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need help testing hba and san failover on novell 6.5

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etjones

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Dec 27, 2006
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I need help testing hba and san failover on novell 6.5.
Don't have a clue re: Novell. Please advise.
Thanks
 
Testing failover on a SAN is one of the more complex subject matters. If you have no idea what you are doing with Novell, a forum posting is a bad idea. You need to get professional help from someone that knows.

Marvin Huffaker, MCNE
 


Ok… you are far too smart and busy.

For anyone else that can offer advice...
Have several Novell 6.5 servers that are configured with SAN disk (IBM SVC). Failover did not work during a SVC upgrade (switching from one node to another). Initial config was ...
(STARTUP.NCF)
LOAD SCSIHD.CDM
:
:
LOAD QL2X00.HAM SLOT=2 /LUNS
LOAD QL2X00.HAM SLOT=4 /LUNS

changed it to ...
LOAD SCSIHD.CDM AEN
:
:
LOAD QL2X00.HAM SLOT=2 /LUNS /MAXLUNS=64 /ALLPATHS /PORTNAMES
LOAD QL2X00.HAM SLOT=4 /LUNS /MAXLUNS=64 /ALLPATHS /PORTNAMES
SET MULTI-PATH SUPPORT=0N

And added to file AUTOEXEC.NCF ...
SCAN FOR NEW DEVICES

Both QLogic HBAs show up as devices during boot.

I’ve got the disk space mapped on a client machine and after rebooting the Novell server, changed dir to the mapped drive and wrote a new file and then proceeded to pull the cable out of the first hba. Went back to the client machine and wrote another new file. Plugged fiber cable into first hba and unplugged cable from second hba. Wrote yet another file on the mapped drive. Went back to mapped drive and wrote one more file. Did then reboot the Novell server.

Now although it looks like failover worked for this test, I know on another occasion (prior to startup and autoexec changes) failover did not work. In that case, databases were involved.

Do I need to do another type of test to really exercise failover? Also, where would I find boot logs?
Thanks for any info.
 
Well why didn't you put that info on your initial post? Your initial post suggested you did not even know where to start and now you give some pertinent information.

Server logs are located in sys:system

just log in there for *.log
 
i'm not up on ibm's

you dont need to be rebooting netware servers when doing this .
this type of configs also need to be done through the agents
ie on hp through secure paths , a dell's through navisphere

god only knows on an ibm.

the agent will also show you the four paths - as each hba with have a connection to each of the two controllers.
popping a fibre will bounce a message on the server

 
You shouldn't have to reboot the server to test failover. If the failover doesn't work, the server is likely to reboot itself, anyway.

As for "exercising" the multipath, I'd do what you did: pull a fibre cable, shut off the FC switch, and reboot the SP. Simulating a card failure isn't really exact, but you could try unloading the driver for a slot.

You also might look at your SAN vendor's multipath support. I doubt that I'd trust Novell's built-in support. We use Powerpath here.
 
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