Building a server without internal disks

[Gerard Moroney]

Our organisation has received a HP server and external disks for a disaster recovery test. The server does not appear to have come with internal disks. I have an ignite tape, fbackup of the contents of the "original" external disks, HP media, manuals and access to vast quantities of coffee. Any advice on how I could rebuild my system ?

Ciao,

G

[Stefan Saliba]

I guess if you could specify the model of the server and the model of the external storage then it would be better to build a more clear picture ../

[Gerard Moroney]

It is a HP9000 N-class server with DVD-drive, SC10 disk array and FC60 disk controller ....

[Stefan Saliba]

you mean just one SC10 with the FC60. How many disks in the SC10?

[Stefan Saliba]

are you sure there are no internal disks... cos what I think is that you have an ignite tape of the internal disks and an fbackup of the external. Do you have the required fiber channel cards and cables for the FC60 ?

[Jason VanDerMark]

Well, the first thing that you will want to do is to attach the SC-10 to the server. Once you are satisfied with how everything is setup, you will need to put your ignite tape into the dds drive and then power up the server. Once you get to the point where you can interupt the boot process you will want to do so. Then type 'sea' to search for bootable sources. Once that process finishes note the number of the tape drive which contains your ignite tape(eg P2). Then type 'bo p#' where the number is the same as the one next to your tape device in the search results. Once you do this, the screen will come up with the mini installer which is on the ignite tape. From there you can go through the install process and select a device from the SC-10 as your primary disk for the install(write its hardware address down for later use). Ignite will then allow you to name the box and set an IP address among other things. Once it is completed it will want to reboot the server. At this point you will eject your Ignite tape and then reboot the box. At the point where you can interupt the boot process do so. Verify that the primary boot disk hardware address matches that of the one that you installed to. If not you will need to set it. After all of that you will be able to boot your server up. Your ignite tape will only replace the root volume group, so you will have to know how the rest of the volume groups were setup to continue. You will then recreate your volume groups. Once you have your volume groups(and subsequent logical volumes) back you can then restore your data to the various lvols. Hope this helps.

Regards,
Jason V.

[Tom Geudens]

Hi,
Well, you've got to create something to boot from ... so ...
If I remember correctly the disks that go into the SC10 and the internal disks for an N4000 are the same so ... could it be that you have one "external" disk more than you have fbackups ?

Kind Regards,
Tom Geudens

[Stefan Saliba]

Jason I guess you forgot he has an FC60. the sc10 does not connect to the server but to the fc60. If i am not mistaken the fc60 requires at least 2 sc10 connected to it as a minimum config.

the fc60 then connects via fiber channel to the host , in our case the n-class

[Jason VanDerMark]

Stefan,

I guess I missed the fact that his SC-10 was connected through his FC-60.(Why would you do this?) I was thinking that once the server was up on the SC-10 he could then install the drivers for his fiber cards and then 'ioscan -fnC disk' then 'insf -e' to build his device files, and then setup his volume groups(by either vgimport of the FC-60 disks or by building from scratch if no data is on the FC-60). Again, sorry I missed that. Hopefully something of this will be useful.

Regards,
Jason V.

[Jason VanDerMark]

Stefan,

Could it be that you are confusing FC-10 with SC-10? In an FC-60 you do have a minimum config of two FC-10s. The FC line is all fibre connected where as the SC are SCSI connect disk arrays. Just a thought.

Regards,
Jason V.

[harry d brown jr]

Gerard,

I'd start with the vast amounts of coffee first.

Internal disks are not important at all. I have quite a few servers that have no internal disks, and I soon plan on building another 100 or so with such a configuration.

If your N-class is already "wired", meaning power cables, scsi, fibre, lan, etc..., then your first step is to hook a monitor up to it and boot it, to determine what state the machine is in. It could easily start right out of the box.

If it doesn't, then I would install an OS, which shouldn't be all that difficult.

live free or die
harry

[Stefan Saliba]

Jason the FC60 connects to sc10's the FC60 has 6 SCSI LVD connectors for 6 SC10 enclosures. it will then attach to the host via fiber channel.

The fc60 performs hardware RAID using the disks on the SC10.

The FC10 is another thing. FC10 is a JBOD like the SC10 but the disks have a fiber channel interface too unlike the SC10 which is SCSI.

What I suggest if the system is not wired up is to wire up a minimal system i.e. just a console and some power to the N. leave out the FC60 at this point. Boot to PDC and do a search command. See if you can find disks. if you do then boot from ignite tape and restore to those disks.

if no disks exist then I assume that the FC60 is pre-configured with LUNS. Hook up the SC10 to the fc60. there are some dip switch settings you need to do on the SC10 to configure it to array mode to be used with the FC60. Check out the manual of the SC10..

connect a fiber patch lead to the fc60 and to the N-class and boot the machine.

If you do a search now you should see the LUNS configured in the FC60. Restore the ignite tape on one of the LUNS. if there is one LUN configured then no problem restore on it.

to restore an ignite tape simply boot from the hardware path of the tape drive and follow the instructions.

I suggest you downlaod the service manual of the FC60 cos this is not as simple as it looks.
Read the manual first to really understand how the FC60 works..

But I'm 100% sure that your SC10 should be hooked to the FC60... What I'm not sure about is the minimal configuration for the FC60 to work. If I remember well you need at least 2 SC10's but I'm not sure

Besides avail yourself with loads of coffee and sweets... you need to do loads of reading

Good luck

Stefan

[Jason VanDerMark]

Stefan,

Thanks for clearing up the FC-60 thing. I have never worked with one of those. I have SC-10s and FC-10s, so I figured that the FC-60 would be a way to connect multiple FC-10 arrays and access them from a single set of connections from the host without daisy chaining. Again, thanks for clearing that up.

Regards,
Jason V.