topic Re: How to attaching disks to a integrity vm in Operating System - HP-UX

How to attaching disks to a integrity vm

iazuarah — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 19:34:12 GMT

Hi,

I have a Superdome 2 16s server. In this server i had 2 npars and each one, will define several vm's. I'm using the last release for Integrity VM on the npar:

vmGuestLib            B.06.20        Integrity VM vmGuestLib
vmGuestSW             B.06.20        Integrity VM vmGuestSW
vmKernel              B.06.20        Integrity VM vmKernel
vmOVMMSW              B.06.20        Integrity VM vmOVMMSW
vmProvider            B.06.20        WBEM Provider for Integrity VM vmProvide
vmVirtProvider        B.06.20        Integrity VM vmVirtProvider

My external disks comes from a Hitachi Storage Server that is connected to different fiber channel hbas installed in different IOX.

This fc hbas are managed by the Npar2:

sd16dom2_npar2# ioscan -fnkC fc
Class     I H/W Path Driver S/W State   H/W Type     Description
=================================================================
fc        0 42/0/0/2/0/0/0/5/0/0/0 fclp   CLAIMED     INTERFACE    HP AT094-60001 PCIe Fibre Channel 2-port 8Gb FC/2-port 10GBE Combo Adapter
                      /dev/fclp0
fc       20 45/0/2/0/0/0/0/5/0/0/0 fclp   CLAIMED     INTERFACE    HP AT094-60001 PCIe Fibre Channel 2-port 8Gb FC/2-port 10GBE Combo Adapter
                      /dev/fclp20

When i run the ioscan command on my Npar2, i can discover the disks that will assign to the vm1. In this case are 4 disks (disk21, disk22, disk23, disk24).

NPAR2

sd16dom2_npar2# hpvmstatus
[Virtual Machines]
Virtual Machine Name VM # Type OS Type State #VCPUs #Devs #Nets Memory
==================== ===== ==== ======= ========= ====== ===== ===== =======
infisrv 1 SH HPUX On (OS) 6 2 1 48 GB

sd16dom2_npar2# ioscan -fnC disk | grep HITACHI

disk     17 45/0/2/0/0/0/0/5/0/0/0.1.73.0.0.0.0   sdisk   CLAIMED     DEVICE       HITACHI OPEN-V
                         /dev/dsk/c10t0d0   /dev/rdsk/c10t0d0
disk     18 45/0/2/0/0/0/0/5/0/0/0.1.73.0.0.0.1   sdisk   CLAIMED     DEVICE       HITACHI OPEN-V
                         /dev/dsk/c10t0d1   /dev/rdsk/c10t0d1
disk     19 45/0/2/0/0/0/0/5/0/0/0.1.73.0.0.0.2   sdisk   CLAIMED     DEVICE       HITACHI OPEN-V
                         /dev/dsk/c10t0d2   /dev/rdsk/c10t0d2
disk     20 45/0/2/0/0/0/0/5/0/0/0.1.73.0.0.0.3   sdisk   CLAIMED     DEVICE       HITACHI OPEN-V
                         /dev/dsk/c10t0d3   /dev/rdsk/c10t0d3

sd16dom2_npar2# ioscan -m dsf

/dev/rdisk/disk21        /dev/rdsk/c10t0d1
                         /dev/rdsk/c12t0d1
/dev/rdisk/disk22        /dev/rdsk/c10t0d3
                         /dev/rdsk/c12t0d3
/dev/rdisk/disk23        /dev/rdsk/c10t0d0
                         /dev/rdsk/c12t0d0
/dev/rdisk/disk24        /dev/rdsk/c10t0d2
                         /dev/rdsk/c12t0d2

What is the recommended procedure for assign these disks to the vm 1 ??. I was reading the Integrity VM V 6.2 Administration Guide, but i have some dudes about the storage assigment to the vm's. I'm interesting in use the attached i/O method because i don't want to share these disks to others vm's on the npar2. In fact, i was thinking if is convenient to assign the 2 fc hba's hardware paths to the vm 1 and then discover directly these 4 disks since the vm 1 os ??. it's possible or is not necessary ??.

Thank's in advance

Ivan

Re: How to attaching disks to a integrity vm

Jason_L — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 19:49:20 GMT

There are tradeoffs as documented in the VM User Guide as to which "backing" method you choose to use.

For instace file backing although highly portable is not a good choice for high I/O devices. More suitable for DVD etc.

Then you have LVM backed storage. Where basically you create a volume group and logical volume and assign to a VM. these are better in performance than file backed, yet offer some versatility - like naming conventions. This makes each LV easy to identify as belonging to a VM.

Then there is disk backed storeage. Disk backed storage is even higher in performance than both LV and file backed storage. You basically assign the VM a "raw" disk device,which then shows up as a disk with IOSCAN from the VM guest.

With all of the above you will need to use the AVIO_STOR device

I believe 6.1 or 6.2 also introduced the NPIV feature allowing you to perform direct assignement of a SAN based volume to a VM guest. This would in theory be the best performer of the group, however I do not have much experience with this method. Most of my experiences are with the "raw" disk backed storage devices assigned to the VM guest. This gives you some granularity of control, but also offers good performance.

Bottom line the higher you go up the I/O stack on the VM host, the more performance hit you take on the guest. Which is why I would NOT recommend file backed storage for applications etc.

As for the exact commands, there are many examples in the config guide, once you decide which method you would prefer.

Re: How to attaching disks to a integrity vm

Jason_L — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 20:11:59 GMT

A pretty good read on the NPIV.

http://h20195.www2.hp.com/V2/GetPDF.aspx%2F4AA3-9894ENW.pdf

Link is for 6.1 version, I am looking for the 6.2 version as well.

"What is the recommended procedure for assign these disks to the vm 1 ??. I was reading the Integrity VM V 6.2 Administration Guide, but i have some dudes about the storage assigment to the vm's. I'm interesting in use the attached i/O method because i don't want to share these disks to others vm's on the npar2. In fact, i was thinking if is convenient to assign the 2 fc hba's hardware paths to the vm 1 and then discover directly these 4 disks since the vm 1 os ??. it's possible or is not necessary ??."

With the legacy AVIO you had to present ALL of the storage to the VM host, then either use file, LV or RAW backed storage and assign to the VM guest. With NPIV, you create a virtual HBA and you assign the HBA to the VM guest. This will provide the guest with a unigue WWN which you can then zone and provision SAN based volumes.

So yes, if you choose this mentod, you will be able to discover the volumes directly on the guest and there is no need to present the volumes to the host. Be aware though to read through the caveats in the NPIV document.

Re: How to attaching disks to a integrity vm

iazuarah — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 22:08:32 GMT

Thank's Jason, your information is very interesting and the NPIV is the best solution for me, but need to cover many prerequisites in hardware an software. By the way, is posible to have a mix environment , using NPIV for some virtual machines and the avio_stor for others ??.

Best Regards

Re: How to attaching disks to a integrity vm

Dave Olker — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 22:26:10 GMT

Yes it is possible to mix and match VM storage on VM guests - even on the same VM guest. You can configure an NPIV-based LUN as a boot disk, use AVIO LUNs as data disks, use LVM logical volumes, file-based backing stores, NFS-based backing stores, etc. There is no requirement to use only one storage type.

I prefer to use NPIV whole LUNs or AVIO whole LUNs as they perform better than LVM, file, NFS-based backing stores.

Dave

Re: How to attaching disks to a integrity vm

iazuarah — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 22:48:14 GMT

ok, perfect.

By the way, i'm triying to attach a disk using the avio procedure:

# hpvmmodify -p 1 -a disk:avio_stor::disk:/dev/rdisk/disk21

that's correct ??.

Ivan

Re: How to attaching disks to a integrity vm

Dave Olker — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 23:01:38 GMT

Assuming you want to add the whole disk /dev/rdisk/disk21 to guest #1 via AVIO, yes that syntax looks correct.

Re: How to attaching disks to a integrity vm

iazuarah — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 23:04:00 GMT

Thanks in advance !!

Re: How to attaching disks to a integrity vm

iazuarah — Fri, 26 Jul 2013 16:51:33 GMT

Hi, i'm starting to install the NPIV on my npar and vm. But i'm having a connection problem between the server and client. This is the message:

# /opt/guid/bin/guid_client_prepare -a

NOTE:
We found Host is configured in /opt/guid/etc/guid.conf. This
may because current machine has been once installed and
configured as a GUID client. Or user has defined hostname in
guid.conf by CLI tool "guidconfig -h".
In this case, we only try setting up authentications between
current client and remote GUID servers, which are configured
in HOST.

Install pubkey on GUID server(sd16dom2) succeeded.

Connect to host sd16dom2 failed. ---> NOTE: BOTH SERVERS ARE IN THE SAME SUBNET

ListRange of wwn from GUID server(sd16dom2) failed.

GUIDMGR client preparation accomplished.

Some suggestion ??.

Regards

Re: How to attaching disks to a integrity vm

Dave Olker — Sat, 27 Jul 2013 00:53:24 GMT

I assume you have a GUID manager configured at this point and have created a range of WWN values. You can try manually setting the hostname of the GUID manager using "guidconfig -h" and then see if you can query the GUID manager to display the list of managed WWN ranges:

# /opt/guid/bin/guidconfig -h <hostname of GUID manager>

# /opt/guid/bin/guidmgmt -L wwn

Dave

Re: How to attaching disks to a integrity vm

Eric SAUBIGNAC — Tue, 30 Jul 2013 08:38:30 GMT

Bonjour,

Not sure that everybody will agree with that : you can also manage manually NPIV WWN.

Extract from HP-UX vPars 6.0 N-Port ID Virtualization (NPIV), bottom of page 9 :

Allocating IDs manually or with third-party products

When manually configuring vHBAs, vWWNs may safely be picked from the range 0x100000110a0300 - 0x100000110a030fff. This is a total of 4096 WWN which are not in the range that is handled automatically by GUIDMgr (see above). A user may use GUIDMgr for some NPIV HBAs and still manually select from the above range for other vHBAs. If this is being done, please note that you can save your manual settings in the GUIDMgr for tracking purposes, but the GUIDMgr never assigns a WWN outside of the range that HP has reserved.

Note there is a typo : range should begin @ 0x100000110a030000. Two zeroes are missing.

Don't know how many virtual HBA you will have to manage, but it could be easier to maintain an Excel spreadsheet. That's what I do : I don't want to have to maintain an additional software layer if I can avoid it.

HTH

Eric

Re: How to attaching disks to a integrity vm

iazuarah — Tue, 30 Jul 2013 18:58:33 GMT

Opps, sorry by the delay. In fact i',m triying to install my NPIV scenario by first time. Here we go:

a) In the NPAR and VM servers i'm following the next procedure from the manual:

2.2.1 Installing on the server

To install the HP-UX GUID Manager software on the database server, enter the following command

on the server:

swinstall -s ${DEPOT_PATH}/GUIDMGR_A.01.00.603_HP-UX_B.11.31_IA.depot GUIDMGR

swlist GUIDMGR

GUIDMGR A.01.00.603 HP-UX GUID Manager

This command initializes the GUIDMgr server-side environment, including creating a GUID private

user account, initializing the database, and starting the database service. If no error occurs during

initialization, GUIDMgr related daemons are started. If any error occurs, you must fix the error

before performing the next step or distributing current host name to any GUIDMgr client.

To initialize the server, enter the following command:

/opt/guid/utils/guid_server_prepare.sh

This command configures the GUIDMgr on the target system. After the GUID Manager is configured

on the server, the database is empty. The

guid_server_prepare command creates some guid

tables without any guid data. The guid_server_prepare.sh script executes the following commands

automatically:

2.1 Installation requirements 9

•

/opt/guid/bin/guidconfig –b wwn is executed to set up the library linkage for the

commands.

•

/opt/guid/sbin/guidd is started as the main daemon for a GUID server.

•

/opt/guid/sbin/guidkeyd is started, so you can SSH tunnel to GUID server from GUID

client.

•

/opt/guid/sbin/guiddbutil –c wwn is used to create the initial database, if not

already created.

The

/opt/guid/tools/postgresql directory contains binaries to set up the a postgresql

database for private use by a GUID server. Various PostgreSQL commands are executed to set up

the database for the first time, if not already created, and start the

postgresql daemons needed

to access the database.

2.2.2 Installing on the client

To install the GUID client, enter the following command on all the VSP hosts:

swinstall -s ${DEPOT_PATH}/GUIDMGR_A.01.00.603_HP-UX_B.11.31_IA.depot GUIDMGR

NOTE:

After installing and verifying the client installation, you must set up authentication on

GUID client. Otherwise, any GUID request to remote server will fail. See

“Verifying the installation

of GUIDMgr” (page 10) for information about setting up authentication.

3.1 Setting up the server and the client

This section provides the steps for setting up the server and the client. After installing, initializing,

and configuring the GUID manager on the server (see “Installing on the server” (page 9)), follow

these steps to set up the server:

Set the GUIDMgr server hostname:

/opt/guid/bin/guidconfig -h guid_server_hostname

After installing GUID Manager on the client “Installing on the client” (page 10), perform the

following steps to set up the client:

Configure client access to the database:

/opt/guid/bin/guid_client_prepare -a

Set the GUIDMgr server hostname:

/opt/guid/bin/guidconfig -h guid_server_hostname

Create a range of WWNs to manage:

/opt/guid/bin/guidmgmt -S wwn 50014c2000000000 50014c2000007fff

Verify database access by querying the pools of WWNs:

/opt/guid/bin/guidmgmt -L wwn

Range type Start(Hex) End(Hex) Size(dec)

=============== ================== ================== ==========

HP-DEFINED-PWWN 0x50014c2000000000 0x50014c2000007fff 32768

HP-DEFINED-NWWN 0x50014c2800000000 0x50014c2800007fff 32768

Verify ranges with these commands:

/opt/guid/sbin/guiddbutil -s range_wwn wwn

/opt/guid/sbin/guiddbutil -s addr_wwn wwn

3.2 Verify

But this procedure isn't working for me because i obtain the same result on the vm :

# /opt/guid/bin/guid_client_prepare -a

NOTE:

We found Host is configured in /opt/guid/etc/guid.conf. This

may because current machine has been once installed and

configured as a GUID client. Or user has defined hostname in

guid.conf by CLI tool "guidconfig -h".

In this case, we only try setting up authentications between

current client and remote GUID servers, which are configured

in HOST.

Install pubkey on GUID server(sd16dom2) succeeded.

Connect to host sd16dom2 failed.

ListRange of wwn from GUID server(sd16dom2) failed.

GUIDMGR client preparation accomplished.

Some idea ??

Regards !!

Re: How to attaching disks to a integrity vm

iazuarah — Tue, 30 Jul 2013 19:03:20 GMT

Sounds interesting, could you give me an example using this alternate procedure , please. I don't want to manage an additional software for this porpouse.

Regards

Re: How to attaching disks to a integrity vm

Eric SAUBIGNAC — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 11:13:20 GMT

Check the attached spreadsheet ... my own GUI ;-) Of course, I can't assume any bug. It's just a tool for myself I can share

Just add the name of the vm guest you want to modify, the virtual bus where you want to connect the virtual hba, the physical hba on the host and you will find all the commands to modify the vm guest and to add the corresponding host in a 3Par storage.

If you add the existing aliases of a storage in the san, you will get commands to create the corresponding zones in the fabrics

Fabric number is optional. Just a way to color the commands for the fabrics.

HTH

Eric

Re: How to attaching disks to a integrity vm

Eric SAUBIGNAC — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 11:23:06 GMT

Dont know what is happening : unable to attach the document :-((((

Re: How to attach disks to a integrity VM

Dennis Handly — Tue, 26 Nov 2013 23:21:17 GMT

>unable to attach the document

Attachments have to have known suffixes like .txt, .pdf, .zip, etc.

You can edit your post by Post Options > Edit Reply

Re: How to attaching disks to a integrity VM

Eric SAUBIGNAC — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 13:00:58 GMT

Many thanks Dennis. I am going to do some tests

.../...

a little bit later

It doesn't work :-( Tried with a true .txt file, a true .pdf, a zip archive ...

After browsing the file, I have tried do click immediatly on the "Post" button. I have also tried to click on the "Add Attachment" button before. No way

Re: How to attach disks to a integrity VM

Dennis Handly — Tue, 26 Nov 2013 23:20:18 GMT

>It doesn't work

What browser are you using? Works fine with firefox 22.0.

No problems with IE10 and Windows 8.

Re: How to attaching disks to a integrity VM

Eric SAUBIGNAC — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 13:07:29 GMT

IE 9, 32 bits, from a Windows 7 64 bits OS

Same thing with IE 64 bits

I will try a reboot

Re: How to attaching disks to a integrity VM

Eric SAUBIGNAC — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 13:37:23 GMT

Reboot done. And it doesn't work anymore ...

Updated Java. All caches emptied. Still not working

Can you tell me what URL do you see on buttons "Remove" and "Add Attachment". I see the same URL on both buttons : http:// h30499.www3.hp.com/t5/forums/editpage/board-id/itrc-855/message-id/5810/is-draft/false# ????