Persistent binding / RHLE4

[Marcial Wils]

Have an HP AE311A HBA in RHLE4.
The HBA works ok, the server can see the storage devices and backups are runing ok.
But SANsurfer for some reason is not detecting the HBA at all.
We tried with different versions of SANsurfer and different drivers/firmwares for the HBA. No go.

So, now we are a poing were we need to configure Persistent Binding!. Is it possible to do it without the help of SANsurfer??

Thanks

[IBaltay]

Hi,
1. check the way how the driver is linked into the kernel: (we are assuming that it is the kernel module, the static linked is quoted under the NOTE:)
lsmod |grep qla
2. edit the /etc/modules.conf
The initiator and target info
necessary for persistent binding
can be achieved via
2.1.grep scsi- qla /proc/scsi/qla2x00/2 or
2.2 grep scsi-qla /var/log/messages
The obtained information are to be appended to the /etc/modules.conf with the ql2xopts parameter

Note:
staticaly this info can be added to the lilo.conf (with the mkinitrd/mk_initrd and modified lilo being invoked in the kernel recompilation.
If using the GRUB, the persistent binding information with the qop parameter and add it to /boot/grub/grub.conf.

[Heironimus]

SANsurfer is a QLogic utility. Are you sure that's not an Emulex card?

[Marcial Wils]

Thanks IBaltay.
The steps that you suggest, is it from a document?
I am not good at RHLE at all, so maybe it will give me a better idea if I can read more about that.

Heironimus.
Yes, well, we are sure it is an HP AE311A, manufactured by QLogic.

Actually QLogic said this:
"SANsurfer may not work with some OEM HBAs if the PCI number isn't recognized and this is known to be the case with some. I can't test this here as I don't have a HPAE311A. Has HP tried to replicate your situation with that card and the SANsurfer version in question? We don't support SANsurfer on a non-QLogic HBA so it's up to HP as to whether they do or not with this HBA.

It depends on the way the OEM customer specs out the HBA, in some cases the PCI number would be different to reflect the OEM company and SANsurfer would have to be updated to recognize a new one. I am told not all OEMs provide SANsurfer with their cards."

[IBaltay · Accepted solution]

Hi,
this is another possibility of the 2.6 kernel:udev
the emulex doc is here
http://www.emulex.com/white/hba/wp_linux26udev.pdf
this is similar doc from qlogic
http://download.qlogic.com/drivers/51241/Readme_qlinstall_u4.html

[Marcial Wils]

Thanks IBaltay.

One more thing. I was told that HP ships with its HBA one of this tools:
HP_SCAN or HP_probe_lun

Do those tools help with persistent binding?
What can we do with those tools?
Is there somewhere to download them??

Thanks

[IBaltay]

Hi,
here is the LUN Migration and Persistence utility for Linux:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&swItem=co-39335-1&jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN

[IBaltay]

Hi,
also this SW may be interesting:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?swItem=co-58129-1〈=en&cc=us&mode=3&