by Par Botes, Ravi Neelakant, and Anna Roets

Introduction

Problem: Installing and configuring rm6.22 software while avoiding "phantom controllers" and other problems. These problems are caused by disparities in the Veritas and rdac device trees.

Solution: The authors have tested the following procedure and verified that it follows the rm6.22 manual's installation guidelines. This procedure takes into account some known bugs for rm6.22 and VxVM 2.x/3.0.x.

This procedure reduces system problems and should speed up rebooting and other processes.

Installation Procedure

Perform the installation of your system in the following order:

Solaris

1. Install Solaris.
2. Install required patches. Follow the patch matrix for storage.

rm6.22

1. pkgadd rm6 packages
2. vi /etc/osa/rmparams. Change the line System_MaxLunsPerController=8 to the # of LUNs needed
3. /usr/lib/osa/bin/genscsiconf
4. vi /etc/raid/rdac_address. Configure your LUN distribution over the controllers
5. init 6

Configure LUNs

1. /usr/lib/osa/bin/rm6
   • upgrade firmware if needed (offline)
   • set controller active/active (if desired)
   • create LUNs
2. /usr/lib/osa/bin/rdac_disks

VxVM

1. pkgadd VxVM 3.0.2
2. vxinstall - create rootdg
3. /usr/lib/osa/bin/rdac_disks
4. init 6

Notes

• Do not run the add16lun script on 6.22. It does not do all the steps needed for 16 LUN support (rdriver.conf not modified). Use genscsiconf instead. This newer script modifies the rdac SCSI IDs, which speeds up boot times.
• Clean up the device tree with rdac_disks. This new command eliminates confusion between Veritas device tree and the rdac device tree. If you omit this step, you will likely find phantom controllers, lad and format using different paths, and other problems.
• Disable DMP for any version prior to VxVM 3.0.2. See the procedure in sunsolve for this. The 3.0.2 release detects whether AP is enabled and stops VxVM from enabling DMP. It really is not AP - it is rdac who makes VxVM believe AP is enabled. VxVM 3.0.4 should have the ability to selectively remove DMP from arbitrary devices.

Finally, in my opinion VxVM 3.x is technically superior to 2.x and I use 3.x for most of my benchmarks. I fail to see any reason to use VxVM 2.x for a customer benchmark -- 3.x should be the base level for all VxVM activities. I have great experiences with 3.0.2 (and not so great experiences with 3.0.3 beta 18). (Par Botes)