I inherited 2 I BM Power Server - blades PS701 - One is already configured using en8
I am trying to understand this topic about:
Logical Host Ethernet Port (lp-hea)
Gigabit Ethernet-SX PCI-X Adapter
Virtual I/O Ethernet Adapter (l-lan)
I really don't why too many adapters when my server only has 2 physical NICs
Well now I need to configure this new PS701 I configured an ip to en0 and is working but seeing configuration in the other PS701 I don't have any Shared Ethernet Adapter
So 3 questions:
1. Why too many virtual adapters l-lan and lp-hea ?
2. How do I configure these SEA?
3. Just creating SEA I will provide High availability to my PS701? I mean when adapter 1 fails adapter 2 will take over and LPARs will continue having connectivity?
lp-hea are the native adapters attached to the Balde itself (they are HEA, and each HEA has 4 Logical ports). We use them, say for the first installation or for servers where you don't want redundancy, they are SPOF (single point of failure) adapters.
Virtual adapters (l-lan), are created at VIOS/client level, we create them at VIO level to define the priority of VIOS and add multiple vlans to it. At client level we create those for it to communicate to outer world.
Physical cable are the actual cables from which the traffic goes in and out of the Blade, without the physical port your virtual adapter at VIO are of no use.
Now coming to SEA (shared ethernet adapter), to create a SEA you need a physical adapter, a virtual adapter (actually two, one with trunking priority, vlans (if you want) and other is called control channel adapter, ctrl chan adapter is the heart beat of SEA). Then the VIO create a new adapter called SEA, remember that SEA will not be visible from HMC, you can only see it when you are in VIO.
If you have SEA, it will be redundant and you can avoid SPOF.
lp-hea are the native adapters attached to the Balde itself (they are HEA, and each HEA has 4 Logical ports). We use them, say for the first installation or for servers where you don't want redundancy, they are SPOF (single point of failure) adapters.
Virtual adapters (l-lan), are created at VIOS/client level, we create them at VIO level to define the priority of VIOS and add multiple vlans to it. At client level we create those for it to communicate to outer world.
Physical cable are the actual cables from which the traffic goes in and out of the Blade, without the physical port your virtual adapter at VIO are of no use.
Now coming to SEA (shared ethernet adapter), to create a SEA you need a physical adapter, a virtual adapter (actually two, one with trunking priority, vlans (if you want) and other is called control channel adapter, ctrl chan adapter is the heart beat of SEA). Then the VIO create a new adapter called SEA, remember that SEA will not be visible from HMC, you can only see it when you are in VIO.
If you have SEA, it will be redundant and you can avoid SPOF.
thanks a lot
so for what I understood I have to use these to create SEA
is it too much to ask who to do it? is by command or using smitty
Yes indeed, you are correct.
But, again there are few things you have to consider before creating SEA, you mentioned that these are Blade Servers, so how are you viewing them, through HMC or IVM? How many VIOS you have on each Blade?
If you have only one VIO on each blade, then SEA holds no good, coz it won't failover. If you have two VIOS, then only you are good to go for SEA.
Now, considering you have two VIOS, we have to figure out which virtual adapter (out of the 4) is your primary adapter and which is control channel adapter. You can check the profile (of virtual adapter) if a adapter has been check as access external network, and given a trunking priority then it is your primary adapter, for control channel adapter you WONT select access external network, and most shops give it a vlan no of 99 (purely environment based, so such standard), so as to distinguish control channel adapter from others.
You cannot use smitty (in rksh), you have to use mkdev command to create SEA.
$ mkvdev -sea "real adapt" -vadapter "primary virt adapt" -default "primary virt adapt" -defaultid "PVID" -attr ha_mode=auto ctrl_chan="control channel adapt"
Yes indeed, you are correct.
But, again there are few things you have to consider before creating SEA, you mentioned that these are Blade Servers, so how are you viewing them, through HMC or IVM? How many VIOS you have on each Blade?
If you have only one VIO on each blade, then SEA holds no good, coz it won't failover. If you have two VIOS, then only you are good to go for SEA.
Now, considering you have two VIOS, we have to figure out which virtual adapter (out of the 4) is your primary adapter and which is control channel adapter. You can check the profile (of virtual adapter) if a adapter has been check as access external network, and given a trunking priority then it is your primary adapter, for control channel adapter you WONT select access external network, and most shops give it a vlan no of 99 (purely environment based, so such standard), so as to distinguish control channel adapter from others.
You cannot use smitty (in rksh), you have to use mkdev command to create SEA.
$ mkvdev -sea "real adapt" -vadapter "primary virt adapt" -default "primary virt adapt" -defaultid "PVID" -attr ha_mode=auto ctrl_chan="control channel adapt"
Hope this helps.
Yes this is IBM Blades.
- I am using IVM.
- Just one VIO is installed.
So in that case having just one VIOs which is the option for high availability when one physical NIC fails?
Ok,
When you click "View/Modify Host Ethernet Adapters", you are seeing two HEA's, now check the one on the top and select properties,
under general tab check mark the option called "Allow virtual Ethernet bridging" click ok and do the same for the other HEA adapter.
Then go to "Virtual Ethernet Bridge" and you will see a adapter.
Basically you are bridging two HEA adapters for redundancy.
Ok,
When you click "View/Modify Host Ethernet Adapters", you are seeing two HEA's, now check the one on the top and select properties,
under general tab check mark the option called "Allow virtual Ethernet bridging" click ok and do the same for the other HEA adapter.
Then go to "Virtual Ethernet Bridge" and you will see a adapter.
Basically you are bridging two HEA adapters for redundancy.
thanks a lot
you know I can continue bothering you with question since I pretty lost in this topic for instance you say SEA makes no sense when having one VIO but my previous partner configured SEA... weird.
any documentation to read and continue after this since now I have to understand more about networking in VIO
Hi guys,
I've been trying to tackle this issue for days and I'm stumped. Hopefully someone can give more light on what else I can do.
I have a p7 series box, with dual VIOS and 10 lpars and everything was working fine until I had to move the box to another location in the data centre. Ensured... (16 Replies)
I am trying to get my boss' ipad to print on our local printers, and rapidly coming to loathe the product.
After several false starts I'm attempting to use the free WePrint application, running on a Windows machine, to "forward" our printers from it to the ipad over the local network. I've hit... (2 Replies)
Hi
In the vio server when I do # lsattr -El hdisk*, I get a PVID. The same PVID is also seen when I put the lspv command on the vio client partition. This way Im able to confirm the lun using the PVID.
Similarly how does the vio client partition gets the virtual ethernet scsi client adapter... (1 Reply)
Hi all,
I set up the following configuration on my system:
- An LPar with a virtual adapter, first one with a vlan id=703 and id port=13.
- The first adapter have to connect to a VIOS in which i configured an SEA.
So, the VA is set up on interface ent2, SEA on ent29 (by linking a... (0 Replies)
Hi
I have 4 NIC's connected to my RHEL 5.3 server. Two on one subnet creating bond0, and two on a second subnet which create bond1. Both bonds are set to use DHCP to obtain IP addresses. Here is the config file for ifcfg-bond0:
DHCP_HOSTNAME=rrnltshckvmx001
DEVICE=bond0
BOOTPROTO=dhcp... (2 Replies)
Hi,
I want to know wheather partition size for installation of vio client can be specified on vio server
example
If I am installing vio server on blade with 2*300gb hard disk,after that I want to create 2 vio client (AIX Operating system) wheather I can specify hard disk size while... (1 Reply)
Hello,
When I try to upgrade AIX from 5.1 to 5.3 I get this error message
20EE0008 : No adapters found Adapter, Riser, System Bd.
Anyone know anything about it ? (1 Reply)