Configure Virtual Tape on VIO Server ( Map physical tape to AIX Client)

You may need to backup AIX client data to tape, the VIO allow mapping physical tapes starting with VIOS v2.1.0.10-FP20.1.

But it has some limitation on the type of tapes that can be mapped (Check IBM documentation)

on the VIO server you can check wether the tape can be mapped by issuing the following command

VIO_SERVER$lsdev -type tape

this will list the available tapes on the system.

VIO_SERVER$lsdev -type tape4vtd

this will give you the list of tape that can be maped.

VIO_SERVER$mkvdev -vdev rmt0 -vadapater vhost0

vhost0 is the VIRTUAL SCSI adapter mapped to VIO Client LPAR

 

Easy way to get Virtual SCSI mapping from VIO Client

Sometimes you need to get the VIO mapping from the client side.

the easiest way is to run the below command:

root@client_lpar: / # echo “cvai” | kdb | grep vscsi 

read vscsi_scsi_ptrs OK, ptr = 0xF1000000C01A83C0
vscsi0     0x000007 0x0000000000 0x0                VIO_SRV1->vhost0

Tivoli storage Manager 6.3.3 dsmadmc error

Tivoli storage manager uses two file for its configuration. dsm.opt and dsm.sys for system wide configuration.

when trying to run dsmadmc on the server, the following error is preventing the command line from starting: ANS0101E Unable to open English message repository ‘dsmclientV3.cat’.

The following steps are required to resolve the issue: set the env variable DSM_CONFIG to a custom path. by default it uses the client /ba/ folder.

and DSM_DIR.

fastsmsrv01:/opt/tivoli/tsm/server/bin/tsmdiag# pwd
/opt/tivoli/tsm/server/bin/tsmdiag
fastsmsrv01:/opt/tivoli/tsm/server/bin/tsmdiag# ./dsmadmc
ANS0101E Unable to open English message repository ‘dsmclientV3.cat’.
fastsmsrv01:/opt/tivoli/tsm/server/bin/tsmdiag# export DSM_CONFIG=”$PWD/dsm.opt”
fastsmsrv01:/opt/tivoli/tsm/server/bin/tsmdiag# echo $DSM_CONFIG
/opt/tivoli/tsm/server/bin/tsmdiag/dsm.opt
fastsmsrv01:/opt/tivoli/tsm/server/bin/tsmdiag# export DSM_DIR=`pwd`
fastsmsrv01:/opt/tivoli/tsm/server/bin/tsmdiag# echo $DSM_DIR
/opt/tivoli/tsm/server/bin/tsmdiag
fastsmsrv01:/opt/tivoli/tsm/server/bin/tsmdiag# ./dsmadmc
IBM Tivoli Storage Manager
Command Line Administrative Interface – Version 5, Release 3, Level 0.0
(c) Copyright by IBM Corporation and other(s) 1990, 2004. All Rights Reserved.

Enter your user id:  admin

Enter your password:

Session established with server FASTSMSRV01: AIX
Server Version 6, Release 3, Level 3.0
Server date/time: 05/14/13   16:32:12  Last access: 05/14/13   16:28:00

VIO NPIV Mapping to FC / Unmap

In this post i will share with you some tips to configure NPIV on VIO. NPIV is very usefull on VIO and can reduce overhead for administering storage on the VIO. Opposed to virtual SCSI, NPIV help storage admin to have full visibility on the LPARs storage disks.

First check fc ports on vio servers that support NPIV using lsnports command. This command also displays the remaining number of WWN that can be assigned by this FC adapter.

$ lsnports
name             physloc                        fabric tports aports swwpns  awwpns
fcs0             U5803.001.91800ZL-P2-C3-T1          1     64     64   2048    2047
fcs1             U5803.001.91800ZL-P2-C3-T2          1     64     63   2048    2046
fcs2             U5803.001.91800ZL-P2-C5-T1          1     64     64   2048    2047
fcs3             U5803.001.91800ZL-P2-C5-T2          1     64     64   2048    2047
fcs4             U5803.001.91800ZL-P2-C6-T1          1     64     64   2048    2047

To map virtual FC adapter vfchost4 to Physical FC adapter fcs1 type:
$vfcmap -vadapter vfchost4 -fcp fcs1

Know check if the mapping was successful, type:
$lsmap -all -npiv | more
Name          Physloc                            ClntID ClntName       ClntOS
————- ———————————- —— ————– ——-
vfchost4      U9119.FHA.44337FA-V2-C165             160 WASUAT         AIX

Status:LOGGED_IN
FC name:fcs1                    FC loc code:U5803.001.91800ZL-P2-C3-T2
Ports logged in:1
Flags:a<LOGGED_IN,STRIP_MERGE>
VFC client name:fcs0            VFC client DRC:U9119.FHA.44337FA-V160-C5

In some cases you may want to remove the connection between Virtual FC adapter and the physical adapter, type
$ vfcmap -vadapter vfchost4 -fcp

Know check again that it was unmapped.

$lsmap -all -npiv | more
Name          Physloc                            ClntID ClntName       ClntOS
————- ———————————- —— ————– ——-
vfchost4      U9119.FHA.44337FA-V2-C165             160

Status:NOT_LOGGED_IN
FC name:                        FC loc code:
Ports logged in:0
Flags:1<NOT_MAPPED,NOT_CONNECTED>
VFC client name:                VFC client DRC:

For more info about tips for implementing NPIV on VIO, check this article on IBM Developer Works.

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/aix/library/au-NPIV/

Enable High Bandwith communication between LPARs on VIO

By default virtual adapters can go up to 1.3 Gbps. If you need to boost the network performance between LPARs we have 2 options:

1- MTU Size larger than 1500

2- AIX largesend option

If the LPAR is communicating with external Servers, Jumbo frames should be enabled end-to-end in order to have the full benefit. otherwise packets will be fragmented. Inside VIO we don’t have this issue since we are using the internal virtual switch. So we can even go up to higher MTU size, the maximum is 65280.

So here is a procedure to check the network performance before and after setting MTU size.

# lsattr -El en3 | grep “^mtu”

mtu           1500         Maximum IP Packet Size for This Device     True

#ftp> put “|dd if=/dev/zero bs=64k count=100000” /dev/null

write down the result we got : 1.258e+05 this means 1.2580×100000 Kbytes/s

Change the MTU Size:

#chdev -l en3 -a mtu=65280

Redo the ftp test

#ftp> put “|dd if=/dev/zero bs=64k count=100000” /dev/null

the result was 3.025e+05 which gave us an increase in performance by 60 %