megasasctl(1)

💖 megasasctl(1) — the General Commands Manual glow-up 💖

okay bestie, gather round, because this one is literally the diagnostics queen for your megaraid adapters and every disk hanging off them. it lives in section 1 (General Commands Manual) so you know it's a real one. no cap. 🎀

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✨ NAME ✨

megasasctl — diagnostics on megaraid adapters and attached disks. that's the whole vibe. it looks at your adapters, it looks at your disks, it tells you the tea. 🦋

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

megasasctl [-vest] [-H] [-l log-page-nr] [-T long|short] [target ...]

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💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

so what does she actually do?? she reports diagnostics on megaraid adapters and attached disks, and honestly she does a lot:

• lets you dump controller log pages so you can peek at error, temperature, and self-test conditions
• kicks off self-test diagnostics
• documents adapter and logical drive configuration

now, the target situation. a target device can be:

• an adapter (like a0)
• an enclosure (like a0e0)
• an individual disk (like a0e0s0)

if you pass no target at all, she reports configuration and drive state on all adapters. if a target matches a whole collection of disks, the operations get applied to all matching devices. group project energy, but she's carrying it. 💪

and here's the options list, mwah:

• -v — increase program verbosity. she gets talkier. 🗣️
• -e — dump the read (0x03), write (0x02), and verify (0x05) error log pages.
• -s — dump the self-test (0x10) log page.
• -t — dump the temperature (0x0d) log page.
• -l page — dump the specified log page. and btw, log page 0 documents the log pages the device supports, so that's your lil index card. 🔖
• -p — do not report physical disks. reports only adapters and logical drives. lowkey perfect when you just wanna concisely document adapter configuration. ✨
• -T test — initiate the background short or long self-test procedure. it can take up to an hour to complete 😭 but it does not inhibit access to the device, so your stuff keeps working. you can monitor it with the -s option.
• -H — perform an adapter health check. inspects the state of all logical and physical drives plus the battery backup unit, and reports problem conditions. if everything's fine it generates no output at all — iconic, silent, unbothered. super useful in a cron job. 👑
• -B — when doing a health check, do not treat battery problems as failures.
• -V — show version.

N.B. the background long self test is genuinely a useful tool for diagnosing problems with individual disks. but be cautious with program usage. megasasctl -T long with no targets will initiate a background long self test on every drive on every adapter. that may not be what you want. bestie please read that twice. 🚨

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🧚 the health check lore 🧚

by default, the health check option inspects these log pages:

• 0x02, 0x03, and 0x05 — for uncorrected read, write, and verify errors
• 0x0d — for excess temperature conditions
• 0x10 — for failed self tests

however (plot twist ✨), if any of the log page options is specified, then only the designated log pages get inspected. she does exactly what you told her, nothing extra.

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🍓 the device file situation 🍓

this program requires the device file /dev/megaraid_sas_ioctl_node to be present on the system. that's non-negotiable, she needs her lil file.

if your system doesn't have this device file, you have two options:

1. execute LSI's "MegaCli" program once, or
2. locate the megadev_sas_ioctl entry in /proc/devices and create /dev/megaraid_sas_ioctl_node as a character device with suitable permissions, with a matching major device number and a minor number of 0.

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

(nothing else listed in this page — she stands on her own, main character energy 💜)

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and that's the whole page, bestie!! this was written for the <strong>03 March 2024</strong> edition of the <strong>megasasctl(1)</strong> manual page — go forth, check those adapters, and don't accidentally long-self-test your entire fleet. mwah 💅💖🫶