README.freebsd

Build
-----
For general build information see the INSTALL file. Requires
FreeBSD version 9.0 or later as earlier versions do not support the CAM
SMP pass-through.

The traditional './autogen.sh ; ./configure ; make ; make install' sequence
from the top level of the unpacked tarball will work on FreeBSD. But the
man pages will be placed under the /usr/local/share/man directory which
unfortunately is not on the standard manpath. One solution is to add this
path by creating a file with a name like local_share.conf in the
/usr/local/etc/man.d/ directory and placing this line in it:
    MANPATH /usr/local/share/man

This package was too new to be included in the "ports" collection of FreeBSD
9.0 RELEASE. This package can be found in FreeBSD 9.1 RELEASE ports
collection in the /usr/ports/sysutils/smp_utils directory .


Device names
------------
FreeBSD uses its CAM subsystem to access SAS expanders. In FreeBSD 9.0 CAM
does not recognize SAS expanders directly. It assumes that a SAS expander
is tightly coupled with a SES target device. This seems to be true for SAS-2
expanders but is not necessarily the case with SAS-1 expanders.

So if a SES target device is paired with a SAS expander then in FreeBSD
that expander can be accessed like this:
  # smp_discover /dev/ses0

This also assumes that the SAS expander is connected to a SAS HBA that
supports the CAM SAS SMP pass-through.


References
----------
Alexander Motin has a useful presentation online about Enclosure Management
and how it is reflected in FreeBSD devices and user space tools. See:
https://people.freebsd.org/~mav/Enclosure_Management_en.pdf


Douglas Gilbert
26th April 2023