scsi_vhci(7D) Devices scsi_vhci(7D)
NAME
scsi_vhci - SCSI virtual host controller interconnect driver
DESCRIPTION
The scsi_vhci driver is a SCSA compliant pseudo nexus driver that supports Solaris operating system I/O multipathing services for SCSI-3
devices. This driver introduces a fundamental restructuring of the Solaris device tree to enable a multipath device to be represented as
single device instance rather than as an instance per physical path as in earlier Solaris versions.
The multipath SCSI target devices managed by this driver are identified and represented by using SCSI-3 VPD page(0x83) as the device's
unit address.
Symbolic links in /dev/[r]dsk continue to adhere to the cNtNdNsN format. cN is the logical controller number assigned to this driver
instance. tN is the global unique identifier (GUID) of the multipath target device (64/128 bits), represented as hexadecimal numbers.
The following is an example of a system with a A5000 storage array:
...
/dev/rdsk/c4t200000203709C3F5d0s0 -> ../../devices/scsi_vhci/
ssd@g200000203709c3f5:a,raw
...
/dev/rdsk/c4t200000203709C3F5d0s7 -> ../../devices/scsi_vhci/
ssd@g200000203709c3f5:h,ra
...
The following is an example of a system with a T300 storage array:
...
/dev/rdsk/c1t60020F200000033939C2C2B60008D4AEd0s0 -> ../../devices/
scsi_vhci/ssd@g60020f200000033939a2c2b60008d4ae:a,raw
...
/dev/rdsk/c1t60020F200000033939A2C2B60008D4AEd0s7 -> ../../devices/
scsi_vhci/ssd@g60020f200000033939a2c2b60008d4ae:h,raw
The scsi_vhci driver receives naming and transport services from one or more physical HBA (host bus adapter) devices. To support multi-
pathing, a physical HBA driver must comply with the multipathing services provided by this driver.
The scsi_vhci driver supports the standard functions provided by the SCSA interface.
Configuration
The scsi_vhci driver can be configured by defining properties in the scsi_vhci.conf file.
The scsi_vhci driver supports the following property:
device-type-scsi-options-list
To add a third-party (non-Sun) symmetric storage device to run under scsi_vhci (and thereby take advantage of Solaris I/O multipathing),
you add the vendor ID and product ID for the device, as those strings are returned by the SCSI Inquiry command. As shipped, the
scsi_vhci.conf file contains, in part:
# device-type-scsi-options-list =
# "SUN SENA", "symmetric-option";
# symmetric-option=0x1000000;
For example,to add a device from a vendor with the ID of "Acme" and a product ID of "MSU", you would add:
device-type-scsi-options-list =
"Acme MSU", "symmetric-option";
symmetric-option=0x1000000;
In addition to "Acme," you also might want to add another entry, for example, a device from "XYZ" vendor with a product ID of "ABC:"
device-type-scsi-options-list =
"Acme MSU", "symmetric-option",
"XYZ ABC", "symmetric-option";
symmetric-option=0x1000000;
FILES
/kernel/drv/sparcv9/scsi_vhci
64-bit kernel module (SPARC).
/kernel/drv/scsi_vhci
32-bit kernel module (x86).
/kernel/drv/scsi_vhci.conf
Driver configuration file.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
|Architecture |PCI-based systems |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
|Availability |SUNWckr |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
SEE ALSO
eeprom(1M), prtconf(1M), attributes(5), fcp(7D), fctl(7D), fp(7D), ssd(7D), scsi_abort(9F), scsi_ifgetcap(9F), scsi_pkt(9S),
scsi_reset(9F), scsi_transport(9F), scsi_inquiry(9S), scsi_extended_sense(9S)
Writing Device Drivers
Small Computer System Interface-3 (SCSI-3)
NOTES
In previous releases, the scsi_vhci.conf file supported the mpxio-disable property, which allowed you to disable Solaris I/O multipathing
on a system-wide basis. This property is not present in the current release of the Solaris operating system. Multipathing is always
enabled in scsi_vhci. If you want to disable multipathing, use the mechanisms provided by the HBA drivers. See fp(7D).
In previous releases, Solaris I/O multipathing was also known as MPxIO and Sun StorEdge Traffic Manager (STMS).
SunOS 5.10 2 Dec 2004 scsi_vhci(7D)