Effect of moving I/O cards on device files.

[Wim Rombauts]

Hello,

There is a big chance that I need to add an additional I/O card to my system. Unfortunately, the slots that support the type of the new card (PCI) are already taken (slots 3 and 4). I can move an already installed (GSC) I/O card to another slot, but what will happen with the device files that were created for the devices connected to those cards ?

One of the moveable GSC cards is a FWD-SCSI controller, which is now in slot 4. Disks on this controller have device file /dev/dsk/c4t?d0. Will the controller number still be 4 when I move the I/O card to slot 1 ?
Another moveable GSC card is a dual 100BaseT lan card which is now in slot 3. I can't find the device files for the lan interfaces, but will the system still see the same LAN interfaces (and use the same network configuration) when I move the card to slot 1 ?
Slot 2 is currently occupied by an EISA SE-SCSI controller, but since the new card cannot be installed in slot 2, moving this card makes no sense. But the presence of the card could have an influence on the behaviour of the system when another card is moved.

Has someone of you any expirience in this ?

[Stefan Farrelly · Accepted solution]

Once you start moving cards around the devices filenames will change. You can possibly override this with the ioconfig command but its easier to simply move one card at a time, reboot, note the old and new device filenames (which will be created automatically on reboot), and modify your setup accordingly (if disk or lan etc.). You will probably have to do it from the console if the lan device filenames change or the controller the boot disk is on.

[Carlos Fernandez Riera]

If you change a I/O card of slot your special files will change, creating after reboot new special files.

As Stefan said you can recreate ioconfig.

Other way is vgexport and reimport vgs.

See: http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,11866,0x9df8c6af36b7d5118ff10090279cd0f9,00.html

[Wim Rombauts]

Thanks for the information so far.

Since I have a mirror that is split over two SCSI controllers, I can easily remove one side of the mirror from the volumegroup and add it back later when the SCSI-controller is moved.

An alternative seems to be the ioconfig command as Stefan said. Maybe i can use this command (carefully) after I move the SCSI card, but where can I find more information about this command. I have an entry in manual 4, but that's a program or function or something like that, not a command. And the /etc/ioconfig file is not readable text.

[Carlos Fernandez Riera]

See:

http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,11866,0xa3fed211e18ad5118ff10090279cd0f9,00.html