Possible to use an FCA2101 with RHEL3?

[Andrew Clute]

We have an FCA2101 that we would like to put into a DL380 that is now a RHEL3 box. However, there seems to be no drivers for it.

I assume this is not a supported configuration, but is there away around this, short of us buying an FCA2214?

Thanks!

[Steven E. Protter]

You could try compiling a driver from source if available, but life is usually easier just using hardware that comes with drivers.

SEP

[Jeroen Peereboom]

L.S.

There are drivers on the Emulex web site for this (version 2.01g for RH EL 3.

I have this driver running on DL360 with RH AS 2.1, and I have installed it on RH AS 3 (but have no FC adapter in this system yet, will be end of the week).

JP.

[Andrew Clute]

Any idea if with these drivers if it will be able to connect to an MSA1000?

[Jeroen Peereboom]

With RH AS2.1 I have a connection to an HP Virtual Array via a Brocade switch.

I do not have an MSA1000, so I don't know if it will work. Being naive, why wouldn;t it work?

JP

[Andrew Clute]

You know, I have no clue. I have actually never dealt with FCA or a SAN before, so I have no contextual knowledge. I am helping a couple of other guys right now.

Why I was curious was because I wouldn't know if HP would change some sublte things with their version of the Emutex cards and the ROM on their SAN's to make it so you have to have HP of both.

[Uwe Zessin]

Different storage arrays have slightly different behaviour. For example: on the VA7400 you can do I/O to a LUN through all controller ports although only one controller will handle the I/O to the disks - the other will just re-route any request over an internal bus, if necessary.

The MSA1000 with two controllers uses an active/standby configuration, currently. You can 'see' a LUN through the standby controller, so the multipath software knows there is another path, but you cannot do data I/Os to it. They will not be redirected to the active controller. If you send a 'START UNIT' command to any LUN through the standby controller it will cause a role reversal and result in a failover of *all* LUNs!

On some operating systems there are even drivers to accomodate specific storage arrays.


The FCA2101 adapter is not supported because either nobody at HP has tested it or they have found problems with it. Feel free to locate a driver and try it on your own.

[Jeroen Peereboom]

L.S.

I just tried the driver 2.01g I downloaded from Emulex (for an LP9002DC). It fails to initialize the adapter (error message '0442 INe'. I'm not pleased.

Reading my notes from some weeks ago:
- adapter is not supported
- MSA1000: Need SecurePath software and 'many' firmware updates.

JP.

[Andrew Clute]

Thanks for the information!

Out of curiosity, what does 'L.S.' stand for?

[Jeroen Peereboom · Accepted solution]

Lectori Salutem,

I just got the driver to work. I can mount the filesystems of the SAN, and access the files.

Download from the Emulex site the driver only (a filename with 'gcc3' in it). Install it according to the installation documents (pdf) that can be downloaded too.

Quick steps:
- check existence of /usr/src/linux. If not existing, create a symbolic link such that it links to the correct /usr/src/linux-2.....
- rpm -ivh
- cd /usr/src/linux/drivers/scsi/lpfc
- make build
- make install
- add line to modules.conf
(try insmod lpfcdd)
- cd /boot
- modify lilo / grub for new initrd image
- mkinitrd
- shutdown -r

I did not get it to work with the complete packages (with HBAAnywhere included), see previous posting.

By the way, if you boot the server, and view / modify the HBA's BIOS settings, you see an option with 'MSA1000'. You may need to find out what it means to you.

Good luck.

JP.

P.S. Some points would be appreciated ;-)