Today I was deploying some IBM x3550 and x3650 servers with Altiris Deployment Server. IBM Delivers a toolkit for Altiris that contains amongst others jobs for configuring raid arrays.

To do this you need to create a raid policy file and deploy this. I created this policy file:

[Policy.RAID-1]

AppliesTo.1 = t:ServeRAID-8k-l,d:4

Array_Mode = CUSTOM
Array.A = 1,2
Array.B = 3,4

Logical_Mode = CUSTOM
Logical.1 = A:FILL:1
Logical.2 = B:FILL:1

As you can see the policy only applies to the type of array controller in my servers (t:ServeRAID-8k-l). This way we prevent applying the policy to other configurarions. I have a 4 disk configuration (d:4) and want to create to RAID 1 arrays (A & B). On each array one Logical drive with the maximum size (FILL parameter).

Looks allright no?

But on deploying I received the following error: CFGRAID: Policies file does not exist or syntax error in policies file. Return Code=2.

As it turns out, the script copies the config file to the ramdisk with the XCopy command but Altiris’ Freedos image doesn’t contain XCopy!

I solved it by editing the cfgraid.bat file (\sgdeploy\sgtk\examples\cfgraid.bat). Change this line:

echo Y | xcopy %RD_PATH%\%RD_FILE% %RAMDSK%\ > nul

to:

copy %RD_PATH%\%RD_FILE% %RAMDSK%\ /y