FC 4500 FCLI / Navisphere please help 1

[mjb23]

OK I heard these machines were great for small shops that need to self maintain them. Personally I don't think so since I am probably going to be working all weekend on this little @&*#%#.
The Situation
This setup was existing when I came into the department. HPUX L class server connected to a FC4500 via fiber. There is a fault light on the DPE and the rear battery is faulted. The rear battery has been replaced. I purchased a used one (EMC is no help) and it is still faulted. I also am unable to see all of the disks on SPa and they are now seen on SPb. Previous admin were using a laptop with Navisphere connected to the system to check for errors. This had been lost for a while and when it returned there were no cables,no settings. According to them they used to connect to the SP with a lan cable and run navisphere.
The Question
Is there anyway for me to connect this laptop running navisphere to the laptop and see if there are any errors? If not can I use the FCLI option. I followed a previous thread and got all the way to where the flare started but it did not come up to an FCLI prompt. What did I miss? I should not need to use FCLI but I am williing to in order to find out what the fault is.

 

[maultier]

Let's assume that the laptop is running Navi 4.3. You have the choice of hooking up via the lan port or the serial port in your situation. (If you are running a higher revision, there will be some differences the procedure).

You select the method of connection by running the navi agent configurator. I am going to assume you don't have the ip address of the lan port and talk about serial connection.

For the serial port to work, you need a null modem cable connected to COM1 of the laptop and the serial port on the array (has a monitor icon). The com setup is usually 19.2, 8bit, 1 stop and no parity.

You should not start navi mgr or supvr until the agent has started. A pop box will advise you when the agent has started. There are icons in the agent gui to start and stop the agent. It may take thirty minutes to start the agent on the serial port depending on the number of events you are retrieving. I usually start with 100 and the agent starts within ten minutes. If you get 'no managed devices', check your cable config and try the other sp's port. Also make sure you don't have the laptop screen saver engaged.

If you don't have navi agent configurator, look for the agent.config file and you'll see where the device is selected in that file. Just edit so that the device selected is COM1. The agent will need to be stopped and started after the edit either thru the navi agent configurator or thru the windows services.

From what you describe it sounds as if an sp failed (in addition to the problem with the sps). The SP may have failed due to a back end issue, a dimm problem or a hardware problem with the sp itself. The Clariion will recycle the failing sp to try to correct the problem. When that happens disks are trespassed to the working sp. If you have failover software installed, you can try restoring the path to get the disks back to the proper sp. It is altogether possible that the sp panic'd and recovered and all you need to do is restore the path.

Good luck.

 

[maultier]

Just fyi...
The paths will automatically restore if you power cycle the Clariion.

Prior to recycling the Clariion, I would strongly suggest that you get Navisphere Mger or Supervisor connected and turn off Write Caching to prevent data loss in the event there's a problem that is not evident on the second sps. Write cache settings can be accessed from the storage tab... right click on the top of the tree, select properties.

 

[mjb23]

First let me say thanks for the help Maultier. I was able to connect to SPb with hyperterminal but not SPa. So in a moment of anger and frustration and with out having proper manuals. I yanked it out and stuck in another one from another unused system. Same p/n, and dimm setup but could otherwise be completly different for all I know. Now I can connect to both a and b with HT. I ran LS and it showed all luns owned by current SP as ENA and RDY for those on other SP. Then started server. By the time I came back to the Clariion and ran LS again some luns normally owned by SPa said RDY* and are now on SPb.

Any idea what could have caused this? Keep in mind I still seem to have an SPS problem with the one connected to SPa.

Was there some code or firmware on the SP that I should have copied. Or are you supposed to just pull it out and stick the new one in?

Also any idea where I can find info on proper replacement procedures for this thing, other then the greedy OEM? I may also be interested in contracting out the maintenance to someone other then EMC if the price is reasonable. Or we will need to send some personnel for training. Do you know any companies that provide training or maintenance on this system?

I still can't get there wonderful little Navisphere software to work but I do have an IP address for the SP's. When I open Navi configurator it always says not devices being managed. Either thru com1 or lan cable.

 

[maultier]

There are a ton of questons there.
The sp is designed to be replaced hot. The Clariion should detect the new sp and load the proper code.
The sps is not causing the lun ownership problem. The Clariion will run on just one sp... The sps is there to protect write cache. As long as you have one viable sps, the Clariion should function. Even if both sps's are faulted the clariion will still operate but without write cache.
The RDY status is assigned to a lun that is that is owned by the other sp. ENA is assigned to luns owned by the sp you are looking at.
I know you've been doing some experimenting there. So.. the 'no devices managed' could be induced. The sp will give you this message if you pull the serial plug without stopping the agent first. The only way to clear it is to remove / insert the sp or power cycle the clariion. Always stop the agent before removing the serial plug.
Maintenance options:

http://www.parkplaceintl.com/

is the only one that comes to mind immediately. You might run across Computer Engineering Assoc (CEA) but I do not recommend them. QualxServ and Unisys may provide service as well.
As far as the luns trespassing.. it doesn't have to be caused by a failed sp.. it could be the lcc, cable, controller.etc...

 

[squiddog]

FYI, the ethernet port on the FC4500 is useless. You can set an IP address on it, and it's listening on telnet, but you don't have access to full FCLI from telnet. And Navisphere won't talk to it via ethernet either.

--
Bill Plein
a.k.a. squiddog
Contact me at

http://squadengine.com

 

[maultier]

You can set Navi to engineering mode and manage the array thru the lan port that way. All you have to do is select lan and put in the ip.

 

[squiddog]

Maultier-

Wow, that's a surprise. My FC4500 didn't even listen on the TCP ports used by Navisphere. In engineering mode, does it use other ports? Because there is no agent running on an FC4500.

Let me know how to do it, and I might sell my FC4700 and go back to my FC4500 for my personal array in my house!



--
Bill Plein
a.k.a. squiddog
Contact me at

http://squadengine.com

 

[POPKORN]

squiddog,

Just to let you know, you probably have the same problem I have. its probably running telnet on port 23 and management on 2918. Reason is your using a nre version of navi that uses 2162/2163.

you might want to read my post as it has detailed info about this problem.

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1106466&page=1

POPKORN

 

[squiddog]

POPKORN-

The FC4500 doesn't HAVE an agent on it. You don't talk to it directly. What you are describing as a "problem" is a problem of misusing the tools at your disposal. There isn't a "version of NAVI that uses 2162". Let's clear things up and then you can move forward.

The FC4700 was the first FC series to have it's own agent. That's because it runs a full blown OS on the processor cards, not a slimmed down array OS. Maultier is describing a technique to point an AGENT at the IP port the same way you would use serial. Since my FC4500 is idle and not powered up, I haven't tried it.

As far as I've ever known, Navisphere ALWAYS works like this:

Navisphere GUI-or-CLI ---> Navisphere Agent ---> Array

On the FC4700 and later, the Agent runs INSIDE the array. But prior to that, you needed an Agent on a host, and that host would talk (usually over FC) to the array.

The standard way to manage an FC4500 is have a host directly attached to it (FC) and run a Navi Agent on that host. Then point Navi GUI at the agent.

--
Bill Plein
a.k.a. squiddog
Contact me at

http://squadengine.com

 

[POPKORN]

THanks for the clarification squiddog, It makes more scense now.

So what you are saying is that the server or workstation that is directly connected to the array via fibre channel card should have the agent installed on it and then the gui can be installed on any machine and point it to the workstation or server that is directly attached to the raid?

is that correct?

second question . Can the agent and management gui be in the same machine and if they are to what ip do you point the gui after you start the start.htm in the managementUI 127.0.0.1?

last question, the ether port of the FC4400 is listening to port 23 for telnet which i can log in but what is that other port 2162 that it listens to? is an old navi gui needed for this? maybe the old ones used to listen to this port but I am not sure, I am just guessing that one.

Thanks in advance.

POPKORN

P.S. I Apologise if anyones considers this hijacking a thread, I dont think I am but my apologies just in case.

 

[squiddog]

Popkorn-

Regarding the GUI and the agent, yes. Navisphere GUI is different depending on if you are running 5.x vs 6.x. The latter is a web-based GUI and you would add a "Portal" which is your host running the agent. In 5.x, you simply enter your agent IP into a dialogue it provides, and the agent proxies your requests to the array.

I have no idea what 2162 is for, but if I am reading Maultier correct, it may be something like a serial-over-IP connection, that may are may not be full features. I've spoken to people who work at EMC and were support and also development engineers going back to the FC4500 days and before, and they frankly can't recall anyone ever using that port. It doesn't mean it's not usable, it's just hard to get good info on how to use it these days.

--
Bill Plein
a.k.a. squiddog
Contact me at

http://squadengine.com

 

[POPKORN]

Thanks a million Squiddog,


I guess I am going to return this unit as it it not what I wanted it for the intentions needed. Never the less the price I paid for it it is not worth it. Thank GOD I know the owner of the shop and he will not have any issues taking this one back as I have purchased from him so many over the years.

POPKORN

 

[squiddog]

Next time, beware before you jump into purchases like this. Arrays aren't simply convertible to NAS. If they are an array, they are an array, and except for some high end that have iSCSI or NAS ports, a block storage array is simply a block storage array. You will find that there are NAS and iSCSI arrays out there, but they are usually built from the ground up that way. And only a few are "convertible" by adding big-$$$ add-on ports/cards/controllers.

If you want FC5400 pricing and NAS, it's often best to place a quality server in front of it and use the server as a file server. It may not meet high end availability needs, but it's good enough for many organizations. You will usually pay a huge increase to go from an FC5400 to an IP4700, and unless you have an EMC contract, you may very well struggle with the IP4700 and have little recourse if it breaks.

Best of luck.

--
Bill Plein
a.k.a. squiddog
Contact me at

http://squadengine.com

 

[POPKORN]

Thanks a lot, I guess the best course of action will be to add more drives to the FC5600. We have a Sun E450 Quod 450Mhz with 4 gig ram on it. The unit has 30 drives and we have 2 spare empty DAE's so we will buy more drives for it and change the network card on the E450 to Gige and buy a cisco Gige switch as well and that should belp a lot with the bottle neck then.

Thank you for your advise. I fugured that a move to am IP4700 would be just too much costly for our budget plus we would definalty need a better service contract and it would just be out of reach.

Thanks once more.


POPKORN

 

[squiddog]

Contact me (see my sig), I might be able to help you upgrade your systems. Where are you located?

--
Bill Plein
a.k.a. squiddog
Contact me at

http://squadengine.com