Redhat 5.3 with SAN Connectivity

[AZayed]

Thanks Alzhy, I'm going to check if I have this "HPDM Enablement kit" installed with PSP.

I'm would like to ask if there is any documentation about configuring MSA2000 with Redhat 5.3 + can I create LVM LUN in Redhat using command line enabling Multipath e.g. in HP-UX we have vgcreate lvcreate.

Thanks again

[Wessam Aly]

you have the same tools (vgcreate, lvcreate, etc..) in Linux. Its LVM for linux. you can either use the luns directly by creating a filesystem on them or put them in a volume group using lvm

[Alzhy · Accepted solution]

HPDM is not included with PSP.
You have to download it separately. Latest is 4.4.1.

It allows your SAN LUNs to have "friendly names" instead of /dev/mpath/mpath123 or /dev/dm-13 - you can ask multipath to use "mapper" names like -- /dev/mapper/SAPdisk.

You can now do whatever you like with /dev/mapper/SAPdisk -- it is already multipathed by virtue of what you have in /etc/multipath.conf.

You can parition it with fdisk so you can have a PV - /dev/mapper/SAPdiskp1 that you can use to vgcreate an LVM VG. From there you can lvcreate your desired LV for use as raw disk or to create an ext2,3,4 or whatever filesystem on top.

(Note: if you have MANY SAN disks, you may need to tweak your /etc/lvm/lvm.conf file too so you do not get duplicate PVs).

On mine it is:

filter = [ "a/mapper/.*p1$/", "a|/dev/cciss/*|", "r/.*/" ]

Which means, LVM should only search device mapper disks on partion 1 and HP SMartArray LUNs and ignore all else.


Cheers!

[AZayed]

Thanks Alzhy,

I have already download and install HPDM 4.4.1 but the funny thing I'm installing it or OEL 5.3 and I'm getting that the package is already installed so I decide to remove it first then reinstall it again and it finish with "Success" but when I hit rpm -q to search for the package I get nothing. On RHEL 4 I installed the package and I can see it.

I don't know what going on but it's giving error on something /sbin/scsi_id

Also I still need to reboot my box to rescan the FC card to see the lun from MSA2000.

Thanks for help

[Alzhy]

Nothing will SHOW in rpm -qa with HPDM installed. The indication it is "installed" is in /etc/multipath.conf

Please read through the release notes as depending on whether you have Emulex or Qlogic, you will need to have some changed to /etc/modprobe.conf added and initrd rebuilt.


I have not tried HPDM on OEL though but I suppose you can .

[AZayed]

Thank you Alzhy, I think it is Brocade but how can I make sure?