Re: MegaCLI port is ports-only -- how would you deploy it?

> On Aug 12, 2022, at 12:35, Doug Ambrisko <ambrisko@ambrisko.com> wrote:
> 
> On Fri, Aug 12, 2022 at 12:32:56PM -0400, Dan Mahoney wrote:
> | 
> | 
> | > On Aug 12, 2022, at 12:31, Doug Ambrisko <ambrisko@ambrisko.com> wrote:
> | > 
> | > On Fri, Aug 12, 2022 at 12:21:36PM -0400, Dan Mahoney wrote:
> | > | 
> | > | > On Aug 8, 2022, at 16:45, Doug Ambrisko <ambrisko@ambrisko.com> wrote:
> | > | > 
> | > | > On Mon, Aug 08, 2022 at 04:10:10PM -0400, Dan Mahoney wrote:
> | > | > | 
> | > | > | 
> | > | > | > On Aug 8, 2022, at 15:57, Doug Ambrisko <ambrisko@ambrisko.com> wrote:
> | > | > | > 
> | > | > | > On Thu, Aug 04, 2022 at 05:22:29PM +0300, Ruslan Makhmatkhanov wrote:
> | > | > | > |    03.08.2022, 02:07, "Dan Mahoney" <freebsd@gushi.org>:
> | > | > | > |      Hey there all,
> | > | > | > |      At the dayjob we have a fleet of Dell Poweredge servers that can use
> | > | > | > |      either mptsas or mrsas -- if you use mptsas, you use mptutil (in
> | > | > | > |      base) to check the state of the card.
> | > | > | > |      If you use mrsas, you need megacli, which is only in ports, and the
> | > | > | > |      port hasn't translated to pkg probably because of license
> | > | > | > |      restrictions. ( _LICENSE_RESTRICTED = delete-package
> | > | > | > |      delete-distfiles), but the license listed is just "megacli".
> | > | > | > |      * We want to deploy a cron job to periodically check the raid status
> | > | > | > |      (we're writing a wrapper, also having it check mfiutil, zpool, etc).
> | > | > | > |      * We do not want to install and manage a whole ports tree on every
> | > | > | > |      machine in our fleet, just to install a raid utlity.
> | > | > | > |      Option A:
> | > | > | > |      Make a local package somehow.
> | > | > | > |      The port just downloads a static binary, there's nothing to build
> | > | > | > |      here, but we want to do this the "right" way. Is there some way to
> | > | > | > |      have pkg deploy a single local package for this that will, for
> | > | > | > |      example, report the right package ownership, without moving every
> | > | > | > |      other package to our poudriere install (we're just using base
> | > | > | > |      packages, we keep poudriere around for testing in case we need to
> | > | > | > |      hot-patch something).
> | > | > | > |      For what it's worth, we use puppet for config management, so pushing
> | > | > | > |      out the static binary is not the worst answer, but it also feels
> | > | > | > |      "dirty".
> | > | > | > |      Option B:
> | > | > | > |      Figure out how to fix the license. I have no idea what this would
> | > | > | > |      involve.
> | > | > | > |      Option C:
> | > | > | > |      Also, apparently MegaCLI is no longer maintained (replaced by
> | > | > | > |      StorCLI), but there's no port for StorCLI, and...there are multiple
> | > | > | > |      raid-card specific versions? Jeez.
> | > | > | > |      Feels even more dirty.
> | > | > | > |      [1]https://support.siliconmechanics.com/portal/en/kb/articles/storcl
> | > | > | > |      i-for-freebsd-and-other-operating-systems
> | > | > | > |      Ideas welcome?
> | > | > | > |      -Dan Mahoney
> | > | > | > 
> | > | > | > Although the path to get to StorCli goes through various cards the
> | > | > | > latest greatest seem to work on all earlier cards.  It works on
> | > | > | > HBAs and not just RAID cards.  At work I did a Linux/FreeBSD
> | > | > | > POC for FW management and found the FreeBSD version could flash the HBA
> | > | > | > and drive FW.  I've moved to StorCli from MegaCli.  I would suggest
> | > | > | > we drop the MegaCli port and move to StorCli.
> | > | > | > 
> | > | > | > I have code to make mfiutil into mrsasutil and added the MFI ioctl
> | > | > | > handler to mrsas.  I'm not sure how much value that has.  I don't
> | > | > | > deal with supporting FreeBSD and RAID much anymore.  If interested
> | > | > | > I could send patches.
> | > | > | 
> | > | > | This feels like it should be in base, regardless.  Just *something* to 
> | > | > | query the raid status and health, even if it doesn't ring all the bells 
> | > | > | of StorCLI.
> | > | > | 
> | > | > | Right now, you can do this with the older mfi, but not the newer mrsas, 
> | > | > | which performs better in some cases, which leaves an admin with a 
> | > | > | dilemma: better reliability, or better manageability.
> | > | > | 
> | > | > | I also feel like this could be added to a minor release (i.e. a 
> | > | > | 12.3 --> 12.4 or a 13.0 --> 13.1), but obviously that decision is above me.
> | > | > 
> | > | > This is based of -current.  I haven't tested it recently:
> | > | > 	https://people.freebsd.org/~ambrisko/git.mrsas_support_in_mfiutil.patch
> | > | > 
> | > | > Please give it a try.  You will need a new kernel built and booted to
> | > | > provide the needed ioctl support.  It should be close to committable.
> | > | 
> | > | Doug,
> | > | 
> | > | I'm trying this out on 12.x and 13.x just for funsies, but given the 
> | > | release schedule, it's unlikely that there'll be a 12.4 or a 13.2 that 
> | > | this would make it into.  Regardless, I've opened a bug report to get 
> | > | this added *somewhere* which may cause other people to try it out and test.
> | > 
> | > I'd have to put in -current first then look at MFC later on.  If looks
> | > good for you then I'll put it up for review.  I just don't use this
> | > stuff day to day anymore.
> | 
> | Yeah, most of our dayjob work is running critical DNS infrastructure, so 
> | there's not a lot of -current there, but I can get permission to play 
> | with it on a spare system.
> 
> It should apply to earlier releases, since there hasn't been a lot of
> changes in this area.  So you can try that if that is easier.  I did
> this code a long time ago probably in 10.X and have been moving it
> forward.

I've confirmed that it shows drive status and array status on my R430 running FreeBSD 14.0-CURRENT #0 main-n257330-88951aaaee7-dirty in mrsas mode.

As currently built, the kernel makefiles do not install it as mrsasutil, and this is a manual copy.  I think that would need to be fixed to make it mergeable, but I think it should happen.

I've opened this PR: https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=265794

At this point, the ports- list is probably off-topic for this, but this conversation should definitely continue.

-Dan