HPAE311A (QLogic) - EVA4000 - Driver doesn't support failover

[Armindo Machado]

I have a DL580G4 server with two FC HBA cards - HPAE311A (QLogic chipset ISP2432), connected to a EVA4000 thru two brocade switchs.

In the SAN I have 2 volumes configured and set to my server.

In the server I see the all 8 paths/devices - /dev/sd[a..h].

I'm using driver qla2xxx shipped with kernel 2.6.19 - qla2xxx version 8.01.07-k3 (from QLogic).
I'm using this driver because the driver shipped with HP (8.01.03p5) doesn't build on my system and neither the one distributed from QLogic for HP OEM cards (8.01.03).

Best Regards,
Armindo

[Armindo Machado]

I'm now testing failover support with software RAID tools - mdadm (multipath).

Does anyone has this driver built in newer kernels? ( >= 2.6.14 )

[Bill Costigan]

Have you tried downloading and installing the full function MPIO software from HP's support site?

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/ProductList.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=18964&prodSeriesId=421492&taskId=135

[Armindo Machado]

Bill, thank you for your hint but it didn't resolves my problem.
The Multi-Path software that I found is only for MS Windows OS, all that I found for multipatch/failover is references to the QLogic Failover driver.

(I'm still looking for something else. Meanwhile I've been occupied with SteelEye Lifekeeper installation.)

[Rob Leadbeater]

Hi,

I've not tried this with a 2.6 kernel, but I've got a few boxes on 2.4 running the Qlogic failover drivers without a problem...

What errors did you get when building the HP drivers ?

Cheers,
Rob

[Armindo Machado]

Both servers are now installed and running IPBRICK 4.1.1 (Debian GNU/Linux 3.1, kernel 2.6.19), with SteelEye Cluster Software - LifeKeeper.

Failover was implemented with Device Mapper Multipath tools - it is working with no problems.

The driver package from HP doesn't build nice with kernel 2.6.19. But this kernel version is shipped with the latest QLogic driver, and what I've read is that QLogic will remove the failover facility from its drivers, the failover support will be implemented in other software layer (Multipath IO tools).

So thanks everybody for your help.

Problem solved!

[Equipe systeme GHM]

The proprietary way of handling multipathing is deprecated in the new qlogic drivers.
You need multipath-tools, see :
http://christophe.varoqui.free.fr/wiki/wakka.php?wiki=Home
http://www.calivia.com/bk/multipath-tools

It's a new general way of handling multipathing, like MPIO on Windows.