is there anything new about it? I have also the same problem with an LSI MegaRaid controller. (unfortunaly I have to use it, because the controller is onboard and the disks are directly attached to it)
smart works with fine with /dev/passX. Simply an option to add the passX devices in the WebGUI smart interface would be perfect!

Agreed - that would be nice. It's currently not possible, and I'm aware of no progress or developer acknowledgement of this.

[KnustKnut]

I have found this:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/nas4fre ... rce=navbar

according to the text on sourceforge this patch is already implemented in nas4free, maybe i am doing something wrong?

[ChriZathens]

I am not 100% sure, but I think that the patch was about the ability for nas4free to speak to the controller (driver fix)
It was not about webui (I might be wrong, though..)