Setting up Adaptec Storage Manager on a headless Ubuntu/Debian server

Adaptec RAID cards have huge performance gains over other cards, but the management features in Linux stink. Really bad. If you don’t have a GUI installed, you cannot set up monitoring or alerts, but thankfully you can use a Windows machine to set this up remotely. Additionally, there are no .deb packages so we have to convert the .rpm to a .deb package.

Download the latest installer in RPM format:

sudo bash ### Dang it Debian!  LOL
wget http://download.adaptec.com/raid/storage_manager/asm_linux_x64_v6_30_18507.rpm

Convert the .rpm to a .deb package and install it:

apt-get install alien
alien --scripts asm_linux_x64_v6_30_18507.rpm
dpkg -i storman_6.30-18508_amd64.deb

Start the ‘StorMan’ agent:

/usr/StorMan/StorMan.sh

Add the following to /etc/rc.local (before the ‘exit 0’ line) so it starts automatically as the included init script is broken miserably. Don’t forget the ampersand or else you’ll hang up the boot process:

/usr/StorMan/StorMan.sh &

Now you can remotely connect using a remote Windows or Linux GUI to check RAID status and set up email alerts. It’s painfully obvious Adaptec is catering to the Windows crowd on this one, but at least there’s a work around.