No lan device file

[Ian Killer_1]

Hi there...

I have two interfaces in a K460. The btlan interface doesn't have a device file like /dev/lan1 (see below). First time I've seen this. What do you make of it?

Class I H/W Path Driver S/W State H/W Type Description
===================================================================
lan 1 10/4/8 btlan1 CLAIMED INTERFACE HP HP-PB 100 Base TX card
lan 0 10/12/6 lan2 CLAIMED INTERFACE Built-in LAN
/dev/diag/lan0 /dev/ether0 /dev/lan0

[Christopher McCray_1]

Hello,

Was this card recently installed? Has the driver been installed?

Run insf -e.... what happened?

Chris

[James Beamish-White]

Have you just installed the device? You may need to install drivers for it.

Or if you've lost the device file for some reason, try a man on "insf".


Cheers,
James

[Christopher McCray_1]

Here is the output from my K-460:

scsapp1:/rootdir# ioscan -fknC lan
Class I H/W Path Driver S/W State H/W Type Description
========================================================================
lan 0 8/0.5 fcT1_cntl CLAIMED INTERFACE HP Fibre Channel Mass Storage Cntl
/dev/fcms0
lan 1 8/4.5 fcT1_cntl CLAIMED INTERFACE HP Fibre Channel Mass Storage Cntl
/dev/fcms1
lan 2 10/4/8.1 lan3 CLAIMED INTERFACE
/dev/diag/lan2 /dev/ether2 /dev/lan2
lan 3 10/4/16 btlan1 CLAIMED INTERFACE HP HP-PB 100 Base TX card
/dev/diag/lan3 /dev/ether3 /dev/lan3
lan 4 10/8/1/0 gelan UNCLAIMED UNKNOWN PCI Ethernet (12ae0001)
lan 5 10/12/6 lan2 CLAIMED INTERFACE Built-in LAN
/dev/diag/lan5 /dev/ether5
lan 6 10/16/16 btlan1 CLAIMED INTERFACE HP HP-PB 100 Base TX card
/dev/diag/lan6 /dev/ether6 /dev/lan6


Hope this helps

Chris

[Hai Nguyen_1]

Lan1 has already had an associated driver btlan1.
All you need to do now is to try to create a device file for it. You can try the sequence below which should not cause any problem to the server:
# insf -eH 10/4/8
# ll /dev/lan*

Hope this helps.

Hai

[Ian Killer_1]

I didn't build it, or install the interface. It was done before I arrived here (6mth ago). Looks like no change. I need to upgrade this box to 11.0, and am concerned that this will prevent me.

# insf -e -v
insf: Installing special files for sdisk instance 0 address 10/0.3.0
insf: Installing special files for sdisk instance 1 address 10/0.4.0
insf: Installing special files for sdisk instance 2 address 10/0.5.0
insf: Installing special files for sdisk instance 3 address 10/0.6.0
insf: Installing special files for sctl instance 0 address 10/0.7.0
insf: Installing special files for mux2 instance 0 address 10/4/0
insf: Installing special files for tape2 instance 1 address 10/4/4.4.0
insf: Installing special files for tape2 instance 2 address 10/4/4.5.0
insf: Installing special files for disc3 instance 5 address 10/4/12.5.0
insf: Installing special files for disc3 instance 8 address 10/4/12.5.1
insf: Installing special files for sdisk instance 6 address 10/8.5.0
insf: Installing special files for sdisk instance 9 address 10/8.5.1
insf: Installing special files for sctl instance 1 address 10/8.7.0
insf: Installing special files for CentIf instance 5 address 10/12/0
insf: Installing special files for stape instance 0 address 10/12/5.0.0
insf: Installing special files for sdisk instance 7 address 10/12/5.2.0
insf: Installing special files for sctl instance 2 address 10/12/5.7.0
insf: Installing special files for lan2 instance 0 address 10/12/6
insf: Installing special files for ps2 instance 0 address 10/12/7
insf: Installing special files for pseudo driver cn
insf: Installing special files for pseudo driver mm
insf: Installing special files for pseudo driver ptym
insf: Installing special files for pseudo driver ptys
insf: Installing special files for pseudo driver dmem
insf: Installing special files for pseudo driver diag0
insf: Installing special files for pseudo driver dev_config
insf: Installing special files for pseudo driver strlog
insf: Installing special files for pseudo driver sad
insf: Installing special files for pseudo driver echo
insf: Installing special files for pseudo driver dlpi
insf: Installing special files for pseudo driver ptm
insf: Installing special files for pseudo driver pts
insf: Installing special files for pseudo driver beep
insf: Installing special files for pseudo driver klog
insf: Installing special files for pseudo driver sy
insf: Installing special files for pseudo driver kepd
insf: Installing special files for pseudo driver diag2
insf: Installing special files for pseudo driver root
making rroot c 255 0xffffff
making root b 255 0xffffff
# ioscan -funC lan
Class I H/W Path Driver S/W State H/W Type Description
===================================================================
lan 1 10/4/8 btlan1 CLAIMED INTERFACE HP HP-PB 100 Base TX card
lan 0 10/12/6 lan2 CLAIMED INTERFACE Built-in LAN
/dev/diag/lan0 /dev/ether0 /dev/lan0

[Christopher McCray_1]

If you need to upgrade the OS, I would do it (cold install), add latest patches, and any/all drivers necessary. The driver for that lan card will be one of them.

The K-460 I showed you was cold installed last spring from 10.20 to 11.00 . You should be fine; The lan card will not prevent this.

Good luck

Chris

[sven verhaegen · Accepted solution]

ok lets try and explain this one

this probably has everything to do with 2 nice features used to define slots and cards on boards on HP-UX being LLA and DLPI , older types of cards use the LLA addressing and this means Logical Link Addressing , mind the Logical here , this means that for a physical interface we have a physical driver /dev/lan0 on the system , this was the old way of lan device file assignations , now on the newer methodology we use DLPI , the DL stand for Dynamically linked , so this is in fact an addressing methodology in which no longer physical device files exist , in /dev you will not find /dev/lan2 for a btlan driver lancard , the devicefilename is virtual and is linked to the slot through the kernel the first time the slot is used by a card , remove the card and put in in another slot it will be lan3 a card put in th eold slot wioll again become lan2 , so the address is kept somewhere in the kernel and reassigned every time at bootup , as there is no phyical address you will not see it in ioscan but it will be visible in lanscan

[Ian Killer_1]

# insf -evH 10/4/8
# ls -l /dev/lan*
crw-rw-rw- 1 bin bin 52 0x000000 Mar 30 1998 /dev/lan0
#

[Ian Killer_1]

Thanks guys. I'm hoping to do a clean install but that's what I'm in the process of analysing.

Cheers...

ian

[Hai Nguyen_1]

Ian,

Try sam -> Networking and communications -> Network Interface Cards to see if you can configure/enable the card.

Hai

[Ian Killer_1]

I probably should have mentioned that it's configured and functioning as the primary interface for a production oracle db server.

There's nothing wrong with it, I just hadn't seen the missing device file before. DLPI baby yeah.

THanks again.

# lanscan
Hardware Station Crd Hardware Net-Interface NM MAC HP DLPI Mjr
Path Address In# State NameUnit State ID Type Support Num
10/4/8 0x080009DA1024 1 UP lan1 UP 4 ETHER Yes 171
10/12/6 0x0060B0320AA5 0 UP lan0 DOWN 5 ETHER Yes 52
# ifconfig lan1
lan1: flags=863
inet 145.26.15.10 netmask ffffff00 broadcast 145.26.15.255
#

[rick jones]

some minor nits

LLA => "Link Level Access" - the old read/write/ioctl interface for link-level access to NICs. Its demise was first forwarned (ie the half-octopus rule - forwarned is forarmed...) when HP-UX 10 or 10.20 first shipped years ago.

DLPI => "Data Link Provider Interface" - the "standard" mechanism for link-level access to NICs. There are two styles (I think that is the right term) of DLPI providers. One style is where there is a given device file for each interafce (much like the old LLA). We don't do that style with the lan cards. The other style is where you open a common device file to get access to DLPI (/dev/dpli) and then "attach" to a specific interface based on its PPA (iirc, Physical Point of Attachment)

NICs are always visible in the output of ioscan. How visible depends on whether or not the desired/required drivers are present.

As for moving cards around slots, my understanding was that indeed, if you moved a card from slot a to slot b, the card would get a new instance number (ppa). however, i think that only if a card of the same prior type is placed in the old slot does it get the old instance number.