Howto: Assign LUNS on brocade 2800

[progless]

I have 32 LUNS on a storage device.
I need to give individual hosts direct access to their own LUNS.
Many of these hosts will also have access to a few other storage devices on the FC network. However, my main purpose right now is to give each host it's own LUN/Storage.

On an older Brocade 2800 running 2.2.1, what commands do I use to;

1: View the multiple LUNS on a storage device connected to a port

2: Assign one or more of those LUNS to one of more hosts on other ports.

Thank you kindly.

Mike

 

[RMGBELGIUM]

A switch does not show luns,it shows WWPN of devices that are attached.You will have to set up zoning ( soft or hard ) to make the luns presented by the storage visible to your hosts

rgds,

R.

 

[Breslau]

You won't be handing out LUNs at the switch, that's done on the disk controller. You can however use the switch to zone the HBA with the fibre channel port of the disk controller you want it to talk to. not totally necessary in order to function as long as you can control LUN access at the disk controller, but advisable if you have a mixed un*x/windoze environment using this system.

i'm not familiar with that level of fabric OS, but if it supports zoning you may have to have a license to use it, otherwise it's a moot point.

 

[progless]

>A switch does not show luns,it shows WWPN of devices that >are attached.You will have to set up zoning ( soft or >hard ) to make the luns presented by the storage visible >to your hosts

I understand this and is exactly what I am planning. However, it is not clear to me how one protects hosts from seeing other hosts LUNS. I see the storage device as one WWPN but it has multiple LUNS. The hosts can see all of the LUNS and this is where I need the protection of course, so that hosts can only see which ever LUN they are assigned.

How do I do this?

Mike

 

[progless]

The question I am asking is specifically brocade. How do I zone for this on the brocade. I've read endless materials but cannot see how you zone a LUN to a host. I can easily zone a host or many to a WWPN.

>You won't be handing out LUNs at the switch, that's done >on the disk controller.

Yes, I understand this and it is how I have it set up and ready to configure. The storage is handing out 32 LUNS and I need to tell the switch how to hand one or more of those LUNS to each host.

>You can however use the switch to zone the HBA with the >fibre channel port of the disk controller you want it to >talk to. not totally necessary in order to function as >long as you can control LUN access at the disk controller, >but advisable if you have a mixed un*x/windoze environment >using this system.

I did get this to work when I was testing the viability of the design. The problem of course was that during testing, it became obvious that it would be too easy for an error to be made and the wrong LUN given to the wrong host, overwriting another's disk.


>i'm not familiar with that level of fabric OS, but if it >supports zoning you may have to have a license to use it, >otherwise it's a moot point.

Yes, I can do zoning on the brocade, it is licensed. Just trying to learn how .

Mike

 

[Breslau]

Most disk vendors i know of support LUN masking, ie the method used to tie the LUN id to a particular HBA's WWN. they may call it something else, but essentially that's what it is. typically you'd see a way to do this in the GUI of the disk controller, or in its command line interface (CLI).

a disk controller shouldn't let an HBA access a LUN if its not allowed to do so by masking. LUN handling is just not within the realm of the switch, it's just a traffic cop.

now it is *possible* that you could have a single HBA see a single LUN more than once on a controller, *if* that HBA is allowed by the switch to see more than one of the controller's fibre ports. in this case, zoning would be an effective way to prevent this from happening.

 

[progless]

>Most disk vendors i know of support LUN masking, ie the >method used to tie the LUN id to a particular HBA's WWN.

Yes, that is what I am looking to do and it is called LUN masking on the brocade.

As noted, I'm looking for someone who knows the brocade 2800 specifically because I can't find any information on how (commands) to tie the LUN to the host.

I can easily zone to have hosts see a storage device but I need hosts to only see their own LUN on that device.

Mike

 

[RMGBELGIUM]

lun masking has absolutely nothing to do with the brocade.On your storage you create an igroup.You link the WWPN of the HBA's of your hosts to that igroup.You create one or more luns.Then you link the igroup and the lun.This way, all hosts that belong to the igroup , will be able to see the lun(s) that are linked to that igroup.
On the brocade, you must now create a zone,so that the storage and the hosts are able to communicate with each other.Its as simple as that.The brocade is only a device that receives packets on a port and sends it to another port.
rgds,

R.

 

[progless]

Ok, guess I've not completely understood this then.

>On the brocade, you must now create a zone, so that the >storage and the hosts are able to communicate with each >other.

It is still not clear to me how I assign an individual LUN to a host however, this is what is stumping me. I have yet to find any information (commands) on how to configure this.

Might you be able to provide me with an example?

Say the storage is on port 15, it has 4 LUNS but of course, I can only see the single wwn on the brocade.

Then say the hosts are on ports 2,3,4 and 5 and each needs it's own LUN from the storage.

How do I go about this?

PS: I am also using Global Array manager which can see the individual LUNS.

Mike

 

[RMGBELGIUM]

okay ,so :
you need first to create multiple igroups.Because every host may only see its own lun, you must create a "one on one relationship".Meaning that you will have to create an igroup for every host you want to attach.
so , create igroup1,igroup2,igroup3,igroup4.
Now map lun1 to igroup 1,lun2 to igroup2,...
now link the WWPn of the HBA in host 1 to igroup1.WWPN of hba in host2 to igroup2,....Now, every host will see only 1 lun.
Now on your brocade, go ahead and create 4 zones :
zone1=WWPN visible on port15 and WWPN visible on port1
zone2=WWPN visible on port15 and WWPN visible on port2
zone3=WWPN visible on port15 and WWPN visible on port3
zone4=WWPN visible on port15 and WWPN visible on port4

create a config to which you add the above zones.Activate the config.

If you however would allow every host to see all luns( like in a cluster ),then you must create 1 igroup, link al WWPN's of the hba's of the different servers to it, and link the WWPN of the storage to that igroup.

rgds,

R.

 

[progless]

I don't see any edit capabilities for this forum so;

I'm using Xyratex storage chassis. When you say create igroups, do you just mean create LUNS which can be seen by the hosts? All hsots can see all LUNS right now, that's the problem and is where I'd like to use zoning on the brocade.

Mike

 

[progless]

Sure enough, it's been sitting right in front of me since day one. It's called LUN mapping in the Global Array Manager that I use.

Thanks to everyone for the help.

Mike