To use the IBM XIV to its’ fullest potential, the host attachment kit is necessary. With Host Attachment Kit, managing XIV path and LUNs is a straightforward task. Of course if you prefer micromanaging stuff a bare multipath install on RHEL is sufficient. So now let’s get into it.

RHEL v5 and up come with native support for qlogic and Emulex adapters, which what usually are inside IBM X series and HP Proliant servers. To see which adapter Make sure that HBA driver is installed on the server, do this on your console:

[root@hqdwhbe1 bin]# lspci | grep -i fibre

The output should be similar to this:

0a:01.0 Fibre Channel: QLogic Corp. ISP2422-based 4Gb Fibre Channel to PCI-X HBA (rev 02)
0c:01.0 Fibre Channel: QLogic Corp. ISP2422-based 4Gb Fibre Channel to PCI-X HBA (rev 02)

The output above shows that the server has a qlogic adapter. To see if the kernel module driver is loaded, do

  • Server with Qlogic adapter:
[root@astoria ~]# lsmod | grep qla
qla2xxx              1133797  12
scsi_transport_fc      73800  1 qla2xxx
scsi_mod              196697  7 scsi_dh,st,sg,qla2xxx,scsi_transport_fc,aacraid,sd_mod
  • And For server with Emulex HBA, do this:
[root@agrabah ~]# lsmod | grep lpfc
lpfc                  206789  0
scsi_transport_fc      12353  1 lpfc
scsi_mod              146321  6 sg,lpfc,scsi_transport_fc,libata,cciss,sd_mod

If the server has neither, then the HBA is not loaded, not configured, or not installed.

Next, to check the WWN of HBA ports, do this:

[root@astoria ~]# more /sys/class/fc_host/host1/port_name

Output should look like this:

[root@astoria ~]# more /sys/class/fc_host/host1/port_name
0x2100001b32089413

Do remember that your server probably has more than one port. Please note which ports connect to XIV by referring to the SAN Switch zoning documentation.

Next, install the packages that are needed to install the XIV Host Attachment kit; Those are:

  • device-mapper-multipath
  • sg3_utils (x64)
  • sg3_utils-libs (x64)

These components can be found on your RHEL install DVDs. Use RPM or yum to install these packages

To install the XIV Host attachment kit, download the source from here. Untar the package:

[root@agrabah ~]# tar zxvf XIV_host_attach-1.5.2-rhel5-x86.tar.gz

to install, do the following:

[root@agrabah ~]# cd XIV_host_attach-1.5.2-rhel5-x86/
[root@agrabah ~]# ./install.sh

After the install finished, start the wizard for XIV setup by performing

[root@agrabah ~]# cd /opt/xiv/host_attach/bin/
[root@agrabah ~]# ./xiv_attach

Follow the on screen instruction, say yes to set up FC attachment, take note of the WWN that’s detected by XIV host attachment kit:

Please zone this host and add its WWPNs with the XIV storage system:
21:zz:00:1b:yy:08:94:xx: [QLOGIC]: N/A
21:zz:00:1b:yy:08:85:xx: [QLOGIC]: N/A

Make sure that these are the WWN of the ports that you have zoned to XIV on your SAN Switch. Observe the XIV serial number and node name of your server on what’s displayed next on the wizard

The host is connected to the following XIV storage arrays:
Serial     Ver    Host Defined  Ports Defined  Protocol  Host Name(s)
7804213    10.2   Yes           All            FC        agrabah
This host is defined on all FC-attached XIV storage arrays

Make sure that the serial number displayed belong to your XIV, and the Host Name refers to what your server is registered as on the XIV. Follow the rest of the wizard step until it finishes

To add a new disk to the server, complete the setup the XIV (create a new LUN, present LUN to node), and do:

[root@agrabah ~]# cd /opt/xiv/host_attach/bin/
[root@agrabah ~]# ./xiv_devlist

to check the current disk registered on the server. If this is the first time, No disk will be listed.

XIV Devices
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Device              Size     Paths  Vol Name      Vol Id  XIV Id  XIV Host
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To register the newly presented disk to the OS, do

[root@agrabah ~]# cd /opt/xiv/host_attach/bin/
[root@agrabah ~]# ./xiv_attach

and next, do


[root@agrabah ~]# cd /opt/xiv/host_attach/bin/
[root@agrabah ~]# ./xiv_devlist

to see if the disk is detected, do:

XIV Devices
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Device              Size     Paths  Vol Name  Vol Id  XIV Id   XIV Host
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
/dev/mapper/mpath3  515.4GB  6/6    data01    8515    7804213  agrabah
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After that, you can use the new disk via  LVM, or use it as raw disk for ASM

By ikhsan

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