if is possible

[Slawek Ksiazek]

I have question

if is possible create on HPUX about ~500 or artificial/fake disks devies?I need prepare to test system with 500 or more disks, but I havn't enough luns on storage systems.Thanks a lot for help.

Slawek

[TTr · Accepted solution]

You can create the device files with the "mknod" command but you cannot use these in LVM to create volume groups and logical volumes. I know of now way to actually present fake disks and use them for LVM. Unless there is something like this in the intergrity virtual machine environment, similar to what VMware is doing.

[Srimalik]

There was facility to setup loopback devices in earlier releases of HP-UX but now it is not there :-(.
I really miss losetup(linux)/lofiadm(sol) on HP sometimes.

[VK2COT]

Hello,

Loopback file systems are still supported
and available (even in HP-UX 11.31).

Example:

# mount -F lofs /usr/sbin /tmp/sbin

More details in mount_lofs(1M).

This creates "additional" file systems but not
LUNs or physical volumes, so LOFS is not going
to help you.

If you want to do some load testing, refer to
several other references in this forum that
discuss various tools for it (some free
and some commercial).

Cheers,

VK2COT

[Slawek Ksiazek]

Thanks all for help,but still i seek solution where i can create fake disks devices.I need only it discover trough ioscan.

Best

Sk

[Srimalik]

>mount -F lofs /usr/sbin /tmp/sbin
it is more similar to the --bind option available in linux. But there seem to be nothing like losetup.

you can use losetup to make files(usually sparse files with very large holes) appear as block devices in /dev/ which can be used by LVM.

[Armin Kunaschik]

If you have 11.23 or 11.31 you can use iSCSI. Use another box to create many small "LUN's" and present it to your box.

My 2 cents,
Armin

[Slawek Ksiazek]

How can I use iscsi to do it? How looks like configuration iscsi on HP?Thanks for info.


Slawek

[TTr]

> Use another box to create many small "LUN's" and present it to your box.

You still need a iSCSI storage server for this. The HP-UX iSCSI software is available only in initiator mode and NOT in target mode. At least I have not seen any iSCSI software to allow iSCSI target configuration in HP-UX.

http://docs.hp.com/en/T1452-90011/T1452-90011.pdf

[TTr]

I think you need to invest on some hardware here to provide the disks to your server. Even a small RAID card with 1-3 disks would be sufficient. But you should check the RAID card, they have a limit on the maximum number of LUNs you can create in them.

What exactly are you trying to do with that many LUNs on your server?