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Re: Find if my system is Local o SAN (remotely)

 
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KarloChacon
Honored Contributor

Find if my system is Local o SAN (remotely)

hi

I just got some linux servers that I have to manage remotely

I want to know if the linux Red hat is installed on Local Hard Drive or if the OS is installed on SAN, either OS or data how can I find where the data is/was installed

fdisk -l does not mention type o storage...
any other idea

thanks
Didn't your momma teach you to say thanks!
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Matti_Kurkela
Honored Contributor
Solution

Re: Find if my system is Local o SAN (remotely)

You left out the RedHat version, which would be kind of important to know in this case. Mainly I'd like to know if the system has kernel 2.6.*, 2.4.*, or something even older, as the jump from 2.4.* series to 2.6.* brought some major changes in the storage subsystem.

I'm going to assume 2.6.* kernel unless you tell me otherwise.

If your system uses LVM, multipathing or any other advanced storage features, you must first find out how they map to base disk devices (/dev/sd*, /dev/hd* or /dev/cciss/*). Depending on exactly what features are used, "dmsetup ls --tree" and/or "cat /proc/mdstat" may be useful here.

If you see /dev/cciss, you have a SmartArray RAID controller. Use the SmartArray tools to get more information. The "show config detail" command in the recent hpacucli versions is pretty useful here.

With /dev/sd* or /dev/hd*, take a peek to the /sys virtual filesystem.

For example, to find out what kind of device is /dev/sda, run "ls -ld /sys/block/sda/device". The output will be something like this (example from my home PC):
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2009-12-09 07:10 device -> ../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1f.2/host0/target0:0:0/0:0:0:0

Now run "lspci" and find out what type of device is 0000:00:1f.2:

lspci -v -s 0000:00:1f.2

00:1f.2 RAID bus controller: Intel Corporation 82801 SATA RAID Controller (rev 02)
Subsystem: ABIT Computer Corp. Device 1084

Hmm, a SATA RAID controller, apparently integrated to the motherboard. That's a local disk, then!

If you find e.g. an iSCSI or a FibreChannel HBA in this way, you'll know the disks are at least a bit more remote. But is it a SAN or just a local FC-attached disk box?

"cat /proc/scsi/scsi" or the nice RHEL 5 command "lsscsi" may provide more clues. Something like "Vendor: EMC Model: SYMMETRIX" is definitely SAN hardware.

MK
MK
KarloChacon
Honored Contributor

Re: Find if my system is Local o SAN (remotely)

thanks a lot
it is red hat Ent 5.0
Didn't your momma teach you to say thanks!