Some Questions on HARDWARE RAID from OS perspective (Linux and HP-UX)

[senthil_kumar_1]

Hi All,

I am running suse 9 (SLES 9) on HP proliant BL25p G1 server and HP-UX on HP integrity rx3600, I have some Questions about hardware RAID.

1)I know we can configure hardware RAID from array controller interface before booting in to OS, Can we do this from OS(both linux and HP-UX)?

2)How to see what RAID (0 or 1 or 5) has configured from OS(both linux and HP-UX)?


3)How to see how many HDDs are configured in RADI from OS(both linux and HP-UX)?

4)Can we see re-buit (If it is happening) process from OS(both linux and HP-UX), if we have changed the faulty HDD recently?

5)How to check whether both HDDs are having same data if it is RADI-1 from OS?

[Steven E. Protter]

Shaom,


1)
HP proliant servers have PSP, Proliant Service Pack, a software set that includes tools to display and even change RAID levels on disk outfitted with hardware raid (P400 controller on current hardware).

PSP exists for HP-UX and many current flavors of Linux.

2) The OS has no built in command to see hardware raid, which is presented by hardware to the OS. See response 1.

3) See response 1, though generally when raid 1 is done, the ratio is 1 to 1, but not always.

4) PSP provides this functionality on supported OS.

5) PSP provides this functionality on supported OS. Note that there is a web based interface, last I checked only works with IE from Microsoft.

SEP

[senthil_kumar_1]

Hi Steven,

I have installed PSP on linux server.

What command and syntax is to be used to know answer to all my five questions.

Please give your answer for each question.

[Steven E. Protter · Accepted solution]

Shalom again,

http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1397592

The utility is called hpacucli

You will need to look at the man page for syntax.

Where I currently am we use Dell servers so there is no place convenient for me to play around and provide command syntax.

This information after a full PSP install is available at http://serverhostname:2301

root login required.

SEP

[senthil_kumar_1]

Hi Steven,

I know some thing about using hpacucli.

Example:

We can use following command syntax to view following details.

1)To view array configuration details:

# hpacucli controller slot=0 logicaldrive all show

2)To view details of physical HDDs configured in Array:

# hpacucli controller slot=0 physicaldrive all show


And I am not able to open man page of hpacucli

Ex:

# man hpacucli
No manual entry for hpacucli


I would like to know the answer for my above mentioned questions:

4)Can we see re-buit (If it is happening) process from OS(both linux and HP-UX), if we have changed the faulty HDD recently?

5)How to check whether both HDDs are having same data if it is RADI-1 from OS?

[P Muralidhar Kini]

Hi Senthil,

To get help on hpacucli commands
[root@localhost root]# ./hpacucli help
or
[root@localhost root]# ./hpacucli
HP Array Configuration Utility CLI 7.15.17.0
Detecting Controllers...Done.
Type "help" for a list of supported commands.
Type "exit" to close the console.

Check the following link for more details on hpacucli -
http://people.freebsd.org/~jcagle/hpacucli-readme

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Murali

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom again,

On the hpux side the hpacucli command either may not be present or replaced by a different utility. We don't use PSP for HP-UX, though I used to use it last place I worked.

as root.

whence hpacucli

At least that will tell you if it exists.

Very not nice of the developers not to provide a man page.

SEP

[Alzhy]

On System POST (aka Startp / BIOS).. there should be a message to indicate what CTRL-? key to press to get to the HW RAID Controller BIOS. CTRL-H or CTRL-A are the most common.