From: Baker, Sanchia (Sanchia.B.Baker@ACCENTURE.COM)
Date: Mon Sep 30 2002 - 09:52:41 EDT
mmm how about the firmware level on the ssa ?
Sanchia
-----Original Message-----
From: Green, Simon [mailto:SGreen@KRAFTEUROPE.COM]
Sent: 30 September 2002 14:41
To: aix-l@Princeton.EDU
Subject: SSA disks fail to configure after clone
Short version:
I cloned a system (different hardware). Moved the SSA cables across but the
LEDs on the adapter stayed black.
Moved the cables back to the original server and they were still black!
Later, for no obvious reason they went green and everything was OK. Why?
Long version:
Yesterday, I tried to migrate a system from an SP2 66MHz MCA Thin node to an
SP2 Silver Wide node, (PCI); something I've done quite a few times before,
so I wasn't expecting any problems.
The system is AIX 433-08. The Thin node has an Enhanced 4-Port adapter; the
Silver an Enhanced Serial Raid adapter, (6225, not 6230). All necessary
device drivers are (I believe) present in the lppsource, so would be picked
up automatically during the install.
The SSA loop concerned is shared between five systems, all of them MCA with
Enhanced 4-port adapters. All of these systems were up and running
throughout the procedure. The disks are a variety of 2.2, 4.5 and 9GB
models, in 7133-010 and -020 drawers.
The source system has a lot of old disks still defined, which are no longer
present in the SSA loop but which I haven't bothered to delete.
After cloning the system onto the new server and checking that everything
looked OK, I moved the SSA cables, one at a time, from the old server to the
new one. When I ran cfgmgr, though, there were no disks visible. The SSA
adapter and ssar device were present, but no disks; Link Verification showed
no loop. I then noticed that the LEDs on the adapter were both blank. I
also had flashing LEDs on the next devices in the loop.
I tried deleting ssa0 and ssar and running cfgmgr -v. This did not complain
about any missing drivers, which I would have expected if that had been the
problem. I tried several other things along those lines: running cfgmgr -i
with my lppsource; manually installing additional SSA filesets; reboot.
None of it made any difference so I decided to back things out.
I moved the cables back to the original node and immediately noticed that
the LEDs stayed blank. (Which as you'll imagine was quite worrying,
especially at 2 a.m.) I finished moving the cables anyway. Examining the
system didn't show any errors: just no disks!
I tried running cfgmgr again, and rebooting, but that didn't make any
difference.
After a good look at the cable plan I decided to try replacing some cables.
When I went to disconnect them from the adapter I saw that the two LEDs were
a beautiful steady green. I ran cfgmgr again and it picked up the disks OK.
I had to re-connect a couple of cables, as I hadn't run them through the
cable channels, but that didn't cause any problems.
So: has anybody seen this sort of behaviour before? Any ideas?
I'll have to re-schedule the work. Before then I'll be checking adapter and
disk microcode levels, (it wouldn't surprise me if they're quite old). I'll
also set up a small test loop for the new server.
Simon Green
Philip Morris ITSC Europe
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