Documentation, documentation, documentation....

I've been struggling with the lack of proper documentation for a LSI RAID controller I am using in a server at work. While most of the RAID configuration is done through a wrapper script in the application running on the server, when this goes wrong, I'm supposed to know how to fix this using the underlying MegaCLI. As a result, I've been hunting for specific information on the MegaCLI syntax....

Oh boy, what a task.

Try Googling MegaRaid or MegaCLI, and you'll be amazed at the number of results. The problem is that they are mostly blog posts ranging from simply mentioning the documentation deficiencies, through complaining about the lack of documentation, to venting spleen at the lack of documentation. Many document specific commands which they needed and which they worked out by trial and error, and some have reasonably comprehensive reference guides or cheat sheets.

My problem is that I think this should be unnecessary. Coming from a Linux/Unix perspective, where man pages are only a few keystrokes away, it seems odd that there is not something like this available for what is an Enterprise grade Storage Controller. I did finally find a 32MB PDF which is a software guide, and this PDF has a reasonable chapter on the CLI tool, but for a tool designed to be used from the command line, some command line help might really be useful.

I've decided that, rather than create another blog post complaining, I would start work on a post which lists those of the commands which I've used and try to explain the syntax somewhat, so that maybe my work can be of some use to someone else. If you're interested, keep your eyes open for a post on this in the near future.