AIX

Can someone help me with what I am guessing is a simple job for an AIX admin. However I am 100% HP-UX and not touched AIX before the start of this week.

I am trying to connect an IBM Blade (JS22) to our HP Enterprise Tape Library. I have done all the SAN zoning and this appears to be happy enough, however I am struggling to work out what I need to do in order to see if the tape drives are seen by the AIX server....

I have seen something to do with cfgmgr, lsdev & lscfg but don't seem to be able to find the option to do what an ioscan -fnC tape would do in HPUX and go and scan to see if any new hardware present.

So wonder if someone can tell me how I go about scanning for new hardware on an AIX box please.

make sure you have installed the corect device driver for this tape ( lib )
cfgmgr
then you can use tapeutil
tctl or mt -f /dev/rmtX - rewind


Also have a lookat
Rosetta Stone for Unix

"cfgmgr" is a command, which scans all the busses and activates and registers newly found hardware. It creates entries in /dev, etc.. Run it, whenever you want the machine to become aware of something that has changed (new tape installed, new HD attached, etc.) cfgmgr is run automatically at boot time so the windows-like "reboot the machine" will effectively work either.

It is also possible to delete devices (see "rmdev") if they have - for whatever reason - become entangled somehow and recreate them by a "cfgmgr" run.

"lscfg" and "lsdev" are both commands to look at your current configuration, but from different points of view. "lsdev" is more device-oriented while "lscfg" is more hardware-oriented. A good command is "lscfg -vp", which lists the "vital product data", i.e. firmware releases and even parts numbers ("FRU numbers").

Welcome to AIX, btw., the best Unix in the industry. ;-))

I hope this helps.

bakunin

Thanks for the explanation of what these commands do. Still not got this thing working yet but hoping its down to a SAN configuration problem somewhere.......

If not an issue on the SAN do you have any suggestions where to look on the server to find out what is going on???????

FYI, i am trying to get this server to see 2xHP LTO Ultrium 460 SCSi drives.....

Once the drives are correctly zoned to the AIX fibre adapters, and as long as the AIX adapters are connected and logged into the switch, cfgmgr should configure them OK but they will probably show up as "other scsi tape drive" because AIX does not include drivers for non-IBM drives.

lsdev -Cc tape

will show you the device names (rmtx) they configured with and should also show them as "Available"

Not sure about this now..... I have gone through checked all the SAN configuration and it is all looks 100% happy. However, when doing cfgmgr followed by lsdev -Cc tape i get nothing in reply so suggesting the server cannot see the drives.

I know the Fibre card is working as this server is connected to the HP EVA so its definately logged into the SAN fabric, I know the drives are logged in and working via the SAN as the same 4 drives zoned to the HPUX servers appeared straight away.....

So if anyone can think of anything else to check i would be grateful........

-----Post Update-----

Hi,

I have solved part 1 and actually got the server to see the tape drives now....If i do an lsdev -Cc tape i get this output

rmt0 Available 07-08-02 Other FC SCSI Tape Drive
rmt1 Available 07-08-02 Other FC SCSI Tape Drive
rmt2 Available 07-08-02 Other FC SCSI Tape Drive
rmt3 Available 07-08-02 Other FC SCSI Tape Drive

Just wondering now about making sure i have the right drivers. With these being HP Ultrium LTO4 drives and the fact that if i go to the drivers/patches on HP's site it does not quote AIX as an OS does anyone know where i can get the right drivers??? And as an AIX novice how i install them???

Thanks.......

-----Post Update-----

Hi,

I have solved part 1 and actually got the server to see the tape drives now....If i do an lsdev -Cc tape i get this output

rmt0 Available 07-08-02 Other FC SCSI Tape Drive
rmt1 Available 07-08-02 Other FC SCSI Tape Drive
rmt2 Available 07-08-02 Other FC SCSI Tape Drive
rmt3 Available 07-08-02 Other FC SCSI Tape Drive

Just wondering now about making sure i have the right drivers. With these being HP Ultrium LTO4 drives and the fact that if i go to the drivers/patches on HP's site it does not quote AIX as an OS does anyone know where i can get the right drivers??? And as an AIX novice how i install them???

Thanks.......