SCSI and PCI Hot-Plugging

The cfgadm command is updated in this release to provide SCSI and PCI hot-plugging for supported SCSI and PCI controllers on SPARC based and IA based systems.

Hot plugging is the ability to physically add, remove, or replace system components while the system is running. Dynamic reconfiguration, available on certain SPARC servers, allows a service provider to remove and replace hot-pluggable system I/O boards in a running system, eliminating the time lost in rebooting. Also, if a replacement board is not immediately available, the system administrator can use dynamic reconfiguration to shut down a failing board while allowing the system to continue operation.

See your SPARC hardware manufacturer's documentation for information about whether dynamic reconfiguration is supported on your system. See the Solaris 8 (Intel Platform Edition) Hardware Compatibility List to verify whether your PCI controller supports hot-plugging.

Chapter 25, Configuring Devices describes how to use the cfgadm command to hot-plug SCSI or PCI controllers.