topic Re: Boot loader configuration to boot from SAN in Operating System - Linux

Boot loader configuration to boot from SAN

Davide Depaoli_3 — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 03:41:04 GMT

Hello,
my customer need to configure following environment:

a number of Proliant DL380 connected to one MSA1000 (with two HBAs).
servers must to boot from SAN, but from ANY of MSA1000 LUNs

The need is that the servers halts the boot process, show a boot menu' from which the operator choose the LUN to use for boot.

See the attachment for more informations.

I don't know if is possible to configure boot loader like this:

boot from HBA_1 and LUN_A
boot from HBA_1 and LUN_B
boot from HBA_1 and LUN_B
.........

and don't know if is possible to have this kind of environment

Thanks in advance to everyone help me.
kind regards
Davide

Re: Boot loader configuration to boot from SAN

Steven E. Protter — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 03:57:20 GMT

I just got finished working a project with one of these setups.

The servers were not booting off the array but needed failover testing.

I believe you want to configure grub.conf to boot:

http://www.linux.com/howtos/Remote-Serial-Console-HOWTO/configure-boot-loader-grub.shtml

http://geodsoft.com/howto/dualboot/grub.htm

Note that you will need to test failover. Few gotcha's to watch for:

Qlogic firmware may not be the same on both cards. You need to make sure it is.

Qlogic failover may not be configured on the MSA100 array. You need to make sure it is. I'd offer a procedure but the document isn't done here yet.

The array itself has two controllers and firmware and that needs to be updated and normalized.

You should make sure the san surfer works right and get familiar with it and the HP Storageworks gui for storage configuration.

To summarize, I believe your goal is achievable, though you may find it easier to simply boot off the first device found and let the Qlogic configuration handle the failover.

SEP

Re: Boot loader configuration to boot from SAN

Davide Depaoli_3 — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 04:24:42 GMT

Thanks Steven,
I'm not a linux sysadmin (I'm a presales person), and I would want to understand better.

- To boot from SAN, I must to configure HBA as primary boot device and disable internal array adapter.
In this wahy I cannot boot from internal HDD.

For example I have LUN_A, LUN_B, LUN_C on MSA1000.
Linux must to be installed on every LUN and GRUB have the same configuration on every linux environment.

The servers load one of this GRUB, that shows a boot menu' with LUN choice.

After this, when the operator choose the LUN from which boot the server, GRUB is able to address the correct LUN ?

Re: Boot loader configuration to boot from SAN

Davide Depaoli_3 — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 06:00:31 GMT

Thread closed