LSILogic MegaRAID and "camcontrol: cam_lookup_pass: CAMGETPASSTHRU ioctl failed"

[Danny Howard]

Hello,

I have a variety of systems that I inherited, with a variety of hardware
RAIDs.  Most systems are 4.8-4.10.  I want to be able to monitor the
various RAIDs reliably so that I can fix failures faster, but it is a
bear.

META QUESTION: Can anyone wiser in the ways of SCSI offer a clue?  Is
			   there a "best practices" approach to monitoring hardware
			   RAIDs on FreeBSD?  Or suggestions and advice on
               formulating such an approach?

On a Very Important Machine (VIM) I have:
amrd0: <LSILogic MegaRAID logical drive> on amr0
amrd0: 140012MB (286744576 sectors) RAID 5 (optimal)
SMP: AP CPU #3 Launched!
pass0 at amr0 bus 0 target 6 lun 0
pass0: <SUPER GEM359 REV001 1.09> Fixed Processor SCSI-2 device 
Mounting root from ufs:/dev/amrd0s1a

So, I cast about on the net and found amrcontrol at
http://people.freebsd.org/~emoore/MegaRAID_SCSI/ but it can not see my
controller when I run it.  The VIM is quite new, and amrcontrol is two
years old, so, this doesn't seem unreasonable.

I'd be happy just to probe the dmesg part that says:
amrd0: <LSILogic MegaRAID logical drive> on amr0
amrd0: 140012MB (286744576 sectors) RAID 5 (optimal)

I take "optimal" to mean "okay" and if it ever said something else, I
know I have some emergency maintenance to do, and can fail the VIM.

So, I tried camcontrol.  I am a little wary of issuing SCSI commands to
exotic devices because maybe sometimes those devices get an exotic SCSI
command and freak out?  Well, anyways, I try:

0-17:27 root at xxx ~# camcontrol inquiry amrd0
camcontrol: cam_lookup_pass: CAMGETPASSTHRU ioctl failed
cam_lookup_pass: No such file or directory
cam_lookup_pass: either the pass driver isn't in your kernel
cam_lookup_pass: or amrd0 doesn't exist
1-17:28 root at xxx ~# camcontrol inquiry amr0
camcontrol: cam_lookup_pass: CAMGETPASSTHRU ioctl failed
cam_lookup_pass: No such file or directory
cam_lookup_pass: either the pass driver isn't in your kernel
cam_lookup_pass: or amr0 doesn't exist
1-17:29 root at xxx ~# camcontrol inquiry 0:6:0
pass0: <SUPER GEM359 REV001 1.09> Fixed Processor SCSI-2 device 
pass0: Serial Number 1
camcontrol: error getting transfer settings
1-17:29 root at xxx ~# camcontrol inquiry pass0
pass0: <SUPER GEM359 REV001 1.09> Fixed Processor SCSI-2 device 
pass0: Serial Number 1
camcontrol: error getting transfer settings

I have chased down a post or three that implies that I may have to do
some MAKEDEV due to some revision conflicts along the way, but I'm not
super keen on running MAKEDEV on a VIM unless I know it will really
help.  I mean, I HAVE the devs:

0-17:29 root at xxx ~# ls /dev/amr*
/dev/amrd0      /dev/amrd0s1b   /dev/amrd0s1e   /dev/amrd0s1h /dev/amrd0s4
/dev/amrd0s1    /dev/amrd0s1c   /dev/amrd0s1f   /dev/amrd0s2
/deo/amrd0s1a   /dev/amrd0s1d   /dev/amrd0s1g   /dev/amrd0s3
0-17:30 root at xxx ~# ls /dev/pass*
/dev/pass0      /dev/pass1      /dev/pass2      /dev/pass3
1-17:29 root at xxx ~# uname -a
-reeBSD xxx.xxx.net 4.10-RELEASE-p3 FreeBSD 4.10-RELEASE-p3 #1: Fri Nov  5 12:00:38 EST 2004
root at xxx.xxx.net:/local0/world/obj/local0/world/src/sys/XXX i386
1-17:32 root at xxx ~# ls -l /dev/pass0 /dev/amrd0 `which camcontrol`
crw-r-----  1 root  wheel     133, 0x00010002 Nov  4 11:03 /dev/amrd0
crw-------  1 root  operator   31,   0 Nov  4 11:09 /dev/pass0
-r-xr-xr-x  1 root  wheel       140800 Nov  5 11:16 /sbin/camcontrol*

Thanks,
-danny