From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Mikhail Yakshin Subject: [ANNOUNCE] Einarc - universal RAID management/monitoring tool Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2007 02:17:41 +0300 Message-ID: <474DF715.8030708@altlinux.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE Return-path: Sender: linux-raid-owner@vger.kernel.org To: linux-raid@vger.kernel.org List-Id: linux-raid.ids Hello! I'd like to introduce release of Einarc project - an universal RAID=20 management/monitoring tool. Some time ago, I've started working with various hardware RAID=20 controllers and quickly was disappointed by the fact that almost all of= =20 them require proprietary utilities to manage. For example, it's=20 virtually impossible to monitor RAID status from running Linux without=20 installing one on Areca, Adaptec, LSI, 3ware, CCISS, etc controllers. Moreover, all these proprietary utilities were sometimes hard to find=20 and every one of the have a different interface, command line options,=20 etc. There seemed to be even no standard for entities hierarchy: Areca=20 uses 3-tier hierarchy (physical discs - raidsets - volumesets), LSI use= s=20 2-tier one (physical - logical discs). So, after giving it some thought and searching for a solution to unite=20 them all, I've found out that there almost no such thing. ManageEngine=20 OpStor is a proprietary and pretty expensive product that can do it and= =20 only other attempts in this area seemed to be OpenBSD's bioctl=20 initiative that faded out in 2005-2006. Generally, the idea is simple: Einarc works as a translator that makes=20 it possible for a user to control all these devices using simple terms=20 like =E2=80=9Cphysical disc=E2=80=9D, =E2=80=9Clogical disc=E2=80=9D, =E2= =80=9Cadapter=E2=80=9D, etc, while=20 transparently converting these requests to proprietary RAID paradigms.=20 In fact, the system still uses underlying proprietary CLIs, but the use= r=20 doesn=E2=80=99t interact with them directly, staying in a single,=20 well-documented interface. During its installation, it automatically downloads these proprietary=20 utils (after reading & agreeing to their licenses), unpacks and install= s=20 them, and then, for example, command like einarc -t areca physical list would be translated into /usr/local/lib/einarc/areca/cli disk info then it's result parsed and returned in the same well-documented form a= s=20 for any other Einarc-supported adapter. I'd be really happy to hear any opinions / thoughts / feature requests=20 on this project and I hope it would come useful to someone :) Einarc ca= n=20 be reached at http://www.inquisitor.ru/doc/einarc/ for downloading and documentation. --=20 WBR, Mikhail Yakshin AKA GreyCat - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" i= n the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html