SCSI RAS Tools for Disk Management


Project Overview - scsirastools

Hard disks are the most common system element to need to be replaced, and are therefore a critical consideration in improving Reliability, Availability. and Serviceability (RAS). The tools in this project were designed to add to the Serviceability of disk devices under Linux so that the system does not have to be rebooted or taken out of service to perform common maintenance or service functions. Devices handled by scsirastools include SCSI, Linux software RAID, SAS, SATA, and USB storage devices (some via SCSI emulation). Note that certain functions, like firmware updates and setting mode pages, are available for SCSI/SAS devices but not for USB devices via SCSI emulation.

This project includes changes that enhance the Reliability, Availability and Serviceability (RAS) of the drivers and tools that are commonly used in a Linux disk management and Linux RAID-1 configuration. Linux Root Disk Mirroring (RAID-1) is the technique of using redundant disks to record multiple copies of the data so that a failure of one disk does not cause data loss. This does not necessarily address the needs of hardware RAID adapters. The RAID adapter vendor should be the source of tools for that.

There are user-space and kernel level components to this project:

History

This project started in August 2001 as part of the Carrier Grade Linux effort. This code was first included in MontaVista CGE Linux 2.1 in July 2002. The scsirastools functions were included in OSDL CGL 1.0 and 2.0 requirements. The scsirastools rpm is also included in the SuSE SLES releases.

scsirastools News Archive

Call for Discussion

This a community-based effort to add to existing efforts to improve or enhance the existing Software RAID-1 solution in Linux.   If you are interested in participating in or contributing to this project, please send mail to the mailing list found   here