Boot from SAN

[Mark Nierth]

Need your help. I'm trying to set up an alternate boot device on our HDS 9980 san. This is a L2000 with A5158A at B11.11.09 and the firmware is 41.39, running 11.11. I used the same script that we use to create alternate internal boot devices, which works fine. I can see the bootable device with lvlnboot -v. I did a setboot -a pointing to the hardware path of the san device and booted from him. I received a Failed to Init message with Entry Init of Status= -4. I read through many forum entries but haven't seen anything that helps me out...Any ideas out there?

[Patrick Wallek]

The best test would be to interrupt the boot process and do an 'sea ipl' to search for bootable devices. If the search doesn't see your SAN device then that is your problem.

My guess is that at that point in the boot cycle you SAN devices aren't visible to the system yet, probably due to drivers not yet being loaded. If you can't see it, you can't boot from it.

[Mark Nierth]

Hi Patrick,
Yea, I forgot to mention that. I did interrupt the boot and issued sea ipl, but he doesn't see the device. I know booting from the san is possible, but I must me missing something. It looks like I'm at the latest firmware (41.39) and driver level (B11.11.09) but could it be the SAN's software levels?

[Steven E. Protter]

Firmware should always be up to date.

Your server should be able to boot of of a san.

You might want to see this thread to make sure the LIF area and other items are copied to the san boot area. My last post is a good guide of all the necessary steps and checks.

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=216203

SEP

[Mark Nierth]

Steven,
I've attached my script that I used to create the alternate boot. Again, I've used this script to create our second internal bootable devices without problems. We opened a ticket with HP but as soon as we said we were trying to use a HDS 9980, they said this was an unsupported config. We've done this with the XP512 but not with the HDS. I'm wondering if this is really possible, since the FC driver is in the kernal, how would the server know about this device before the kernal even gets loaded? I also looked at lifls for this device and that seems in order too.

[Michael Steele_2]

Issue may be with bad block relocation. I've had this issue with 2ndary swap. Since the HDS takes care of bad blocks relocation you choose the 3rd option, none / disable, during lvcreate.

lvcreate -L ### -r N .....

http://docs.hp.com/cgi-bin/fsearch/framedisplay?top=/hpux/onlinedocs/B9106-90008/B9106-90008_top.html&con=/hpux/onlinedocs/B9106-90008/00/02/208-con.html&toc=/hpux/onlinedocs/B9106-90008/00/02/208-toc.html&searchterms=lvcreate&queryid=2003983-152637

41.39 is the latest PDC for the L2000

-Did you "...pvcreate -B..."

-Can you see the LUN in "...ioscan -fnkC disk..."

-A6795A is the next HBA above the A5158A

[Francis_12]

Hello,

>I did interrupt the boot and issued sea
>ipl, but he doesn't see the device. I know
>booting from the san is possible, but I
>must me missing something. It looks like
>I'm at the latest firmware (41.39) and
>driver level (B11.11.09) but could it be
>the SAN's software levels?

You are effectively up-to-date at the f/w level and driver level.

If you don't even see the paths at the BCH, that means that it's unfortunately not possible to boot from there. SAN devices are always seen at BCH.

Bye.

Francis DERDEYN - HP-UX ASCE.