snmpd strangeness

[John Almberg]

>> This machine has an Intel motherboard and a hardware raid controller.
>> From what I can tell, there is some Intel software installed on the
>> machine that makes hardware faults visible to snmp.
>
> That would require Net-SNMP to be linked to that software (or library)
> directly.  Two things can't just "magically talk" to one another.  :-)

As I said, I really have no idea.

Now that I'm reading more deeply in the notes... the monitoring was  
supposed to be with IPMI. No idea what that is, either, but I thought  
I'd toss it into the mix.

>
> AFAIK, Intel does not provide such software on FreeBSD, but I could be
> complete wrong here.  They primarily focus on Linux, like most  
> companies
> do.
>
>> That last sentence makes it sound like I know more than I do about  
>> this
>> situation. I'm just reading from notes. :-)
>>
>> And I have an Intel disk that came with the motherboard that hints at
>> the same type of thing. I've just scanned the docs on the disk...  
>> looks
>> extraordinarily complicated.
>
> I don't know what controller it is, but Net-SNMP doesn't have any sort
> of out-of-the-box support for any kind of RAID card.  See above for
> what's needed.
>
> I just hope the card is an actual RAID card and not BIOS-level RAID  
> like
> Intel MatrixRAID.  If it is MatrixRAID, I highly recommend you back  
> the
> entire machine up and reinstall without MatrixRAID, otherwise when you
> lose a disk or need to rebuild your array, you'll find your array
> broken/gone, be completely unable to rebuild it, or kernel panics.   
> Note
> that all of this stuff works just fine on Linux; the issues listed are
> with FreeBSD.
>
> Generally speaking, we (the open-source world) have gotten to the  
> point
> with OS-based software RAID (e.g. Linux LVM, FreeBSD ccd/gvinum/ZFS,
> OpenSolaris ZFS) where it offers significant advantages over hardware
> RAID.  There are good reasons to use hardware RAID, but in those
> scenarios admins should be looking at buying an actual filer, e.g.
> Network Appliance.  Otherwise, for "simple" systems (even stuff like
> 2U or 3U boxes with many disks, e.g. a "low-cost filer"), stick with
> some form of OS-based software RAID if possible.
>

That's good to know. I was told just the opposite by the guy selling  
the $650 RAID cards. Who'd have thunk?

The card in the box is a

Intel 18E PCI-Express x8 SAS/SATA2 Hardware ROMB RAID with 128MB  
Memory Module and 72 Hour Battery Backup Cache

$625 as shown on the packing list, so I hope it's a good one.

-- John