[gentoo-user] mdadm --monitor & email

[Mark Knecht]

Hi,
   I'm curious about setting up my compute server to monitor RAID
array status and have it email me information at my GMail account.
Does anyone have info on setting this up on Gentoo? In general I'm
following:

http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/RAID/Software

but it seems there are a few holes in my understanding.

1) In the /etc/mdadm.conf file I see the following:

#
# When used in --follow (aka --monitor) mode, mdadm needs a
# mail address and/or a program.  This can be given with "mailaddr"
# and "program" lines to that monitoring can be started using
#    mdadm --follow --scan & echo $! > /var/run/mdadm
# If the lines are not found, mdadm will exit quietly
#MAILADDR root@××××××××.tld
#PROGRAM /usr/sbin/handle-mdadm-events

- Easy enough to change my email address, but how does it get mailed?
Is this what ssmtp is for? ssmtp is installed as a dependency of sudo,
but I don't use it explicitly. Do I have to have a real domain in my
name to get GMail to accept this?

- Currently have have no program called
/usr/sbin/handle-mdadm-events. Is this just a placeholder for whatever
program I choose as a mailer, or is this intended as some program that
takes real action in case of a problem?

2) I'm making the assumption that running rc-update add mdadm boot, as
shown in the link above, is the way to get this started once
configured properly?

3) I note that the test command listed in the link above doesn't work:

c2stable ~ # mdadm -Fslt
mdadm: option -l not valid in monitor mode
c2stable ~ #

4) Assuming I do get this working, while testing can i have the
program email me every 60 minutes whether things are good or bad, just
to test that it's actually working and getting results?

Thanks,
Mark