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
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 events.log -aALL && cat events.log
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