rx6600 SAN Boot

[Patrick Wallek]

I have an rx6600 that I am having problems getting to boot from SAN consistently.

This is a DR system that is booted once a month for DR testing.  It is booting from SAN disks that are replicated from the production systems.

The problem is that when the system is booted sometimes it boots up automatically and sometimes it does not and stops at the EFI menu because it can't find its boot disk.  The workaorund for the times when it does not boot automatically is to go to the EFI shell and run a 'map -r' and 'reconnect -r' to rescan the SAN LUNs.  Once you do that you can boot the system normally.

However, the probelm is inconsistent.  One time I booted the system and it booted fine.  Once the system was all the way up, I rebooted it and it stopped at the EFI Menu.  I had to do the map / reconnect bit to boot it.  Nothing changed in the minutes between boots.

We are using AB378 4Gb fibre cards.

My gut feeling is that it's not the SAN or the fibre switch.  If it were I would think the problem would be more consistent.

Is there a way to force the system a full scan of SAN LUNs on bootup?  Basically I want to automatically do a 'map -r' and 'reconnect -r' everytime the system boots.

Thanks!

[Torsten.]

You could set the EFIscanLevel

http://h30499.www3.hp.com/t5/System-Administration/When-HP-system-is-booting-fiberchannel-device-discovery-is/td-p/4648307#.Ug5J7D8t2LM

[Patrick Wallek]

Thanks, Torsten.  I thought I tried that, but I'll see if they can give it a try again the next time the system is booted for DR.

[Patrick Wallek]

This system was booted for DR testing again today.

The way the issue is currently manifesting itself is that if you select the menu option to boot from the primary path, which is SAN based, that it may or may not work the first time.

When it doesn't work you get the following:

HP PCI-X 1Port 4Gb Fibre Channel Adapter (driver 2.22, firmware 5.03.015)  
Loading.: HP-UX Primary Boot: 0/1/2/0.1.173.192.0.2.7
Load of HP-UX Primary Boot: 0/1/2/0.1.173.192.0.2.7 failed: Not Found
Press any key to continue 

and then it goes back to the EFI menu.  If you just hit return again, the system will boot normally.  Unfortunately this isn't a solution for this particular admin. :(

I checked the EFISCANLEVEL and "Enable World Login" and they are both on for the fibre cards.

Edit Boot Settings

  0. Previous Menu
  1. Help
  2. Enable Alternate Boot Device [n]
  3. Enable Selective Login [n]
  4. Enable Selective Lun Logins [n]
  5. OS Mode [HP-UX/OpenVMS]
  6. EFI Variable EFIFCScanLevel [1]
  7. Enable World Login [y]

Other system information:

   System Firmware A Revision: 3.01 [4739] 
  *System Firmware B Revision: 4.30 [5207] 
      PAL_A: 7.31/7.46
      PAL_B: 9.68
      EFI Spec: 2.00
      EFI Intel Drop: 14.62
      EFI Build: 7.14
      SAL Spec: 3.20
      SAL_A: 2.00
      SAL_B: 4.30
      POSSE: 0.24
      ACPI: 7.00
      SMBIOS: 2.3.2a
   BMC Revision: 5.26
      IPMI: 1.00
   Management Processor Revision: F.02.26

Fibre cards:
/ # ioscan -kfnC fc
Class     I  H/W Path  Driver S/W State   H/W Type     Description
=================================================================
fc        8  0/1/1/0   fcd  CLAIMED     INTERFACE    HP AB378-60001 4Gb Single Port PCI/PCI-X Fibre Channel Adapter (FC Port 1)
                      /dev/fcd8
fc        9  0/1/2/0   fcd  CLAIMED     INTERFACE    HP AB378-60001 4Gb Single Port PCI/PCI-X Fibre Channel Adapter (FC Port 1)
                      /dev/fcd9

 / # fcmsutil /dev/fcd8        

                           Vendor ID is = 0x001077
                           Device ID is = 0x002422
            PCI Sub-system Vendor ID is = 0x00103c
                   PCI Sub-system ID is = 0x0012d6
                               PCI Mode = PCI-X 66 MHz
                       ISP Code version = 4.0.90
                       ISP Chip version = 2
                               Topology = PTTOPT_FABRIC
                             Link Speed = 4Gb
                     Local N_Port_id is = 0x01ae40
                  Previous N_Port_id is = None
            N_Port Node World Wide Name = 0x50060b0000606f7f
            N_Port Port World Wide Name = 0x50060b0000606f7e
            Switch Port World Wide Name = 0x20ae000533b09500
            Switch Node World Wide Name = 0x1000000533b09500
                           Driver state = ONLINE
                       Hardware Path is = 0/1/1/0
                     Maximum Frame Size = 2048
         Driver-Firmware Dump Available = NO
         Driver-Firmware Dump Timestamp = N/A
                         Driver Version = @(#) libfcd.a HP Fibre Channel IISP 23xx & 24xx Driver B.11.23.08 /ux/core/isu/FCD/kern/src/common/wsio/fcd_init.c:Mar 27 2007,15:29:17

						 
/ # fcmsutil /dev/fcd9

                           Vendor ID is = 0x001077
                           Device ID is = 0x002422
            PCI Sub-system Vendor ID is = 0x00103c
                   PCI Sub-system ID is = 0x0012d6
                               PCI Mode = PCI-X 66 MHz
                       ISP Code version = 4.0.90
                       ISP Chip version = 2
                               Topology = PTTOPT_FABRIC
                             Link Speed = 4Gb
                     Local N_Port_id is = 0x01ce40
                  Previous N_Port_id is = None
            N_Port Node World Wide Name = 0x50060b0000607185
            N_Port Port World Wide Name = 0x50060b0000607184
            Switch Port World Wide Name = 0x20ce000533b09500
            Switch Node World Wide Name = 0x1000000533b09500
                           Driver state = ONLINE
                       Hardware Path is = 0/1/2/0
                     Maximum Frame Size = 2048
         Driver-Firmware Dump Available = NO
         Driver-Firmware Dump Timestamp = N/A
                         Driver Version = @(#) libfcd.a HP Fibre Channell ISP 23xx & 24xx Driver B.11.23.08 /ux/core/isu/FCD/kern/src/common/wsio/fcd_init.c:Mar 27 2007,15:29:17

/ # fcmsutil /dev/fcd8 vpd
                V I T A L   P R O D U C T   D A T A     
                ---------   -------------   -------     
 Product Description    : HP PCI-X 2.0 4Gb Fibre Channel HBA       
 Part number            : AB378-60001     
 Engineering Date Code  : A-4632
 Part Serial number     : JP46351205
 Misc. Information      : PW=7.5W;PCI=66MHZ;PCI-X=266MHZ
 Mfd. Date              : 4635
 Mfd. ID                : AB378-60001
 Check Sum              : 0x34
 EFI version            : 02.22
 ROM Firmware version   : 05.03.15
 BIOS version           : 02.16
 FCODE version          : 02.03
 Asset Tag              : NA

 / # fcmsutil /dev/fcd9 vpd
                V I T A L   P R O D U C T   D A T A     
                ---------   -------------   -------     
 Product Description    : HP PCI-X 2.0 4Gb Fibre Channel HBA       
 Part number            : AB378-60001     
 Engineering Date Code  : A-4632
 Part Serial number     : JP46351255
 Misc. Information      : PW=7.5W;PCI=66MHZ;PCI-X=266MHZ
 Mfd. Date              : 4635
 Mfd. ID                : AB378-60001
 Check Sum              : 0x2f
 EFI version            : 02.22
 ROM Firmware version   : 05.03.15
 BIOS version           : 02.16
 FCODE version          : 02.03
 Asset Tag              : NA

 Any other suggestions?  I'm at a loss here.

Our next boot Windows is in late September.

[Torsten.]

because booting is a task of the cards bios, we need to check the risc, fw and efi driver versions.
please be patient, i will try to do this.
for some cards this has not changed since years, but who knows?

[Torsten.]

The card firmware is already the latest:

Current Version:
EFI driver 2.22
RISC firmware 5.03.15
EFI fibre channel card utility 3.03


http://h20566.www2.hp.com/portal/site/hpsc/template.PAGE/public/psi/swdDetails/?sp4ts.oid=1824060&spf_p.tpst=swdMain&spf_p.prp_swdMain=wsrp-navigationalState%3Didx%253D%257CswItem%253Dux_100340_1%257CswEnvOID%253D54%257CitemLocale%253D%257CswLang%253D%257Cmode%253D%257Caction%253DdriverDocument&javax.portlet.begCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken&javax.portlet.endCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken

The server firmware too.


Drivers etc. are not involved during boot.

As you know boot from SAN is like a shoot into the dark, the sever just try to hit the LUN without scanning, so my guess was while turning on the scanlevel it does a scan and the server will find the LUN.

What else could be the reason?


If the server fails to boot from SAN, I would check the switch if the card is logged on at this point in time.

Switch firmware? No clue ...