108.bz » FC http://www.108.bz Wandering futilities... Fri, 27 May 2011 09:08:43 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.1 The offline ACU CD http://www.108.bz/posts/it/the-offline-acu-cd/ http://www.108.bz/posts/it/the-offline-acu-cd/#comments Fri, 28 May 2010 10:03:12 +0000 Giuliano http://www.108.bz/?p=504 Well hidden in their labyrinthian web site, you may stumble upon HP’s “Array Configuration Utility (ACU) Offline CD for Smart Array”. A plain bootable CD, useful when ACU simply can’t be installed on the server/OS.
Example: I needed to tweak SSP (Selective Storage Presentation) settings on an MSA1000, connected through Fiber Channel HBAs (QLogic) to some rather old HP DL580 G2. The servers were running VMware ESX 3i 3.5.0 build-207095 (the latest one compatibile with those kind of CPUs) with no management agents installed. Since the MSA1000 can only be managed “in-band” or via a non standard serial cable the Customer, of course, lost long ago, I rebooted an ESX host with the offline ACU CD…
Before that, I also tried a standard SmartStart CD, but it didn’t work. I had version 7.80 (way younger than the servers/HBAs), but no link lights on the FC switch, meaning no firmware loaded on the QLogic card, meaning no SmartStart supported HBA drivers. Offline ACU CD version 8.20.19 worked like a charm instead. Find its latest release by searching “array configuration utility” on hp.com, clicking on “Download software”, then “Linux GUI ACU”. Download link is somewhere in that page…

]]> http://www.108.bz/posts/it/the-offline-acu-cd/feed/ 0 FC Zone Merge http://www.108.bz/posts/it/fc-zone-merge/ http://www.108.bz/posts/it/fc-zone-merge/#comments Fri, 25 Dec 2009 17:02:33 +0000 Giuliano http://www.108.bz/?p=24 We need to migrate some data (VMware volumes, Oracle RAC diskgroups, …) from the “old” SAN infrastructure, to the “new” one. When we’re done, the old SAN disk space will be repurposed and used for storing backups, etc. To achieve these goals, we need to connect together both Fibre Channel environments. As usual, a SAN is designed with an even number of switches and comprise two distinct fabrics.

Old: Two (IBM rebranded, rack mounted) Brocade switches, Fabric OS v3.1.1b
New: Two (IBM rebranded, sitting in an IBM blade chassis) Brocade switches, Fabric OS v6.1.1d

First thing to do, is connect each old switch to its new twin. An ISL for each switch couple is needed. Being “Brocade on Brocade”, setting up the ISL is no big deal, just leave the ports in Auto mode, they will negotiate the speed and become E-port(s) all by themselves.

So far so good, but to have something working at all, we need to take care of merging Zone information between old and new. Without that, the switches won’t let packets flow through the ISL, complaining about e.g. “port 17, Zone conflict“.

Zone conflict basically means that an “object” (alias, zone, config, …) on switch new, hasn’t got the exact same definition on switch old. It means that we have to somehow import old Zoning info into the new switches. The complete Zoning info, even aliases that don’t belong specifically to the new environment.

And I was about to forget: give your switches each a different FC Domain ID. The one with the lowest ID will be deemed as “Principal” for the fabric it sits in.

Back to the merge, the quickest way to do it is:

  • Download the old switch configuration to your PC, via the GUI or the CLI (configDownload command).
  • The configuration is a mere text file, snip everything from it but the “[Zoning]” section:
    [Zoning]
    cfg.SANCFG:Z_HOST40;Z_ORACLE1;Z_HOST01;Z_HOST02;Z_ORACLE2;Z_HOST03
    zone.Z_ORACLE1:SERV_ORACLE1;ARRAY_CTRL_A;ARRAY_CTRL_B
    zone.Z_ORACLE2:ARRAY_CTRL_A;ARRAY_CTRL_B;SERV_ORACLE2
    zone.Z_HOST01:ARRAY_CTRL_B;ARRAY_CTRL_A;SRV_HOST01
    zone.Z_HOST02:ARRAY_CTRL_A;ARRAY_CTRL_B;SRV_HOST02
    zone.Z_HOST03:ARRAY_CTRL_A;ARRAY_CTRL_B;SRV_HOST03
    zone.Z_HOST40:SRV_HOST40;ARRAY_CTRL_A;ARRAY_CTRL_B
    alias.ARRAY_CTRL_A:1,1
    alias.ARRAY_CTRL_B:1,2
    alias.SERV_ORACLE1:1,6
    alias.SERV_ORACLE2:1,3
    alias.SRV_HOST01:1,7
    alias.SRV_HOST02:1,0
    alias.SRV_HOST03:1,4
    alias.SRV_HOST40:1,5
    enable:SANCFG
  • WARNING: Don’t take the above naming convention as good practice, it is not! Also, I won’t really suggest to use port-based zoning, as in the example…
  • Upload the modified text file (containing nothing else than the “[Zoning]” section on the new switch (configUpload command). Fabric OS will leave untouched the remaining parts of the configuration (thank goodness!) and just update the Zoning info.
  • The switches should now Zone merge nicely and you can modify the active Zone Config from either one of them (switch A will see the ports/WWNs connected to switch B).

That’s it, it worked for me…

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