WebGUI Installation

HighPoint's WebGUI management software comes packaged as an RPM, which may present a problem for non-RPM distributions such as Gentoo, as I found out in my review of the RocketRAID 3120. CentOS, however, is an RPM-based distro, as previously mentioned.

After acquiring the WebGUI software from HighPoint's site, installation was a breeze. Using rpm -i WebGUI-Linux-v1.4-6-061507.rpm, the WebGUI was installed. Init scripts were copied to the correct places, and the daemon was configured to start at boot. Also, a desktop icon was once again added to my desktop.

Before I was able to use the WebGUI, I had to edit /etc/hptcfg and change the driver name to htiop. After this was done, I restarted the /etc/init.d/hptdaemon and was able to access WebGUI from my browser.

WebGUI Usage

The WebGUI doesn't change between RocketRAID models. It's the same version of the WebGUI for each card. Between Mac OS X, FreeBSD, Linux, and Windows, HighPoint's WebGUI again remains the same. The default location is https://localhost:7402, but this can be changed in the configuration itself if needed.

By default, the WebGUI is only accessible from When first connecting, and only through a secured HTTP connection, I was greeted by a login prompt.

After logging in, I was shown both physical and logical devices. By default, the drives were configured as individual drives.

Before creating an array, I had to first initialize the disks. When this was completed, I was able to select what type of array to create. The WebGUI supports up to RAID6, as does the RR3510. For my tests, I'll be using two drives in RAID 0, two drives in RAID 1, and four drives in RAID 5.

After creating the array, I checked the event log, and saw that the drives had been initialized successfully, and my newly created array was functional.

The WebGUI also allowed me to schedule health inspections on the array and disks. I'm a bit psychotic when it comes to protecting my data, so I select a weekly check.

The last major feature of the WebGUI is the settings page. Here, I can change the password, webserver port, and even configure e-mail alerts. If I wanted to, I could have an e-mail sent to my phone's email address if the RR3510 issues any alerts or if one of my drives failed.

Overall, HighPoint's WebGUI is simple but effective. It has a very intuitive interface, using few graphics but just enough text. There is also a help page available from the menu for further explanation of features. Installation was a little difficult, but nothing someone who uses Linux regularly should have trouble with. The ability to have e-mails sent when there's an alert or error is a fantastic feature.

I'd like to see the ability to easily change the style of the page, or the ability to add multiple users with different permissions for remote administration. Also, I'd like to see the WebGUI packaged in a method other than an RPM for easier installation on non-RPM distributions. For CentOS, however, installation was a breeze.