Kroko Just another WordPress weblog

Recently I’ve had to do extensive work with Dell PowerEdge servers, and specifically Dell’s that use the LSI MegaRAID controllers. Anyone who has ever had to work with the LSI RAID controllers knows that the MegaCLI provided by LSI is the most cryptic command line utility in existence. MegaCli is available for Linux, DOS, Windows, Netware and Solaris. You can get it from LSI’s website (search for MegaRAID SAS).

Inside the tarball or zip file you’ll find an RPM archive which contains the MegaCli and MegaCli64 binaries (will be installed to /opt/MegaRAID/MegaCli).

Please note:
This emergency cheat sheet is not exhaustive, but it should be sufficient in most cases. For a complete reference either call MegaCli -h or refer to the manual at: http://www.lsi.com/files/docs/techdocs/storage_stand_prod/sas/mr_sas_sw_ug.pdf (no longer available there)

Here is a local copy: https://blog.kroko.ro/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/mr-sas-sw-ug-en.pdf

While there are a lot of different parameters for MegaCli, some of them are always identical. These are described here in short.

Adapter parameter -aN
The parameter -aN (where N is a number starting with zero or the string ALL) specifies the PERC5/i adapter ID. If you have only one controller it’s safe to use ALL instead of a specific ID, but you’re encouraged to use the ID for everything that makes changes to your RAID configuration.

Physical drive parameter -PhysDrv [E:S]
For commands that operate on one or more pysical drives, the -PhysDrv [E:S] parameter is used, where E is the enclosure device ID in which the drive resides and S the slot number (starting with zero). You can get the enclosure device ID using “MegaCli -EncInfo -aALL”. The E:S syntax is also used for specifying the physical drives when creating a new RAID virtual drive.

Virtual drive parameter -Lx
The parameter -Lx is used for specifying the virtual drive (where x is a number starting with zero or the string all).

Controller information

MegaCli -AdpAllInfo -aALL
MegaCli -CfgDsply -aALL
MegaCli -AdpEventLog -GetEvents -f /dev/stdout -aALL

Enclosure information

MegaCli -EncInfo -aALL

Virtual drive information

MegaCli -LDInfo -Lall -aALL

Physical drive information

MegaCli -PDList -aALL
MegaCli -PDInfo -PhysDrv [E:S] -aALL

Battery backup information

MegaCli -AdpBbuCmd -aALL

Controller management

Silence active alarm

MegaCli -AdpSetProp AlarmSilence -aALL

Disable alarm

MegaCli -AdpSetProp AlarmDsbl -aALL

Enable alarm

MegaCli -AdpSetProp AlarmEnbl -aALL

Physical drive management

Set state to offline

MegaCli -PDOffline -PhysDrv [E:S] -aN

Set state to online

MegaCli -PDOnline -PhysDrv [E:S] -aN

Mark as missing

MegaCli -PDMarkMissing -PhysDrv [E:S] -aN

Prepare for removal

MegaCli -PdPrpRmv -PhysDrv [E:S] -aN

Replace missing drive

MegaCli -PdReplaceMissing -PhysDrv [E:S] -ArrayN -rowN -aN

The number N of the array parameter is the Span Reference you get using “MegaCli -CfgDsply -aALL” and the number N of the row parameter is the Physical Disk in that span or array starting with zero (it’s not the physical disk’s slot!).

Rebuild drive

MegaCli -PDRbld -Start -PhysDrv [E:S] -aN
MegaCli -PDRbld -Stop -PhysDrv [E:S] -aN
MegaCli -PDRbld -ShowProg -PhysDrv [E:S] -aN

Clear drive

MegaCli -PDClear -Start -PhysDrv [E:S] -aN
MegaCli -PDClear -Stop -PhysDrv [E:S] -aN
MegaCli -PDClear -ShowProg -PhysDrv [E:S] -aN

Bad to good (or back to good as I like to call it)

MegaCli -PDMakeGood -PhysDrv[E:S] -aN

This changes drive in state Unconfigured-Bad to Unconfigured-Good.

Walkthrough: Change/replace a drive

Set the drive offline, if it is not already offline due to an error

MegaCli -PDOffline -PhysDrv [E:S] -aN

Mark the drive as missing

MegaCli -PDMarkMissing -PhysDrv [E:S] -aN

Prepare drive for removal

MegaCli -PDPrpRmv -PhysDrv [E:S] -aN

Change/replace the drive

If you’re using hot spares then the replaced drive should become your new hot spare drive:

MegaCli -PDHSP -Set -PhysDrv [E:S] -aN

In case you’re not working with hot spares, you must re-add the new drive to your RAID virtual drive and start the rebuilding

MegaCli -PdReplaceMissing -PhysDrv [E:S] -ArrayN -rowN -aN
MegaCli -PDRbld -Start -PhysDrv [E:S] -aN

 

Script to find DiskGroup assigned to each slot in server:

for i in `seq 0 11`; do 
  echo '-----------------------';
  MegaCli -PDInfo -PhysDrv [32:$i] -aALL|grep position; 
  smartctl -d sat+megaraid,$i -a /dev/sda|egrep -i '(Offline_Uncorrectable|Pending_Sector|Reallocated_Sector_Ct|Model|Serial)'; 
done