How to configure A5158 fibre channel card to connect to EMC

[cninham]

I have installed a HP A5158 hba card (i.e. HP Tachyon TL/TS Fiber Channel) in a L-class HP-UX 11.00 server.

I have downloaded and installed the driver files for the A5158. We are connecting the A5158 card to an EMC Connectrix [switch?] (then to a EMC Symmetrix storage unit).

My question is this: how dow I setup and configure the A5158 card on the HP-UX side? Where are the configuration files located? Which software utilities do I run to configure and test the cards, and test the connection to the EMC? Finally, do I have to mofify the fstab file (or any other fstab-type file) to permanently enable the new drives assigned via the EMC...?

Your help and GUIDANCE will be appreciated, please. (I have never done this before -- so please bear with me...)

Thank you.

Cameron

[Ashwani Kashyap · Accepted solution]

YOu don't have to configure anything on the server side .

just do an ioscan to find the device files for youe hba's . typically it will be /dev/td0 , /dev/td1 etc .

Hook up the fibre cables from your hba's to the connectrix switch . DO
#/opt/fcms/bin/fcmsutil /dev/td0 , then will give you the WWW name of that HBA and should also show TOPOLOGY as PTTOPT_FABRIC .

This means that you are talking to the switch correctly .

Next give the WW names of the HBA to your storage admin , who will zone your hbas to the correct storage ports . Once zoned and LUNS asigned to the ports and masked for those HBAs ( by the storage admin ) , run a ioscan again and then do insf -e . At this point you will start seeing your assigned LUNS .

[Chris Watkins_1]

As mentioned already, fcmsutil is your friend.

Just wanted to add a bit you might not know, since you've
never done this before. If you can't get a link up,
be sure to try reversing the xmt/recv fibres on one
end or the other, before pulling out too much of your hair.
The connectors slide apart easily enough.
If someone had given me that tip before my first encounter,
it would have saved a lot of time trying to troubleshoot ;)

[Doug Kratky]

If you're new to connecting to EMC storage, I would strongly recommend that you get a free account on powerlink.emc.com and find the manual "EMC Host Connectivity Guide for HP-UX".

Doug

[cninham]

Thank you. I will follow both your advice, and get back to you on the results asap. (Will also assign your points then *smile*)

Cameron

[cninham]

To: Ashwani Kashyap

I followed your instructions, all worked as you suggested. Here is the output from fcmsutil:

# fcmsutil /dev/td0

Vendor ID is = 0x00103c
Device ID is = 0x001028
TL Chip Revision No is = 2.3
PCI Sub-system Vendor ID is = 0x00103c
PCI Sub-system ID is = 0x000006
Previous Topology = UNINITIALIZED
Local N_Port_id is = 0x000000
Local Loop_id is = 126
N_Port Node World Wide Name = 0x50060b00000a09df
N_Port Port World Wide Name = 0x50060b00000a09de
Driver state = AWAITING_LINK_UP
Hardware Path is = 0/3/0/0
Number of Assisted IOs = 0
Number of Active Login Sessions = 0
Dino Present on Card = NO
Maximum Frame Size = 960
Driver Version = @(#) libtd.a HP Fibre Channel Tachyon TL/TS/XL2 Driver B.11.00.10 (AR1201) /ux/core/kern/wsio/td_glue.c: Oct 11 2001, 11:54:14

Topology is not what you suggested, but I have not yet connected the actual fiber cables. Does this look OK?

Thank you.

Cameron

[Tim Sanko]

Cameron,

Just plug the HBA into the switch, Zone (with ECC) the drives to the HBA's and then load the solutions enabler, the timefinder, and the symlmf. Then load powerpath and start the discovery process. You really want to use powerpath nad no pvlinks as the failover is as transparent, but you can ballance the load over many interfaces...

Tim

[Tim Sanko]

Cameron,

I have 4 5158's connected with a V2600 and
2 more with a 7400. trust me. This should be a cake walk, but you must get the cables in place before you go farther...

We have connectrix-64s and brocade 32 port silkworms and god knows what else...

Tim

[Steven E. Protter]

The Core OS for 11i has the drivers you need installed.

If the array is on, ioscan -fnC disk should detect the disk array, incorrectly as a disk.

Then fcmsutil will show you what kind of connection you have.

Then you are done.

If the A5158 drivers were not installed for some reason, there are drivers on the Core OS cd and the subsequent application cd's. Those will require a boot after installation.

SEP

[Ashwani Kashyap]

The driver state says AWAITING_LINK_UP .
THe fibre cable is still not connected .

Conenct the fibre cables and run fcmsutil again .

The driver state should change to ONLINE and the topology to PTTOPT_FABRIC .

And then leave the rest to the storage administrator .

[Michael Tully]

Either the cable is not connected (most likely) the port at the switch end is not working or you have a faulty cable if it is plugged in. Even if the port was of the wrong topology, then you would receive something other than "AWAITING_LINK_UP"

[cninham]

Here is the output of the fcmsutil:

# fcmsutil /dev/td1

Vendor ID is = 0x00103c
Device ID is = 0x001028
TL Chip Revision No is = 2.3
PCI Sub-system Vendor ID is = 0x00103c
PCI Sub-system ID is = 0x000006
Topology = PTTOPT_FABRIC
Local N_Port_id is = 0x610d13
N_Port Node World Wide Name = 0x50060b00000a0f9d
N_Port Port World Wide Name = 0x50060b00000a0f9c
Driver state = ONLINE
Hardware Path is = 0/7/0/0
Number of Assisted IOs = 0
Number of Active Login Sessions = 0
Dino Present on Card = NO
Maximum Frame Size = 960
Driver Version = @(#) libtd.a HP Fibre Channel Tachyon TL/TS/XL2 Driver B.11.00.10 (AR1201) /ux/core/kern/wsio/td_glue.c: Oct 11 2001, 11:54:14



Now, my question is this. I have run 'ioscan'. I have run 'insf -e', but I do not see the LUN's or drives... The Storage (EMC) guy configured the storage, and assigned drivespace. WHERE DO I SEE THE LUN's OR DRIVES OR 'SPACE', AND HOW DO I CONFIGURE THEM TO BE AVAILABLE WITHIN THE OS/SYSTEM...?

Thank you.

Cameron

[Ashwani Kashyap]

have the storage guy , zoned your HBA's or not . Before you can see any disks your HBAS have to be zoned . Run an Ioscan and insfe -e and see if the system sees a LUN of few MB . Thats the VCMDB device . If it sees then you are zoned corerectly . ID not you will have to zone your HBAS to the correct EMC FA ports . The zoning is either done through connectrix manager running on the service processor attached to the connectrix switch or through ECC , EMC Control Centre , if you have one .

After zoning , The LUNS that are made by EMC in the frame are assigned to the zoned FA ports on the symmetrix through a bin file change on the symmetrix or through the SDR operation from the ECC .

Once the disks/LUNs are assigned to your zoned FA ports on the symmetrix , they have to be masked or made visible to your HBAS , through volume logix , or symmask commands or through ECC . Once this is done the VCM database have to be refresged or made active again .

Once this is done , now you can run ioscan and insf -e to see your assigned LUNS .

Either have your storage administrator or EMC do the above tasks .

[Tim Sanko]

I would check to see the visibility to the switch, build my metas, zone disk to hba, allocate the storage, and put in the Fibre channel cumulative patch...

Also, since this is HPux, make sure the luns are octal not the default hex.

The other issues are do you have ECC, or SymmConsole? If you don't have ECC then you may have to use the oldfashioned method which I would suggest that EMC would be better at than I would be.
remember to do your symcfg discover, symcfg for what is necessary....

Tim

Tim

[Tim Sanko]

Also I would check for link lights...

Merry Christmas...

Tim

[Chris Watkins_1]

Not knowing anything about EMC, I can't tell you much else.
I know the topology has to the instance correctly.
(PRIVATE_LOOP when direct connected, PTTOPT_FABRIC if switched?)
That may be something to look at, if still having issues.

So you're seeing nothing when doing, say...
ioscan -funC disk |grep 0/7/0
Right?

If configured correctly, you really should be.

[Jeff Schussele]

Cameron,

Did the EMC tech ever ask you for the WWN on that HBA or did you supply it to them?
If not that's a big clue that they didn't zone it properly. They must tell the switch port just what WWN to present the LUNs to.
Did you/they double-check the value?

HTH,
Jeff

[Michael Tully]

The first place would be supplying the WWN to the EMC dude or whoever is supposed to do your zoning. Once the zone is correct, a device should appear (after running ioscan and insf -e) called a gatekeeper. This is a small LUN device for communication with your symm. Once you have this device, you have a valid zone. Once you have success here, someone should then be assigning LUN's/meta's or whatever to the front end ports of your symm (rule of 17) and have the ECC (enterprise control centre) assign the LUN's to your host (like binding them to your WWN) or with the 'fpath' command. If none of these are done, you won't get any LUN's at all. Then it will be time to beat up your EMC dude. I could do all of this for you for a fee, but I could be too far away ;^))
(There is nothing like playing God with a symmetrix ..)

[cninham]

All is working fine -- saw the drives, assigned them to volume groups, logical volumes, and mounted them to their respective directories.

Thank you all for your help!

One last question: We have a second hba (A5158) card in the server. If we wanted to configure it to use both cards for load balancing, what do I need to do to install and enable/activate PowerPath?

WHERE do I need get the PowerPath software? From EMC? Or can I download it from the HP software depot site?

Cameron

[Jeff Schussele]

Hi Cameron,

PowerPath is an EMC product & you'd need to get it from them.
BUT if all you want is alternate links to prevent SPOFs then good ole LVM will do that for you.
PowerPath is good for load balancing above & beyond what LVM can do by alternating primary/alternate links.

My 2 cents,
Jeff

[Ashwani Kashyap]

Just zone the second HBA and do masking for the seconf HBA . YOu will start seeing the same disks from the first HBA although from a different path and hence different device file .

YOu can just extend your existing VG,s on the new device files to make alternate links , or if you want power path het it from EMC . YOu can also get it from powerlink , if you have registered your software .

Poer path is EMC' product , so you can't get it from HP . Get it from EMC .