Surf Roots, Software Thoughts

I finally got annoyed with all the damn #files# and files~.  Emacs users will know what I’m talking about.  Follow this guide on dealing with Emacs backups and autosaves to get them all to go into one directory.  Much better.

I finally setup a good RAID monitor on my machine; I’ll be able to sleep better at night now.  I thought I should share what I did.

1. Install omreport for general hardware reporting.  Find comprehensive instructions here
2. Test omreport by running omreport storage controller controller=0
3. You’re mostly interested in the controller, virtual (RAID) disk, and physical disks
4. Make sure you have a mail client setup like sendmail
5. Setup a cron job by creating a file in /etc/cron.daily that contains one line: omreport storage controller controller=0 | mutt -s “RAID Monitoring Notification” youremail@domain.com
6. Make the file executable with sudo chmod a+x <file>
7. Start receiving a daily email with the omreport output

Here’s some information about my machine:

• PERC5/i SATA RAID1 controller
• 2 x 250GB SATA drives
• 2 x Xeon processors
• Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy)

I’m pretty happy with this monitor, because it’s simple and quick.  Now all I need to do is figure out how to monitor my redundant power supplies.  Shoot me a comment with questions.  I hope this helps!