Please Read, Important Readme file for IBM 3526 Fibre Channel RAID Controller Unit Last update: 06/14/99 NVRAM User Configuration Area This area is used to make changes that might be required by a user to satisfy different Operating environments. The primary command used to do this is NVUTIL. The format of the command is available through HELP. ( e.g. HELP NVUTIL) This and other commands should be run from the directory where the Symplicity software is installed. To get the name of a controller to insert as a parameter in the command you can use the command LAD. Go to a DOS prompt in NT (or Win95 if using Networked RAID Manager from a Windows 95 client) and issue the following: lad The output's first field returned is the device name. Now using nvutil -o offset devicename -Where offset is the hexadecimal location you want to display and devicename is the first field from the LAD output. e.g. nvutil -o 11 would display the byte at offset hex 11 in user configuration space. To modify location hex 11 on the Controller Unit with the name drive1 to 00 nvutil -o 24=00 drive1 Note: If you leave off the device name and you have several controller units that you are managing with Networked RAID Manager, all controllers in all controller units will have the byte at offset 24 set to 00. This type of modification might be used if you are using SCO UnixWare 7 or Netware and want only those LUNs that you actually have to be displayed in the initial scan. With the bytes at location x11 and x24 (x = hex) set to the default ship value of 00, NT, SCO, and Netware work properly but SCO and Netware will show more LUNs in their scan than you actually present. You will only be able to use the real ones and will get an error if you try use the others. This is not normally a concern but is presented for those who might like to change this behavior. By changing offset x24 to x7F, you will only see the actual LUNs. An example of what you would see in the scan for this case with the default values is in order. If you have 1 Controller unit with dual controllers and each controller is in active mode with controller A having 2 LUNs and controller B having 1 LUN then when controller A is interrogated, it will report that it has 2 LUNs. It will also report that it sees 1 LUN on controller B. So the OS (SCO or Netware) will then show 3 LUNs for this. When controller B is asked, it will report its one LUN and 2 for controller A. This again is 3 to the OS. In the system scan report there will be 6 LUNs reported. Once you have defined the real drives to the OS such as SDIADD in SCO, then there would not be any confusion after that. NOTE: Do not change the values from 00 for an NT host. You may need to set offset 0x1c to hex a4 for SCO. For more information please refer to the website. There are other values in nvram that can be used to tune performance and function for many applications. This information will be made available separately on the website. Helpful Hints When entering command line commands or doing a HELP on a command, change to the directory where Symplicity is installed. The default would be \Program files\symsm for Native Sympicity and \program files\netsymsm for the Networked version. There is a connector on the back of the Controller Unit above the serial connectors labeled UPS/GPIO. This connector is used for UPS support. More information will be available at a later date to describe the settings and support for this. Please check the website for this information. If for some reason you are installing Symplicity on an NT server that does not have the Network software installed yet, you need to modifiy the RMSCRIPT.BAT file in the symsm (or netsymsm) directory to comment out the "sendtrap %1" statement. This will prevent the SENDTRAP error message. See the publications to read about the purpose of the RMSCRIPT file. If you are removing the subsystem from service, it is strongly recommended that the configuration be removed from the disk drives. This can be done by using a 'Reset Configuration' option to delete the configuration information on the drives. This will leave you with the default LUN 0 which you then should delete. Shutdown the controller(s) and drives and remove the drives. Do not restart the controllers again with the drives attached as this will create the default LUN 0 again. In addition to the possible cases of accidentally removing or failing a good drive you should also be aware that this procedure to revive the drive (see Symplicity Storage Manager User's Handbook in the chapter on Recovery Options and the section Manual Recovery Options) may need to be used on a drive where automatic copyback from a hotspare did not occur. Windows NT support for greater than 8 LUNs To properly configure for this support there have been several files added to the CD. Do the following things to ensure that everything is configured properly: *****This support Requires NT Service Pack 5***** - Change to the 32LUN subdirectory on the Netfinity Fiber Channel RAID Support CD - Run the 32LUN.bat batch file from a MSDOS command prompt in NT This will check for Service Pack 5 update necessary parameters indicate that the process has completed indicate that you need to reboot Note: You can not easily go back to earlier than Service Pack 5 after this. Note: If Service Pack 5 is reinstalled or the Fibre Channel PCI Adapter device driver is changed or Symplicity Storage Manager is reinstalled, you must go through the above procedure again. Important Information Regarding Microsoft (TM) Cluster Server Environments When implementing clustering environments, The NVSRAM user configuration on each RAID module needs to be altered as follows: Offset Bit Should be Purpose ------ ---- ---------- --------------------------------------------------------- 0x28 0x08 0x00 (off) Turn off Network Enable Bit (required for clustering) This change can be implemented by passing a pre-configured .def file to the nvutil utility. This file is located in the \lib subdirectory of the product installation directory. The following command will accomplish this change (enter it from the product installation directory, e.g., C:\program files\symsm): nvutil -vf -n lib\netwrkoff.def When implementing clustering environments, it is important that you do NOT set a preferred owner for either the cluster group or the quorum resource. If you need to shutdown either server in a clustered environment, you MUST transfer all resources from that node, to the node which is to remain online BEFORE invoking shutdown. If you are installing software on a machine in a production clustered environment, be aware of the potential for the installation process to automatically shutdown or reboot the machine. Ensure that all resources are transferred away from the machine on which software is being installed, if the possibility exists that the installation will reset the machine. Stop Clustering Service on the server to be shutdown. If you have a module which has been configured for use in a clustering environment, and you wish to install it in a non-clustering environment, you must change this setting back to its' default value, which is: Offset Bit Should be Purpose ------ ---- ---------- --------------------------------------------------------- 0x28 0x08 0x08 (on) Turn on Network Enable Bit (required for networked storage manager) This change can be implemented by passing a pre-configured .def file to the nvutil utility. This file is located in the \lib subdirectory of the product installation directory. The following command will accomplish this change (enter it from the product installation directory, e.g., C:\program files\symsm): nvutil -vf -n lib\netwrkon.def Creating 30-Drive RAID level 1 Drive Groups The Configuration utility shipped as a component of Symplicity Storage Manager defaults to a 20 drive maximum but the button can be used to raise this to a maximum of 30. If you would like to do this from a command line, you can use the RAIDUTIL utility. The following example assumes that LUN 0 (if it existed) has been destroyed, and that we are creating a new LUN 0 on 30 drives across 6 drive channels, using the drives corresponding to SCSI ID's 0, 1, 2, 8, and 9, on each drive channel. raidutil -c Drive8 -l 1 -n 0 -r med -s 0 -z 32 -g 10,20,30,40,50,60,18,28,38,48,58,68,11,21,31,41,51,61,19,29,39,49,59,69,12,22,32,42,52,62 Explanation of command line parameters in the given example: -c Drive8 This parameter indicates the NT-specific name of the RAID controller which is to carry out the creation of the LUN. The actual name may vary from one system to another, and may be determined via the Module Information button on any of the Symplicity Storage Manager graphical utilities, or by invoking the lad command line utility. -l 1 This indicates the RAID level (in this case, level 1) of the LUN and the drive group to be created. -n 0 This indicates the LUN number to be created. In this case, we are creating LUN 0. -r med This sets the reconstruction rate for the LUN being created. The 'med' setting (medium) indicates that the array driver is to wait 0.2 seconds after every 512 KB of reconstruction. -s 0 Indicates that a maximum size LUN is to be created - i.e., the LUN will consume all of the usable space in the drive group. -z 32 Sets the segment size for the LUN. The segment size is the number of contiguous blocks written to a single drive before writing to the next drive in the LUN. -g 10,20,30, ... ,62 Indicates to raidutil, which of the drives in the array are to be used in the creation of the LUN and drive group. The first digit of each number indicates the drive channel; thus, we are creating drives across drive channels 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. The second digit indicates the SCSI ID of the drive, within the drive channel. In this example, we are asking for drives 0, 8, 1, 9, and 2, on each of the drive channels. Before running this command, ensure that appropriate available space exists on the selected drives. If you are creating LUN 0, you must first delete the existing LUN 0, and you must not reboot or power cycle the host system or RAID controllers between deleting the LUN and running the command. Doing so will cause the creation of a new default LUN 0. More information regarding these and other settings for the raidutil command line utility may be obtained by entering the following at the command line, within the product installation directory: help raidutil