Adaptec management tools

[Charles Sprickman]

On Tue, 9 Aug 2005, Scott Long wrote:

> Charles Sprickman wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>> 
>> I think we have a few Adaptec people here...

Just to clarify, I guess you (Scott) worked there, is there anyone left at 
Adaptec who is also a FBSD committer?  Just curious...

>> I could possibly stomach an X app if I could connect to it remotely. There 
>> are hints of this in the manuals, but I don't see any such thing in the 
>> asr-utils package.

OK, at this point I hope I don't get anyone upset since this is not the 
Adaptec support department, but maybe someone can help out here.

I like the idea of using the X app.  It appears that one does not 
necessarily need X libs on the server to do so.  There are the following 
programs in the asr-utils port that should allow this if I'm following the 
docs correctly:

-dpteng (seems to be used by raidutil, local X client, remote X client)
-dptcom (not sure what it's use is)
-dptscom (seems to be integral to establishing a network connection from a 
remote instance of Storage Manager)

There's also a "dptmgr.ini" (lots of DOS-isms in all the cli stuff) where 
you can enable remote access and set which tcp port it listens on (via 
dptscom?).  So I started playing around with this on a new box that's not 
yet in service.  I installed Storage Manager (aka "dptmgr") on a FreeBSD 
workstation at home, and after discovering that it simply doesn't take 
click input with NumLock on, got it setup to connect via tcp to the test 
host.

Nothing happened.  dptscom was running, and it seemed to have spawned a 
"dptcom" and "dpteng".  netstat showed that it was listening on port 2091, 
but the state was "CLOSED", which seems... odd.  Here's what I've got so 
far:

root at h16# ./dptscom /?
The paramaters for this program are :
   -FORCERUN    :  bypass 'program is already running' error
   -INI=xxx     :  use a different INI file
   -DAEMON      :  disable console input
   -HELP or -?  :  display help screen
root at h16# ./dptscom -INI=/usr/local/dpt/dptmgr.ini

Adaptec Communication Engine Server for UNIX
Version: 3.04   Creation Date: 9/27/00
Comm Engine Version: 3.04   Creation Date: 9/27/00
User: root
Computer: h16.xxx.com

     0) DPT Engine
     1) TCP        -ICRS thread started

And netstat:

Active Internet connections (including servers)
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q  Local Address          Foreign Address      (state)
tcp4       0      0  *.2091                 *.*                  CLOSED

I ran a ktrace, and the only thing that really stood out was this:

   4004 dptscom  CALL  semsys(0x2,0x10001,0xbfbff8c4,0x2,0)
   4004 dptscom  PSIG  SIGALRM caught handler=0x804b28c mask=0x0 code=0x0
   4004 dptscom  RET   semsys -1 errno 4 Interrupted system call
   4004 dptscom  CALL  sigreturn(0xbfbff6a4)
   4004 dptscom  RET   sigreturn JUSTRETURN

Anyone have any ideas?  Using adaptec's tcp interface sounded good to me; 
no X libs to install, and it should be easy to tunnel over ssh (since you 
need to give up the root password for access).  But the fact that it opens 
a socket but does not listen has me stumped.

> Storage Manager Pro - Java/Swing app for managing every Adaptec RAID
> controller circa 2001 except for the old Dell zero channel UW/U2/UDMA
> controllers.  I ported this to FreeBSD, but the lack of working native
> threads at the time severly limited it so I never released it.

Is there some possibility of this working under Linux emulation?  Is it a 
client/server type setup, and if so, is Java required on both the client 
and server?

> Storage Manager Browser Edition (SMBE) - web server/client app for
> managing most of Adaptec's controllers circa 2003.  This was never
> ported to FreeBSD in any form, but I personally don't consider this
> to be a loss.

Hey, laugh all you want, but I have some old 3Ware cards that only provide 
a web interface.  It's not spectacular, but it works, and webapps lend 
themselves to some decent documentation within the config screens.  I 
would gladly work with a web-based config if it worked well...

> raidutil is abandonware.  Again, if you can find the released source 
> tarball and do something with it, more power to you.  I doubt that 
> you'll be able to get much technical assistance out of Adaptec unless 
> you represent a significant amount of future revenue.

I so don't understand the lack of a good management app.  It doesn't 
really sound like they want to sell outside of the Windows market, which 
would be fine if they didn't claim support for Linux, Novell, etc.  While 
I understand all these tools are very old, they still ship them with 
current cards; we just bought three more ZCR cards (one is even PCI-X, so 
it is a "new" model) and they are still using what I guess must be 
software they acquired when they bought out DPT.  You'd think they'd at 
least change the name of the programs. :)

>  You could try experimenting with SMBE under Linux emulation.  The 
> server part can run without X libs, though it contains its own complete 
> private web server and can often times chew a lot of CPU while idle. 
> Some people don't care about these details, others do.  YMMV.

I'll give it a shot.  If I can run it on demand (either starting by hand 
or maybe trying to get it going under inetd) that may be a workable 
solution.

>> For the FreeBSD folks:  What are you using?  Do you trust the tools you can 
>> find?  Are you using something besides Adaptec for hardware RAID?  If so, 
>> how do you like it?  What are the management tools like?  Does it tend to 
>> randomly mark drives as "bad" for no apparent reason then later decide they 
>> are indeed "good"?
>
> LSI, 3ware, Areca, and Highpoint all have decent controllers with management 
> apps for FreeBSD.  Each has its strengths and weaknesses,
> but I'd recommend LSI MegaRAID as the best high-end choice, followed by
> Areca for mid-range SATA.

Interesting, but after you posted we have someone else expressing dislike 
for LSI. :)  I think after OpenBSD's tift with Adaptec they also suggested 
LSI.  Maybe we'll give one of their cards a try, but the ZCR stuff from 
Adaptec is so convenient in 1U boxes...

>> I'm ranting because Adaptec support has been next to useless.  All total 
>> over the last few years I've installed more than two dozen Adaptec RAID 
>> products on FreeBSD and I'm struggling to understand why I should continue. 
>> Don't get me wrong, the asr driver "just works", but the management is 
>> opaque at best, dangerous at worst.
>
> I spent several years writing management apps for Adaptec, and your
> comments don't surprise me at all.

That's horrible.  Glad you moved on.  Is there anyone there that a 
dissatisfied customer can vent at?

Thanks,

Charles

> Scott
>