topic Re: Volume Set Addressing in Operating System - HP-UX

Volume Set Addressing

sam_89 — Mon, 11 Aug 2003 16:45:27 GMT

What the heck is volume set Addressing.
And how do i use it to See LUNS above 7 from my HPUX N4000 server with A6795A & A5158A HBAs
Connected to the following storage with brocade switches. I can see Luns 0 - 7, No probelm. But see anything more is an issue.
IBM Shark F-800
HDS 9970V
HDS 9960
HDS 9570
EMC Symmetrix 8430, 8530, DMX - 800

Why do i need this limitation on hpux servers, where as on SUN and NT I can easily see any lun created.

Re: Volume Set Addressing

James Murtagh — Mon, 11 Aug 2003 18:45:03 GMT

Hi Sam,

Its a technique used in hpux to work around certain scsi addressing limitations in hpux when accessing devices over fibre channel. See this link for a full explanation:

http://www.hp.com/hpbooks/prentice/chapters/0130102229.pdf

What you are seeing is dependant on how many bits each OS uses to specify the lun range. For example, hpux uses 3 bits:

4 2 1

So setting the bit on each would give a total of seven. I imagine Solaris and NT use four (or more) bits:

8 4 2 1

So that would give 15 luns per target. Its not to say in hpux you can't see the luns, just that it does it differently. For example, on an EMC Symm if you specify address 06 on an FA that would be target 0 lun 6. Using 0a would be target 1 lun 3.

Another document specifying the maximum lun configuration is:

http://www.docs.hp.com/hpux/onlinedocs/netcom/maxlun-whitepaper-v1.0.pdf

The limitations discussed have been scheduled to be changed for a while now. I'm not sure if 11.23 does this but a future release will if not.

Regards,

James.

Re: Volume Set Addressing

Tim Sanko — Mon, 18 Aug 2003 13:09:35 GMT

For the shark, call IBM and tell them it needs octal presentation...

Hopefully you have EMCs Control Center.

There is a bit to be set on the Symmetrix so that it will only generate 0-7 values in the
presentation. It can be set via Bin file change, or through EMC ECC. A Bin file change approval can take several days...

Call EMC or your local HP/EMC consultant...

Tim Sanko

Re: Volume Set Addressing

Karthik S S — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 05:46:23 GMT

How do I enable VSA on hp-ux 11.11?

-Karthik S S

Re: Volume Set Addressing

James Murtagh — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 06:27:54 GMT

Hi Karthik,

You don't enable it per say, it will depend on the topology of your storage network and what type of devices are attached. The FC chapter of the Recovery Handbook is actually the best explanation I have seen for it :

http://us-support3.external.hp.com/iv/data/documents/DE_SW_UX_swrec_EN_01_E/FibreChannel.pdf

If you have a contract linked to your id you may be able to see the most recent version.

Cheers,

James.

Re: Volume Set Addressing

Karthik S S — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 08:02:42 GMT

Thank you James. I was able to resolve the problem after setting host port behaviour on the VA array.

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=440369

-Karthik S S