P670 internal disks

[rondebbs]

Hello, I have a P670 61D 7040 that has only one production LPAR. The vast amount of my data is on an emc array. However rootvg is mirrored on hdisk0 and hdisk1. I was told that these were the only internal drives for this box.

As I open the big front door to the cabinet and look towards the bottom, I see some sort of silver chasis that is broken up into 4 sections. Someone has labled them as AMD1/DCA1 AMD1/DCA2 AMD2/DCA1 AMD2/DCA2. It appears that there is one drive and several blanks in each section. I'm assuming that the first two drives are hdisk0 and hdisk1. When I do an lsdev |grep hdisk I can see the local hdisk0 and hdisk1 followed by all the devices on my EMC array. I am not seeing hdisk2 and hdisk3 that would be the third and forth internal drives.

Is there something (maybe on HMC) that I need to do to make these available to AIX 5.2?

Thanks - Brad

 

[DukeSSD]

In the p670 service guide:

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infoc...c=/com.ibm.pseries.doc/hardware_docs/p670.htm

Page 29 shows the disk drawer and AIX locations for the disks.

Each half of the drawer has two scsi adapters and two (4 way) disk enclosures, the first drawer locations are on pages 76 (last line only) through page 78.

That should help you tell which disks are hdisk0 and 1.

You can also use diag, task selection, can't remember but some thing like system and attention indicators, to turn on the identify lights for hdisk 0 and 1 in turn to confirm which disk is which.

When the system boots it should configure all the resources it can see / contact, so if you only see two internal disks with lsdev then the others must not be configured on that LPAR.

On the HMC check the partition profile to see which disks are assigned.
Check if there are other LPAR profiles that may be using the other disks.

If only two disks are assigned to your LPAR and there are no other LPARS using the other disks you should be able to add them to your LPAR, you will see them by their location codes when you try adding them to your LPAR.

When you have added them you will need to reboot or run cfgmgr for AIX to configure them and make them available for use.

 

[rondebbs]

Hello, I can not find a way to add disk through my HMC however I do see 2 scsi adapters that are not assigned to this LPAR (this is the only LPAR). I'm guessing that each one of the 4x cages has its own scsi adapter. If I add these 2 new adapters and then run cfgmgr maybe the disks will become available. Does this make sense. Please excuse my lack of knowledge on HMC and LPARs as they are new to me.

 

[khalidaaa]

Yes rondebbs. Try that and let us know. I do have P5 570 machine and i've never worked on 670 but i guess it should have the same concept. You can either allocated those 2 scsi adapters dynamically and then issue cfgmgr or change the partition's profile and then restart the server to reflect the changes in the profile

Regards,
Khalid

 

[p5wizard]

On p670 machines IO-drawers are divided in two halves. (also known as 'Bonnie&Clyde' drawers). The two halves are known as P1 and P2 in the hardware location codes.

There are 10 hotplug PCI slots in each half on the back of the drawer that are allocatable to an LPAR. The slots are named U1.9-P1-I1 to U1.9-P1-I10 and U1.9-P2-I1 to U1.9-P2-I10. Each of these slots is assignable to an LPAR. (The U1.9 is the position the drawer is in, there is also a postion U1.5 for an additional drawer)

There are also two pseudo slots per half drawer, named Z1 and Z2 (on-board SCSI adapters) that service the disk bays on the front of the drawer.

U1.9-P1/Z1 and U1.9-P1/Z2 service the 2 4-disk diskbays of the the right half of the drawer.

U1.9-P2/Z1 and U1.9-P2/Z2 service the other 2 4-disk diskbays.

Could be the other way around.

But anyway, on the HMC look for unallocated SCSI adapters named P1/Z1, P1/Z2, P2/Z1 or P2/Z2 in this system.

If you add those adapters to the LPAR profile and shutdown, restart the partition, or after the profile modification, dynamically add the adapters to the LPAR also, then just run cfgmgr on the partition, this should add the SCSI adapters and the disks serviced by them.

Only if you are 100% sure these disks are not needed for one or more LPARs which are now powered off, but ones that you might need for testing purposes or sth.


HTH,

p5wizard

 

[rondebbs]

p5wizard -

Excellent info once again. I'll check into your recommendations when I get a chance.

Thanks - Brad

 

[rondebbs]

p5wizard - Pretty much everything you said matches up with my system. Neither of the Z2 adapters are currently being used on my system (only one LPAR). In the HMC it looks like it will let me go to "Dynamic I/O Adapter Reconfiguration" and add the two Z2 adapters to my LPAR. I'm guessing I will be able to access those disk drives after adding the Z2s and running cfgmgr. I'll likely do this next week.

Besides the P1-U1.9 and P2-U1.9, I also have a drawer named U1.18. The HMC shows that there is an ISA bridge there.

Brad

 

[p5wizard]

If you add the Z2s dynamically, don't forget to add them in the LPAR's profile or profiles, that way, if/when you need to re-activate the partition, the Z2 adapters and their disks will be available on reboot.

Once you get the disks available, they should not have any VG info on them, unless one of the disks was used in the factory to preload AIX when the box was built.
If there is other VG info on them, perhaps they once WERE used by one of your predecessors. For you to decide what to do when and if...

As for the U1.18 - that is the CEC-drawer, it has one "slot" that you can assign to one lpar (connections for keyboard, mouse and stuff if I'm not mistaken). CEC is IBM speak for CPU+memory drawer (Central Electronics Complex).



HTH,

p5wizard

 

[rondebbs]

OK,I have an HMC that was installed 2 or 3 years ago and I don't think it has been upgraded. When I go to "Server Management" I see my PRODCA (Production California) server. Under Partitions I see FullSystemPartition and then I see my only LPAR - wfscr04. Under wfscr04 I see wfscr04_prod_normal and wfscr04_prod_sms.

If I go to wfscr04 I can right click and then click on "Dynamic Logical Partioning" and add the Z2s. It sounds like this will add them immediatelly but will not hold them through the reboot. To save through the reboot/reset I need to go to properties on wfscr04_prod_normal and wfscr04_prod_sms and add them under the IO tab. Does this sound correct. If I don't want to do dynamically can I just add to wfscr04_prod_normal and wfscr04_prod_sms and then reboot?

Thanks for all your help.

Brad

 

[p5wizard]

No, not just reboot, you have to shutdown the partition and then activate it from the hmc, choosing one of the profiles, I would say wfscr04_prod_normal.If you just do a shutdown -Fr, the partition does not get to know the extra adapters.

But there's really no need to reboot. just add the Z2s to both profiles (in case at a later stage you need to restart the LPAR) and add them dynamically also. Then on the running LPAR issue a cfgmgr to discover the Z2s and their disks. No risk involved, I do it all the time.


HTH,

p5wizard

 

[rondebbs]

Excellent I'll do it.

Obviously I need to take an LPAR class or find some good HMC/LPAR documentation.

Thanks again

Brad