I would like to check my P400 controller inside a HP DL180 G5 ProLiant server which was running x64 Linux with 2.6.31.6 kernel. HP has a utility named hpacucli designed for this kind of task so I was looking for appropriate download link. After found some versions (I newer understood the logic behind HP’s software version numbering) and downloaded them I realized that neither of them was seeing my P400 controller:

root@xerxes:~/opt/compaq/hpacucli/bld# ./.hpacucli ctrl all show

Error: No controllers detected.

The Internet is full with solutions to this problem:
– Use uname26 utility to hide Your 3.x kernel! But I have 2.6…
– modprobe sg before hpacucli! Sg was compiled into kernel already…
– etc…

After some hours of trials I was strace-ing the hpacucli command and found that it tries to open it’s libcpqimgr which was placed in the same directory but not in LD_LIBRARY_PATH, so it didnt found it. So “No controllers detected” actually means “Hey guy, I didnt find my right hand which I can use for detecting controllers!”. Nice.

Little modification to command line:

root@xerxes:~/opt/compaq/hpacucli/bld# LD_LIBRARY_PATH=. ./.hpacucli ctrl all show

Smart Array P400 in Slot 6                (sn: PAFGL0M9VWK002)

I understand that if I installed the package and used the appropriate script provided by HP I never met this situation. So this is an unexpected thing. But maybe others run into same so remember: strace is (one of) Your best (non human) friends!