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problem configuring fibre channels

 
Jansen_8
Regular Advisor

problem configuring fibre channels

Hi all,

 

I got an RX4640 running OpenVMS8.4 (booted as sateliet from an RX2600) and a DS2400 equiped with 15 FC-disks. Both are connected to a BROCADE Silworm 3200 switch, but on the RX4640 I see none of the disk-devices. On the switch I see both the DS2400 (port0) and the RX4640 (port1):

 

beer:admin> switchshow
switchName:    beer
switchType:    16.2
switchState:    Online   
switchMode:    Native
switchRole:    Principal
switchDomain:    1
switchId:    fffc01
switchWwn:    10:00:00:60:69:c0:88:92
switchBeacon:    OFF
Zoning:          OFF
port  0: id N1 Online         L-Port 15 public, 1 private, 2 phantom
port  1: id N2 Online         F-Port 21:00:00:e0:8b:02:04:9d
port  2: -- N2 No_Module      
port  3: -- N2 No_Module      
port  4: -- N2 No_Module      
port  5: -- N2 No_Module      
port  6: -- N2 No_Module      
port  7: -- N2 No_Module      

 

and I see devices:

 

beer:admin> nsallshow 8
{
  01109b 01109d 01109e 01109f 0110a3 0110a5 0110a6 0110a7
  0110a9 0110aa 0110ab 0110ac 0110ad 0110ae 0110b1 0110b2
  011100
17 FCP Ports }


 

 

On my RX4640 the FC card seems normal:

$ sh dev/full fg

Device FGA0:, device type QLogic ISP23xx FibreChannel, is online, shareable,
    error logging is enabled.

    Error count                    0    Operations completed                292
    Owner process                 ""    Owner UIC                      [SYSTEM]
    Owner process ID        00000000    Dev Prot              S:RWPL,O:RWPL,G,W
    Reference count                0    Default buffer size                   0
    Current preferred CPU Id       1    Fastpath                              1
    Current Interrupt CPU Id       1
    FC Port Name 2100-00E0-8B02-049D    FC Node Name        2100-00E0-8B02-049D

 

However I do not "see" any of the disks of the DS2400 on the RX4640. So I tried:

$ mc sysman
SYSMAN> SET ENVIRONMENT/CLUSTER
%SYSMAN-I-ENV, current command environment:
        Clusterwide on local cluster
        Username SYSTEM       will be used on nonlocal nodes

SYSMAN> IO FIND_WWID

%SYSMAN-I-OUTPUT, command execution on node BOLERO
No previously undiscovered WWIDs have been found.


%SYSMAN-I-OUTPUT, command execution on node VALETA
No previously undiscovered WWIDs have been found.



This does not seem to help. What do I overlook/do wrong?

 

 

 

19 REPLIES 19
Eberhard Heuser
Frequent Advisor

Re: problem configuring fibre channels

I have a different environment, but one point is important:

 

the switch must assign a unit identifier and this identifier is used by OpenVMS as the LUN:

 

MSA> show unit 0

Unit 0:
In PDLA mode, Unit 0 is Lun 1.
Unit Identifier: 1001
HSG Unit Identifier: 1001
Device Identifier: 01000010:6001-4380-0006-3C90-0B2E-BAB8-08DC-004C
Cache status      : enabled
Max Boot Partition: Unknown
Volume status     : VOLUME OK
 4 Data Disk(s) used by lun 1:
   Disk 0: Partition 0; (SCSI bus 0, SCSI id 0)
   Disk 1: Partition 0; (SCSI bus 0, SCSI id 1)
   Disk 2: Partition 0; (SCSI bus 0, SCSI id 2)
   Disk 3: Partition 0; (SCSI bus 0, SCSI id 3)
Spare physical drives:
   No spare drives are designated.
Logical Volume Raid Level: RAID 5. Distributed Data Guard
                           stripe_size=64.0KB
Logical Volume Capacity : 101.75 [109.26] GB

OpenVMS recognizes this unit as "$1$dga1001".

 

Eberhard

Jansen_8
Regular Advisor

Re: problem configuring fibre channels

MSA only gives me information for the SCSI controler used for some other disks, but no info on the FGA0 device

 

However I managed to see the disks on the OpenVMS system:

 

valeta-sys) MCR SYS$ETC:FIBRE_SCAN

**************************************************************************
**************************************************************************
**                                                                      **
**    Scanning port FGA for all Fibre Channel devices (display only)    **
**                                                                      **
**************************************************************************
**************************************************************************

Probing Target 1 ==========================================================

Port WWID:   5006-0B00-000C-44B1
Node WWID:   5006-0B00-000C-6589

Target = 1. LUN = 0.
----------------------
Devname:     Not Configured
Vendor ID:   HP
Product ID:  A6214A
Devtype:     D
Rev Level:   HP01
Pg00 supported, Pg83 supported, Pg80 supported.
Standard UDID status = 2c
Vendor-specific UDID status = f4
Unable to get target data at target 1 LUN 0, status = f4

Probing Target 2 ==========================================================

Port WWID:   2200-0004-CF00-483C
Node WWID:   2000-0004-CF00-483C

Target = 2. LUN = 0.
----------------------
Devname:     Not Configured
Vendor ID:   HP 36.4G
Product ID:  ST336752FC
Devtype:     0 (Disk)
Rev Level:   HP03
Pg00 supported, Pg83 supported, Pg80 supported.
Standard UDID status = 2c
Vendor-specific UDID status = f4
Unable to get target data at target 2 LUN 0, status = f4

 

<some more identical entries skipped>

Probing Target 17 ==========================================================

Target = 17. LUN = 0.
----------------------
Standard Inquiry failed, status = a58 (SS$_NOMOREDEV)
End of scan for port FGA.


How should I proceed? Can I use the WWID's to configure the device so that OpenVMS recognizes it as a (disk)device?

 

                                        Jouk

Eberhard Heuser
Frequent Advisor

Re: problem configuring fibre channels

No, the WWID does not help.

 

The switch must assign a identifier to the unit.

 

The controller needs a identifier, too, in order to be recognized by OpenVMS.

 

Eberhard

Jansen_8
Regular Advisor

Re: problem configuring fibre channels

I get lost....

 

What identifier should the switch generate? I thought the WWID's defined the adresses at the switch.

 

 

Why does not my FG-controller gets an ID? Is this because no disks are assigned to it (I cannot use the A&B SCSI in MDA either, only the C-SCSI which has disks attached)

 

                        Jouk

 

 

 

 

Hoff
Honored Contributor

Re: problem configuring fibre channels

Pretty much everything within a FC SAN has an id assigned to it; these are akin to the MAC addresses used on an Ethernet network.  Here are some of the baseline console-level FC SAN commands and OpenVMS-level FC SAN commands that can be involved with the configuration process.

 

Jansen_8
Regular Advisor

Re: problem configuring fibre channels

Sorry Hoff , I already located those documents but they do not help me further:

 $   @SYS$MANAGER:BOOT_OPTIONS.COM

does not list the devices either (nor anything in the efi-shell)

The file SYS$SYSTEM:SYS$DEVICES.DAT does not exists so no WWID's are found. The only command on the VMS side that let me know the devices are present is

$ MCR SYS$ETC:FIBRE_SCAN
which gives Portnumber and Nodename (actually the same I see on the switch. But they seem to be something else than the WWID OpenVMS seems to like. I have no idea how to generate this last ID.

 

                  Jouk

Hoff
Honored Contributor

Re: problem configuring fibre channels

Do you have a supported FC HBA installed?  It would seem not.  (Or you have device autoconfiguration disabled.)

Jansen_8
Regular Advisor

Re: problem configuring fibre channels

probably not supported. but not supported does not always mean not working.

 

It is a "standard" install of OpenVMS so I assume that autoconfiguration is on (otherwise I do not think "served-cluster-disks" are recognized.

Isd there a way to "manusally" configure the disks?

 

                     Jouk

Volker Halle
Honored Contributor

Re: problem configuring fibre channels

Jouk,

 

is the DS2400 supported as a SAN storage array for OpenVMS ?

 

The data from FIBRE_SCAN seems to indicate, that OpenVMS can reach die DS2400, but cannot configure the disks on that storage box. Do you have a manual for that DS2400 ?

 

Volker. 

Jansen_8
Regular Advisor

Re: problem configuring fibre channels

No I do not have a manual. Someone just gave me this box some weeks ago.

 

                     Jouk

Hoff
Honored Contributor

Re: problem configuring fibre channels

If you have supported hardware, then the FC SAN configuration process (once the WWID scan is performed) will usually and more-or-less work, within the (many) limits of the various FC SAN management interfaces.

 

If you don't have supported hardware, then this process tends to turn into an adventure.  And sometimes this turns into a much bigger adventure.

 

Like EFI, there isn't much chance of forward progress with a FC SAN configuration, short of acquiring and reading through the product management manuals, without at least some experimentation, and without digging around in log files, and short of some familiarity with how this stuff "should" work from experience within a supported FC SAN configuration.  This is one of the areas where unsupported gear becomes particularly problematic, too, as there are no OS-specific manuals for the products available for reference, too.

 

As for general I/O device compatibility, VMS pushes a SAN controller.  Hard.  This has uncovered bugs within the VMS I/O stack, and has also uncovered bugs in various SAN controllers, and these have variously involved SAN controller firmware upgrades.

 

I'd look to acquire or to swap for one of the (supported) MSA widgets.

 

Given you'll not likely be dissuaded from your quest, you'll want to dig around for how to enable and use some of the WWID-mapping stuff on other non-supported FC SAN controllers; how to get the devices visible on an arbitrary SAN controller, and how to map the units to the devices.  This can be using mapping features in the particualr SAN controller, or using the SYS$SYSTEM:SYS$DEVICES.DAT mapping.  Here is an IBM FC SAN write-up on configuring for OpenVMS, and there are other similar discussions around.  

 

Get the manuals for the devices that you have, and start digging.

 

The FC SAN configuration mechanisms remind me of another of my other favorite reference for problematic user interface designs, EFI.   Both could be vastly better.

Jansen_8
Regular Advisor

Re: problem configuring fiber channels

Even getting manuals can be problematic:

the only "useful" information on DS2400 at the HP-website is the following:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&taskId=120&prodSeriesId=81150&prodTypeId=12169&objectID=c01825151

 

                         Jouk

Hoff
Honored Contributor

Re: problem configuring fiber channels

The HP A6214A DS2400 series "DS 2400 JBOD" is not supported on VMS.

 

It's too old to have ever been supported with VMS for that matter, based on the various publication dates I can locate.  

 

Which means sell it, or swap it.  Or maybe use it with HP-UX, where it might have been supported, if you have the right controller.  

 

This particular hardware looks to be a component of the HP Virtual Array 7000-series (VA 7000-series) storage system and largely documented as part of that configuration, based on what little information in posted around the network.

 

Related reading: http://www.filibeto.org/unix/hp-ux/lib/hardware/storage/va7110/lpg60187.pdf

 

 

Jur van der Burg
Respected Contributor

Re: problem configuring fiber channels

Jouk,

 

as others have said before, this controller is not supported on VMS. The problem is that this controller cannot assign an identifier to a logical unit which is something that vms needs. Without that you will not see any unit appear.

 

To comment on earlier notes that a switch needs to assign an identifier, that is not true. A switch does not come into play with this, it is just the controller which has the iissue.

 

Also, sysman io find_wwid is just for tapes. For disks you should just use sysman io autoconfigure.

 

Having said that, I just completed work on a real virtual firbre channel emulation in an Alpha emulator which has the capabilitiy to use such a controller on vms (I have a similar one for testing). I can simply map luns to identifiers and use the controller that way. But that is not going to help you.

 

Jur.

 

 

Jansen_8
Regular Advisor

Re: problem configuring fiber channels

Jur,

 

Does this not help me because I'm running on a Itanium

Would it help if I put the controler card into an XP1000?

 

             Jouk

Volker Halle
Honored Contributor

Re: problem configuring fiber channels

Jouk,

 

don't you understand, what Jur's written ?

 

<quote>

this controller is not supported on VMS. The problem is that this controller cannot assign an identifier to a logical unit which is something that vms needs. Without that you will not see any unit appear.

</quote>

 

The controller is lacking a critical piece of functionality, which is REQURIED for OpenVMS (either Alpha or Itanium) to use any disks on that SAN controller.

 

You could try to find an Alpha or VAX emulator, which supports this DS2400 SAN controller and configure it to run OpenVMS and MSCP-serve the disks to your Itanium. Or connect this controller to any other operating system, which supports it and access the disks via NFS.

 

Volker.

Jansen_8
Regular Advisor

Re: problem configuring fiber channels

Volker,

 

ofcourse I understand that the hardware I have is not supportded, but Jur suggests in his comment that the software he just wrote for an Alpha-simulation should also work for a simillar controller I use.

 

                     Jouk

Volker Halle
Honored Contributor

Re: problem configuring fiber channels

Jouk,

 

Jur is working on an Alpha emulator.

 

http://www.avtware.com/

 

You could buy that emulator, once the version supporting the 'virtual Fibre Channel adapter' has been released and then use that Alpha emulator to run OpenVMS Alpha in a cluster with your Itanium systems and MSCP-serve the disks from your DS2400.

 

But what Jur is working on will not help you for OpenVMS I64.

 

There may also be other VAX or Alpha emulators, which may support LUNs on that DS2400 (check FreeAXP or PersonalAlpha, maybe even simh). The operating system running 'below' those emulator must be able to access the LUNs on the DS2400 and must also be able to present them in a useable fashion to the operating system running on top of the emulator.

 

Volker.

Jansen_8
Regular Advisor

Re: problem configuring fiber channels

OK, understood

 

I'll try to find a machine running some OS to which one of the FC cards fits that I have on stock. abnd than try some alpha emulation.

 

                      Jouk