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ICP ICPCON User Manual

Summary of ICPCON

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    1 user's manual icp raid console and icp raid navigator 1 st edition © copyright 1998-2000 icp vortex computersysteme gmbh konrad-zuse-str. 9 74172 neckarsulm - germany icp vortex corporation 4001 e. Broadway / b-20 phoenix, az 85040, usa all rights and changes reserved. 01.

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    2.

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    3 limited warranty limited warranty limited warranty limited warranty icp vortex corporation ("icp vortex") guarantees that this product is free from defects in material and workmanship. Subject to the conditions and limitations set forth below, icp vortex will, at its own option, either repair or r...

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    4 pick up the phone if you need technical support and dial the numbers: for europe: +49-(0)7132-9620-900 for the usa: 602-414-0414 or send us a fax: for europe: +49-(0)7132-9620-400 for the usa: 602-414-0444 or send us an e-mail: for europe: support@vortex.De for the usa: support@icp-vortex.Com or c...

  • Page 5: Important Note

    5 important note using modern raid systems significantly increases data security and availability. Under no circumstances does it relieve you from a careful and daily backup on tape or a similar backup media. This is the only method to protect your valuable data against total loss (e.G., through fir...

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    6 fcc compliance fcc compliance fcc compliance fcc compliance statement statement statement statement information for the user note: this equipment has been tested and found to comply with the limits for a class b digital device, pursuant to part 15 of the fcc rules. These limits are designed to pro...

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    7 table of contents i. The program icpcon......................................................................................................................................12 i.1 loading icpcon ..........................................................................................................

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    8 i.4.5 menu advanced setup: configure logical drives ..................................................................................35 i.4.6 menu advanced setup: configure array drives.....................................................................................36 i.4.6.1 menu advanced se...

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    9 ii.4.4 non direct access devices (raw devices)..............................................................................................56 ii.5 logical configuration window.................................................................................................................57 ii.5.1...

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    10

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    11 chapter i icp raid console icp raid console icp raid console icp raid console icpcon icpcon icpcon icpcon.

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    12 i. The program icpcon icp raid console (icpcon) is an extremely helpful and flexible setup and diagnosis tool for the configuration, monitoring, maintenance and tuning of mass storage subsystems which are based on one or more icp controllers. Different to the icp raid navigator (a gui-style appli...

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    13 loading icpcon on a workstation. In this case, too, the icp netware driver and the auto- loading module ctrltran must have been previously loaded on the fileserver console. In addition, the module ctrlipx.Nlm has to be loaded. This module searches for a file named ctrlipx.Cfg. This file must be l...

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    14 these two lines can also be inserted in the .Profile file and will then be automatically processed during each login. The icpcon program itself is copied during the sco unix installation into the /etc directory. Icpcon is loaded by entering: icpcon enter i.1.6 loading icpcon under linux the icp s...

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    15 type of host drive description of host drive minimum number of hard disks disk 1:1 assignment: host drive to hard disk (sometimes also called jbod) 1 chain concatenation of several hard disks 2 raid 1 mirroring 2 raid 0 data striping 2 raid 4 data striping with parity drive 3 raid 5 data striping...

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    16 after selecting „sockets“ and „tcp/ip“ you may enter the ip address of the server (if you would have chosen „spx/ipx“ icpcon would scan the network for suitable servers, which have spx/ipx protocol). After that you may enter your user name and password. I.2.2 select controller after this login pr...

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    17 ƒ „save information“ creates a complete protocol file of the current raid sub- system including all settings of the icp controller and the drives. This file can be used for documentary reasons or for remote diagnosis. ƒ „configure array drives“ allows you to configure or create array drives. ƒ wi...

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    18 capacity (1mb = 1024kb). The figures shown at total represent the overall performance of the host drives as a whole. With the ← and → keys you may change the scale of the graphical kb/s indication. With the ↑ and ↓ keys you can scroll the screen to see further drives (if available). After selecti...

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    19 ƒ the scsi channel ƒ the scsi-id ƒ the vendor and type ƒ retries/reassigns, grown defects and the last status (1) the retries counter is incremented by one unit whenever the icp controller retries to ac- cess a hard disk. If this counter continues to increase (possibly on other hard disks, too) i...

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    20 at the end of this protocol is a chronological listing of boot messages and other events stored in the flash-ram of the icp controller. If the buffer is full, the oldest events are de- leted first. In the menu „configure controller“ the logging buffer can be cleared with „clear log buffer“. The l...

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    21 after selecting configure host drives, icpcon displays a list of already existing host drives. With a new system this list will show no entries. In this example there is already one host drive available. It’s name is ”raid 5“ and it is an raid 5 array drive (with approx. 17gb capacity). The statu...

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    22 "rebuild" state the disk array will assume this state after the automatic activation of a hot fix drive or after a manual replacement carried out with icpcon. The data and the redundant information are reconstructed and stored to the new drive. "expand" state if the capacity or raid level of an e...

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    23 finish the selection by pressing enter. Icpcon displays a security message pointing out that all existing data on the selected hard disks will be destroyed after confirming with yes. After pressing “y” the user may limit the capacity per hard disk which will be used for the host drive. This can b...

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    24 drive list, which means that the operating system is booted from the host drive having the lowest number. For reasons of flexibility, a host drive's position in the list can be changed. However, the position of the host drive from which the operating system is booted and the position of the host ...

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    25 in this example there is one array drive in the fail state. I.E., the array drive is still operating but longer redundant. After pressing any key, icpcon displays a list of array drives which are candidates for this online automatic repair. Note: array drives which have the „error“ state are very...

  • Page 26

    26 the „error“ state of an array drive is very critical. There are several procedures in the icp controller’s firmware to handle such cases an bring back the array drive in operation with- out loosing data. The most suitable procedure for the specific case, should be elaborated with your system admi...

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    27 display off on not displayed at system boot level displayed at system boot level supported bios drives 2 7 the icp bios supports 2 drives under ms-dos the icp bios supports 7 drives under ms-dos cd-rom boot enabled disabled boot from cd-rom enabled boot from cd-rom disabled memory test no test st...

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    28 in this example one subsystem is already defined. Naturally, the hard disks with their disk shuttles could be also directly mounted in the server enclosure. The term “enclosure” in these cases is more a definition set, which includes all hard disks which should be auto hot pluggable. The followin...

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    29 with the non-intelligent subsystems we highly recommend you to use only best quality components (disk shuttles, cables, terminators, etc.). I.4.3.5 menu advanced setup: configure controller, advanced settings within advanced settings there are three settings which control the configuration and ad...

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    30 read/write; ro for read only). The io-processors and saf-te-processors (in our example channel b id 8: sdr, inc. Gem312 rev001) to not have attributes. The next column lists the capacity of the hard disk in mb (1mb = 1024kb; 1gb=1024mb). The last column gives in- formation on the assignment of th...

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    31 i.4.4.1 menu advanced setup: configure phys. Devs., scsi parameter /initialize this option can destroy all data on the hard disk. If a hard disk is not yet initialized, you have to initialize it first. Icpcon cop- ies icp specific configuration blocks on the hard disk, a primary block and a mir- ...

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    32 if you leave this configuration form with and you have made changes, icpcon dis- plays a security request. The warning of the destruction of all data implies different evalua- tions, depending on the device's current state and the options you selected: first initialization of the device. In this ...

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    33 i.4.4.6 menu advanced setup: configure phys. Devs., lock/unlock disk this option is only high-lighted when you have selected a removable hard disk (e.G., sy- quest, iomega). Before you can initialize a cartridge you have to lock it. Before removing it you have to unlock it. I.4.4.7 menu advanced ...

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    34 sep fan fa n power supply status leds hot plug control hard disk scsi channel icp disk array controller power supply door lock temperature.

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    35 i.4.5 menu advanced setup: configure logical drives logical drives (hierarchy level 2) are installed in this main menu option. Selecting configure logical drives leads you to the screen shown next. The f4 key gives you a list of all the hard disks this logical drive consists of. If it is a logica...

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    36 if you confirm with , icpcon allows you to limit the size of the logical drive. This be- comes interesting when you configure later on an array drive with several identical logical drives and you want to make sure that you get appropriate spare hard disks in the future. It would be bad luck if th...

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    37 i.4.6.1 menu advanced setup: configure array drives, change drive name this command allows you to change the name of an array drive. The name serves to iden- tify an array drive in icpcon or icp raid navigator. This can be very helpful for configura- tions where several host drives of various typ...

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    38 i.4.6.6 menu advanced setup: configure array drives, remove array drive this command allows you to remove an existing array drive. All the data of the array drive will be lost ! Before you confirm the security request with , you should be sure about this choice. Note: if an array drive has been r...

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    39 obviously, no other hard disk may fail until all data has entirely been reconstructed on the hot fix drive, because up to that moment, the system is operating without redundancy. Notes: in some literature, hot fix drives are also called hot-spare drives. You can add or remove hot fix drives also ...

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    40 i.4.6.13 menu advanced setup: configure array drives, create new array drive after pressing enter, icpcon lists all free logical drives, which are free (not yet part of array / host drives). The selection bar can be moved with the cursor up/down keys and the logical drives can be selected/deselec...

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    41 the array drive has entered the build state, i.E., the parity information is currently gener- ated. After completion of the build process, the array drive's state is ready, i.E., fault toler- ant. Notes on the configuration of raid 0, 1, 4, 5 and 10 arrays drives (1) use preferably logical drives...

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    42 i.4.7.1 menu advanced setup: configure host drives, change drive name this command allows you to change the name of a host drive. The name serves to identify a host drive within icpcon and icp raid navigator. I.4.7.2 menu advanced setup: configure host drives, swap host drives when the pci comput...

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    43 chapter ii icp raid navigator icp raid navigator icp raid navigator icp raid navigator.

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    44 ii. Icp raid navigator ii.1 introduction the icp raid navigator (icprnav) is a powerful tool for setting up, monitoring and main- taining mass storage subsystems based on icp controllers. Different to icp raid console the icp raid navigator is a pure gui-style application, designed for the operat...

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    45 ii.2 the icp raid navigator "controls" ii.2.1 the toolbar the toolbar can be made visible or hidden by selecting "toolbar" from the "view" menu: by clicking on the different buttons you can open and close the windows of the corresponding programs of the icp raid navigator: the toolbar can be move...

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    46 ii.2.4 "help" menu commands the help menu offers the following commands to provide you with online help: ii.2.5 "file" menu commands here you can end your icp raid navigator session. Shortcuts: press alt+f4 or click to close the window. Ii.2.6 "view" menu commands use the items in this menu to op...

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    47 ii.2.7 the "chart" menu the chart menu appears when you open the statistics window. Here you can add and re- move data sources from the chart and configure the chart. Ii.2.8 the "configuration" menu commands this menu appears if you have selected the physical configuration window or the logical c...

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    48 ii.3 select controller this window is used to select an icp controller for all further ac- tions within the icp raid naviga- tor. In a first step you should select the desired protocol (windows nt/95/98, sockets, ibm netbios) for the communication between the icp raid navigator and the system whi...

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    49 ii.4.1 controllers icon description double click opens... Right click opens... Controller controller information change settings here you can change the settings of the icp controller. Cache enables or disables the icp controller cache. For optimum performance the cache should be always on. Delay...

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    50 save information after the selection of this option a file dialog is opened, which allows you to specify the path and name of the save information file. This file has a standard ascii format and can be viewed or printed with a normal editor (e.G., notepad) or word processing system. The save info...

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    51 turn off the audible alarm this option allows you to turn off the audible alarm of the icp controller manually. After a significant event (a drive failure or an overheat of the icp controller) the audible alarm of the icp controller is turned on. If the reason of the event is removed, the audible...

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    52 channel settings termination the termination for this channel of the icp controller can be set to three different states: ƒ on: the termination of the lower (low byte) and upper data lines (high byte) is enabled or disabled depending on the occupied scsi connectors of this channel. ƒ off: no line...

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    53 note: if you want change the media of a removable disk during operation, the media must not be initialized with icp raid console (icpcon) or the icp raid navigator. Further- more these devices have to be reserved for the raw service. Thus, the removable disk is handled like a non direct access de...

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    54 you can access the change scsi parameters / initialize menu by clicking the right mouse button on a physical drive in the physical drives windows (view > physical configuration) synchronous transfer different to the older asynchronous transfer mode, the synchronous transfer offers higher transfer...

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    55 format a physical disk caution: this function deletes all data on the selected physical drive ! The hard disk which you want to low level format, may not be member of a logical drive if you want to start a low level format or a check surface. This function sends a format unit command to the physi...

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    56 ii.4.4 non direct access devices (raw devices) non direct access devices cannot become components of logical drives, array drives or host drives. These devices are either controlled by a software driver (e.G. An aspi module), the operating system or an application. Non direct access devices canno...

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    57 ii.5 logical configuration window this window shows the logical configuration of host drives, array drives and logical drives controlled by the selected icp controller. The complete configuration is shown as a tree starting from the left with the host drives, followed by the array drives (if raid...

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    58 remote mounted cluster drive a cluster drive is a host drive on a clustering i/o channel. This host drive is mounted on an icp controller in a different server. Clustering means that two or more servers share resources. In case of one server failing these resources move over to another valid serv...

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    59 raid 1 build ready fail raid 0 logical drives logical drives consist of one or more physical drives. Icon description double click opens... Right click opens... Single disk hot fix drive failed / missing hot fix or single disk chaining drive logical drive information physical drives these are the...

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    60 ii.5.1 the host drive information window double click on the host drive icon. This window contains information on a host drive like the host drive's capacity and a pos- sible partition table. Drive no the host drive number of the host drive. The host drives are re- ported to the system one after ...

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    61 type this is the raid level of the array drive. It can be raid 0 (data striping, no redundancy), raid1 (mirroring), raid 4 (striping with parity drive), raid 5 (striping with striped parity) or raid 10 (com- bination of raid 1 and raid 0). Status the status of an array can be ready (operational),...

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    62 ii.5.3 the logical drive information window double click on the logical drive icon. This window shows information on a logical drive. A logical drive can be either a single disk, or a chaining group of disks (concatenation), or a stripe set of several disks. Drive no the number of the logical dri...

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    63 ii.5.4 change the name of a drive click the right mouse button on the drive icon. This menu option opens a dialog where you can enter a new name for the selected drive (up to 7 characters). Ii.5.5 remove a host drive click the right mouse button on the host drive icon. By selecting this menu item...

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    64 (gray). While you are selecting physical drives for the new host drive, more and more pos- sibilities become selectable. You can select a single physical drive by clicking on it. If you want to select more than one physical drive, simply draw a frame around the physical drives, or press the key a...

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    65 an array drive. The user data on the drives is read, parity information is calculated from this user data and the parity information is written anew. While the parity recalculate is in progress the array is in the build state. During this time the array drive is not redundant. You can view the pr...

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    66 if you want to add additional drives to the array drive, select them from the box on the left side of the window. It is possible to add more than one drive at the same time. If no physical drives are offered, you have to use the hot plug: add disk function first, to add new drives. You can open t...

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    67 the capacity of the hot fix drive has to be larger or equal than the capacity of the compo- nents of the array drive (example: the logical drives of the array drive have 4.2gb capac- ity, thus the capacity of the hot fix drive has to be 4.2gb or larger). The spindle motor of the hot fix drive is ...

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    68 to avoid that problem, you can mirror in a first step a new good logical drive to the critical one. When the copying is finished you remove the critical logical drive and then carry out a hot plug procedure. To add a raid 1 component you need to select in a first step a logical drive, the master....

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    69 the array drive is fully operational when in the ready state. All redundant information is present, that is, a hard disk can fail without impairing the functionality of the array drive. This is the normal state of an array drive. The state ready/expand indicates, that the raid level and/or capaci...

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    70 the error state raid 4/5 if a second hard disk should fail while the array drive is in the fail or rebuild state, it is not possible to continue the working session without restrictions. The disk array is still avail- able for i/os, but data loss and error messages on the host level are possible....

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    71 ii.6 the statistics window the statistics window can display the throughput of physical, logical and host drives. The vertical axis show the throughput, the horizontal axis the time. You can add drives by drag and drop them from the physical and logical configuration windows into the statistics w...

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    72 ii.7 the controller events window this window shows the history of the events that occurred since the log was cleared the last time. The first column in this window contains icons representing the severity of the events: icon description information: this event is not critical. It only informs th...

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    73 ii.8 icp raid navigator help the icp raid navigator includes an online help function. You can either choose the help menu or the pointer with the question mark to obtain online help on a specific icon or func- tion. There is also an index which allows you to search for certain keywords and/or top...

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    74 ii.9 icp service and icp mail there are further powerful tools which are part of the icp raid navigator delivery: icp service allows remote access to an icp controller in a windows nt server icp ctrlsrv allows remote access to an icp controller in a novell server icp mail converts icp messages in...

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    75 in the ioctlsrv property sheet you can add / remove users which have remote access to the icp controller with the icp raid navigator. Passwords are encrypted..

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    76 the icp mail tool gathers messages from the icp service, generates standard mail mes- sages and sends them to pre-defined workstations. After loading icpmail.Exe and selecting "settings", you can configure the mailing tool. If you select "local system" all messages are displayed on the server its...

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    77 following is a typical message generated by icp mail. The "mail" option allows the interfacing to a standard mailing system (like microsoft out- look or exchange)..