Best Practice for XP LUNs on Linux

[Paul Gerke]

We are setting up new Linux servers for Oracle. I have prepared new LDEVs on our XP10k and believe I have the zoning and presentation done correctly. But now I need to know what to do to get Linux to see them. Is there a best practice or cheat sheet for this?

Thanks,
Paul

[Michael Leu]

Check out SPOCK http://www.hp.com/storage/spock

Then go to 'Application Notes -> Solutions: Linux' and have a look at the 'Native Linux Device-Mapper Multipath for HP StorageWorks Arrays reference guide'.

[Paul Gerke]

That is the document I need for the multipath, but is there something that explains how to tell which disk devices are from the XP, and which FC path is being used to present the disks? I'm used to HP-UX where ioscan and fcmsutil provide enough to confirm the source of the disk, but I haven't found the way to do something similar on Linux. Thanks.

[Michael Leu]

xpinfo might help, see this thread on how to download it:
http://h30499.www3.hp.com/t5/System-Administration/evainfo-xpinfo-equivalent-for-p9500/m-p/4793048#M391944

The vendors also have their guides, for example
http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Storage_Administration_Guide/index.html

[Paul Gerke]

Thanks Michael,
Installing xpinfo will help, but I still hope there is a way within Linux to associate a scsi disk device, such as /dev/sdb, and determine that it is associated with a fibre channel HBA, such as /sys/class/scsi_host/host4/device/fc_host:host4. In HP-UX I used the lssf command, but that was an HP creation, as was ioscan, so maybe there isn't a way to do this. Anyway, any help with pointing me in the right direction is appreciated.

Paul

[Paul Gerke]

I think I found it.
ls -l /sys/block/*/device
returns a link with the sd* name as well as the host* name, providing the missing link. Thanks to all for their help with this!