RAID/Mirror Controller Firmware Question

[ponetguy2]

I need to upgrade the firmware on one of my controllers (c3t5d0). The other
controller is c2t5d0 and has a higher firmware level than c3t5d0. Do both of them
need to be on thesame frimware level if I'm going to mirror them?


Both controllers are connected to a A1000.
The host is a V480 running Solaris 9.

Here is the output from raidutil -c blah -i:

# raidutil -c c3t5d0 -i
LUNs found on c3t5d0.
LUN 0 RAID 0 0 MB

Vendor ID Symbios
ProductID StorEDGE A1000
Product Revision 0205
Boot Level 03.01.02.33
Boot Level Date 06/16/99
Firmware Level 03.01.02.35
Firmware Date 08/12/99
raidutil succeeded!

# raidutil -c c2t5d0 -i
LUNs found on c2t5d0.
LUN 0 RAID 0 69967 MB
LUN 1 RAID 0 69967 MB
LUN 2 RAID 1 69967 MB
LUN 3 RAID 1 69967 MB
LUN 4 RAID 1 69967 MB
LUN 5 RAID 0 69967 MB
LUN 6 RAID 0 69967 MB

Vendor ID Symbios
ProductID StorEDGE A1000
Product Revision 0003
Boot Level 03.01.04.00
Boot Level Date 04/05/01
Firmware Level 03.01.04.81
Firmware Date 10/17/03
raidutil succeeded!

Here are the current firmware that I have:

# ls -l
total 11368
-rw-r--r-- 1 bin bin 191772 Jun 16 1997 02040100.fcd
-rw-r--r-- 1 bin bin 524416 Jul 24 1997 02040400.bwd
-rw-r--r-- 1 bin bin 1036876 Sep 15 1997 02040401.apd
-rw-r--r-- 1 bin bin 1336672 Jun 22 1999 02050632.apd
-rw-r--r-- 1 bin bin 524416 Jun 22 1999 02050632.bwd
-rw-r--r-- 1 bin bin 532136 Jun 22 1999 03010233.bwd
-rw-r--r-- 1 bin bin 1546108 Aug 12 1999 03010235.apd
-rw-r--r-- 1 bin bin 2258 Aug 13 1999 default.def
-rw-r--r-- 1 bin bin 33628 Aug 13 1999 fwcompat.def
# pwd
/usr/lib/osa/fw

 

[cndcadams]

ponetguy2;

I am a little confused, you say you need to update your controllers which are attached to your A1000's?

Are you sure you do not mean that you need to update the A1000 controller.

If you are going to mirror these I would suggest that you do have the same firmware levels. The firmware is basically a patch to take care of bugs. The update should be done before the mirroring to ensure that everyting is working correctly before you put the effort into mirroring.

If I was going to relate this to anything ?I would say an A3500 which has qty 2 contollers hooked up to 5 d1000 running rm6.22.1. You have to run the same firmware levels or you run into many problems.

This is only an opinion since I do not have qty 2 A1000 mirrored in house.

Thanks
CA

 

[ponetguy2]

I'm sorry, I meant to say that I need to update the A1000 controller. Currently, we have two controllers on a v480 and each controller is connected to a a1000.

I did some research and you are right cndcadams, the firmware needs to be identical on both controllers in order to take advantage of redundancy and autosync (controller firmware)feature.

to get more information, man rdac_address and look-up /etc/raid/rdac_address. I'm still trying to figure this out. If anyone has done this before, please post.

I will keep this thread updated with what I've found.

Bellow, one will find my current settings. I need to figure out how to assign controller b to blah_002.

# rdacutil -i blah_001

blah_001: single-controller
Active controller a (c2t5d0) units: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6

rdacutil succeeded!
# rdacutil -i blah_002

blah_002: single-controller
Active controller a (c3t5d0) units: 0

rdacutil succeeded!

 

[alray]

Whatever you do make sure you update the firmware using the RM6 GUI. If you use the CLI to do it and it goes wrong you will blow the controller and need to get a replacement, I know, I speak from experience.

Ray

Even a bad day at the races is better than a good day at the office.

 

[ponetguy2]

As much as I want to use the GUI, it is not an option.

What I am planning on doing is to install the latest version of RM6 on a ultra 5 and get the firmware from there. Is this a good idea?

I tried installing patch 112126-09, but it fails. Either I have an incompatible patch or 112126-09 is dependent on another patch. I tried installing this patch in increments. Here are the patches I tried to install:

112126-01.zip
112126-03.zip
112126-04.zip
112126-05.zip
112126-06.zip
112126-09.zip

Unfortunately, none of the patches would install.

Please help!!!

 

[KenCunningham]

What error messages are you getting when the patches fail?

 

[ponetguy2]

Thank you KenCunningham,

Here is the output:


# patchadd 112126-01

Checking installed patches...
One or more patch packages included in
112126-01 are not installed on this system.

Patchadd is terminating.

 

[kHz]

The patch you are installing has been obsoleted by 112126-03.

 

[ponetguy2]

I tried install 112126-03, but it still fails. I tried skipping all the patches all the way to 112126-09, but no luck either.

i'm trying to get to Firmware Level 03.01.04.81 for both conrollers on my a1000. i have no idea how to get this firmware. i've googled and searched sun's website, but still no luck.

# patchadd 112126-03

Checking installed patches...
One or more patch packages included in
112126-03 are not installed on this system.

Patchadd is terminating.


# patchadd 112126-09

Checking installed patches...
One or more patch packages included in
112126-09 are not installed on this system.

Patchadd is terminating.

 

[kHz]

This is taken from the patch notes:
If the raid controller firmware version is not 03.01.04.75 or greater, the firmware in this patch must be loaded by using the RM6 maintenance application before actually using the arrays.

 

[Annihilannic]

The reason the patches are failing is because the package the patch is 'fixing' is not installed. Look in one of the patch directories for the package name(s), usually SUNWwxyz or similar, and you'll probably find that you don't have that on your system (query with pkginfo -l SUNWwxyz).

Annihilannic.

 

[kHz]

I am not sure why you are updating the firmware. Unless you have a specific bug you are trying to fix or trying to correct performance problems, etc., then why?

I know originally you asked if you had to because of mirroring but the SVM (if that is what you are using) wouldn't care what firmware level is on the disks.

Should firmware be equal everywhere, yes. But if it hasn't ever caused a problem before, then what is driving this now?

 

[ponetguy2]

I want both controllers to be on the same firmware version, because in page 146 of Storedge RAID Manager 6.22 User's Guide, they recommend that a redundant pair of controllers need to be on thesame firmware version.

Is this true?

 

[ponetguy2]

did i misunderstand the doc? maybe the firmware on both of my a1000 do not need to have thesame firmware version. both a1000 are connected to thesame hosts.

 

[cndcadams]

ponetguy2;

A couple things;

If the Doc says you should have the same firmware then it should have the same firmware expecially if you are trying to mirror the units. Unless you like to gamble.


Also you asked about seeing a single controller;

your earlier post said;

Below, one will find my current settings. I need to figure out how to assign controller b to blah_002.

# rdacutil -i blah_001

blah_001: single-controller
Active controller a (c2t5d0) units: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6

rdacutil succeeded!
# rdacutil -i blah_002

blah_002: single-controller
Active controller a (c3t5d0) units: 0

rdacutil succeeded!

Answer;

Well I found a doc that shows how to daisy chain the units together so this may accomplish what you are looking for.
805-2624-12. My only problem with the doc is they show a scsi cable going from the host to 1 of the A1000 then a daisy chain to the other A1000 then termination. If you were looking for true fault tolerance then I would think you would want 2 scsi controllers 1 hooked to one unit and the other hooked to the other. I am not sure if this is possible with the A1000's?

Hopefully the unit you are working on is not in production because you may have to play with things to get everything set up the best way.

As far as your firmware issue do you know what version of RM6 you are using? pkginfo -l | grep RM6* or just pkginfo -l | more and look for rm6 package. You may not have the correct version of rm6 for the patch you are trying to load.

Thanks

CA

 

[huebs]

The statement in the manual regarding "... a redundant pair of controllers ..." probably means the A3500 with two builtin controllers (wich is managed with RM6 too). The A1000 always has just one controller ...

 

[ponetguy2]

We ordered another another scsi controller for the V480. we will have two a1000s, each connected to a separate scsi controller on thesame hosts (v480).

Each a1000 has 12 72G HDs. This is our plan for each disk on the A1000:


/u01 -- no stripe, 1 disk, 70 GB.
/u02 -- no stripe, 1 disk, 70 GB.
/u03 -- striped, 2 disks, 140 GB.
/u04 -- striped, 2 disks, 140 GB.
/u05 -- striped, 2 disks, 140 GB.
/u06 -- no stripe, 1 disk, 70 GB.
/u07 -- no stripe, 1 disk, 70 GB.

We will mirror this to the second a1000.

Please forgive me for my lack of knowledge w/ disk arrays and disksuite. i'm still new to this technology. i never had to do this from my last job.

 

[cndcadams]

ponetguy2;

Ok so you are going to use disk suite, that clears up a couple things for me. I forgot to ask that in my last post.

As huebs points out and my experience the redundant array controllers refer to the A3500 units.

did you find out what version of rm6 you have?

Basically all you need to do is build the luns on the A1000's using rm6 then use disk suite to do your mirroring. I would make sure you solve your firmware issue first. Again I think your patch issue is do to an older version of RM6 that may not include packages that the patch is looking for.

Also why is the gui for rm6 not an option as you previously posted?

Thanks

CA

 

[ponetguy2]

we are running rm 6.2 and we've decided to disregard the firmware issue where they need to have identical versions on both a1000 controllers.

my boss configured the luns on both a1000s and mirrored one a1000 to the other a1000 w/ solaris voume manager. we are pressed for time so, we just moved forward w/ this little project.

i have no idea why they are soooo against on using rm6 gui. if it was up to me, i'd use the gui until we are more comfortable with the a1000 technology and command line, but i have no say.

we do not have the luxury of testing it first before going into production. i do not agree with this, but i don't have a choice. i'm still new here and i just go with the flow.

 

[cndcadams]

ponetguy2;

This is the way with most companies anyways. The firmware is mostly for bug issues which as we all know you can have a hundred systems configured the same and only 1 will experience the bug. Most likely you won't experience an issue except drive failures at some point. I have replaced many 18 and 36gb drives for both the A1000 and D1000 systems. When I worked for Sun reman we had thousands of bad drives. Anyways just go with the flow brother, you stay under the radar that way.

Good Luck

CA