CentOS - Jan 2011 - how to control Hard Drive light from Linux?

Hi all,

Does anyone know how to control a hard drive light from Linux? I'm
building a 24bay Linux File server which will run software RAID and I
need an easy way for the engineers to see which HDD has gone bad.

Most of our NAS devices has 2 lights on the hard drive cages and they
automatically signal a bad one (reg light, light constant on , etc)
but I can't figure out how todo this from Linux.

-- 
Kind Regards
Rudi Ahlers
SoftDux

Website: http://www.SoftDux.com
Technical Blog: http://Blog.SoftDux.com
Office: 087 805 9573
Cell: 082 554 7532

On 01/22/11 2:03 PM, Rudi Ahlers wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Does anyone know how to control a hard drive light from Linux? I'm
> building a 24bay Linux File server which will run software RAID and I
> need an easy way for the engineers to see which HDD has gone bad.
>
> Most of our NAS devices has 2 lights on the hard drive cages and they
> automatically signal a bad one (reg light, light constant on , etc)
> but I can't figure out how todo this from Linux.
>
i can't answer your actual question, but generally those backplanes have 
a "SAF-TE" or "SES" chip on them which appears as a seperate
SCSI/SAS
device, and the system communicates with this to manage drive status 
includinng indicators.   I have no idea how you get this working in 
Linux, however, but maybe this is sufficient clue to help find your answer

On Sat, Jan 22, 2011 at 5:03 PM, Rudi Ahlers <Rudi at softdux.com>
wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Does anyone know how to control a hard drive light from Linux? I'm
> building a 24bay Linux File server which will run software RAID and I
> need an easy way for the engineers to see which HDD has gone bad.
>
> Most of our NAS devices has 2 lights on the hard drive cages and they
> automatically signal a bad one (reg light, light constant on , etc)
> but I can't figure out how todo this from Linux.
That's because they have hardware RAID, with that built in at the
hardware itself, the drivers designed for that chassis, and the
management tools for it. Unpeeling that to say "make it work on
Linux!" would be unfair: we couldn't make a good guess without knowing
the actual *hardware* of your Linux File Server. And we can't even
guess what the available displays of your drive enclosure are.

Why are you doing this when a commercial solution with such featurs,
equipped with 1 TB drives, costs less than $10,000 with all these
goodies and the superior performance of hardware RAID thrown in?

On Sat, Jan 22, 2011 at 5:03 PM, Rudi Ahlers <Rudi at softdux.com>
wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Does anyone know how to control a hard drive light from Linux? I'm
> building a 24bay Linux File server which will run software RAID and I
> need an easy way for the engineers to see which HDD has gone bad.
>
> Most of our NAS devices has 2 lights on the hard drive cages and they
> automatically signal a bad one (reg light, light constant on , etc)
> but I can't figure out how todo this from Linux.
>
> --
This page might help:
http://pikawarp.org/?p=139


Talks about setting entries in /sys/class/leds.