Boot from SAN Questions - Linux & XP Storage

[d_allen111]

Gents,

I have successfully installed RHAS 4.8 update 8 on a proliant BL460c. As for the storage, I am using XP 24000 Storage Array. I have installed, Hp_Fibreutils, SANSurfer, and HPDMMiltipath. Everything running great and no issues with single path to the OS partition. The server would hang at the System_logger prompt as soon as I present the 2nd path to the OS partition. I have gone over and over the documentations from HP and google and I am not able to troubleshoot this problem anymore. Matter of fact, I am losing hair over this.

The zoning is correct, the FastUtil was able to detect for boot drive on both of the adapters with ease. the boot priority is correct. I don't know where else to go with this, but to call HP for help.

So, I thought, I would try it on here first since I know we have some very brilliant folks on this board that could probably solved this issue with a few keystrokes.

Help??

Thanks,

David A.

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom David,

Don't lose hair over this.

Use the hp_rescan fiber utilities to light up the fiber connection.

Those rescan utilities will activate the connection if in fact all the details you write above are correct.

If you can avoid SAN boot, you should, local disk is much easier to deal with. (I say this as I build an HP-UX system in another window off an EMC boot disk, making me a hypocrite).

SEP

[d_allen111]

Thanks for your response, Sep. However, due to retiring lease equipment, so I thought this would be the best fit. I have no trouble setting BFS for the Windows servers at this point, only on the Linux side. I would have thought the Windows will give me the most trouble.

As for hp_rescan Fibre utilities, do you mean the HP_Fibreutils utility? If yes, I do have that setup with HP SANsurfer and HPDMmultipath as well.

How would you go about going from BFS to your local RAIDED hard drives? I just hope I don't have to reinstall the OS since I already have other applications loaded and configured at this time.

Please let me know.

Thanks,

David A.

[Alzhy · Accepted solution]

Bro, Just did this the last few. But my Env is RHEL 5. I think the "recipe" still apply though to RHAS but ymmv.

Here are URL's which may help thine perdicament:

http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/docs/DOC-10146
http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/docs/DOC-17644

Any erason why you can't go to RHEL 5.x?

Good Luck.

[Alzhy]

This too specificaly for RHAS 4.x:

http://www.tuxyturvy.com/blog/index.php?/archives/42-RHEL4-dm-multipath-on-root-HOWTO.html


And as far as:

"How would you go about going from BFS to your local RAIDED hard drives? I just hope I don't have to reinstall the OS since I already have other applications loaded and configured at this time."

The eaisest and cleanest is to use MondoRescue (www.mondorescue.org). The hard way is you can establish your VG/Filesystems on your local RAIDED (ciss?) disk and use dump/restore tomove over your BFS partitions and fix your /boot, initrd, etc -- convulted but it should work.

Cheers.

[d_allen111]

Greetings,

Thanks for your response. I read some of the links, unfortunately, two out of three links are written for Redhat 5.0 & 5.1. There's one that I think it will work with Redhat 4.8.

I thought about upgrading to the next Redhat version (5.1), but I must do an inbox upgrade since I have to make sure if Oracle 10g will be compatible with Redhat version 5.1.

The important factor is that the inbox upgrade must be the only solution for me since I don't want to have rebuild this box.

Thanks,

David A.

[Steven E. Protter]

Upgrade is a bit problematic with RH.

I've found it is better to cold install and then reinstall the application.

There is nothing wrong with your setup and I think the hp utils will work if you have the right drivers for your hba cards.

multipath is built into your chose OS and should provide active-passive multipath without much work at all.

SEP

[Alzhy]

Sala'm d_allen,

Staying with RHAD 4.X on such an uber modern hardware is like driving a Ferrari 575m (which I don't have and will likely never have) on a dirt road.

Your apps -- most notably Oracle 10G should be compatible with RHEL 5.x (We are running 10GR2 on REL 5.4/RHEL5.5). RHEL 5.x just offers more performnace oomph on such newer hardware. In fact -- if you plan to go with the recent 8-core and 120core X86 CPUs from Intel and AMD - you've no choice but to go to RHEL 5.5 to exact the best performance out of these UNIX killers.

Porting your alredy installed apps to freshly installed RHEL should be no biggie -- if you know the paths, files, etc that you need to move over or restore.

V.

[d_allen111]

You guys were right about in-box upgrade, that's a no no.

I finally download RedHat 5.4 and I am start the install. Here's what I am thinking of doing for the filesystems and you guys can correct me if you'd

mpath01 /boot
mpath02 /root
mpath03 / swap
mpath04 /LVM
/usr
/var
/opt
/local_user
/tmp
/home

I get a little confused when the installation asked about where to install Grub and it was pointing at the local disk instead and flipped the SAN boot disk to the first available disk in the order the system had it.

Would you normally installed Grub in /boot/ or /root partition. Maybe I am confused with the message something has do to with the first MBR or something like that, which I can't remember at the mement.

Guys, help.

Thanks,

David A.

[Alzhy]

Amigo,

Follow strictly the following:

http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/docs/DOC-17644

You won't go wrong.

Of course - you need to go to Qlogic BIOS firstly and enable the BIOSes of both of your FC-HBAs (CTRL-Q on System Startup -- it will prompt you). You will also ned to select which LUN from your XP will be your boot LUN.

Hope this helps sir.