General Issues

This section contains general issues that involve AP on Sun Enterprise servers. Read this section before you attempt to install or configure AP.

If you are upgrading to AP 2.3.1 on all Sun Enterprise 10000 domains, then you can safely remove the SUNWapssp package software from the SSP workstation using pkgrm. If, however, any domain will remain at an earlier version of AP, then you must not remove the AP software on the SSP workstation. In either case, leaving AP software on SSP workstations has no effect on AP 2.3.1.

Supported Devices

The following devices are supported by the AP software on Sun Enterprise servers:

• Sun SPARCstorage^TM Arrays recognized by AP using the pln(soc) controllers

• Sun StorEdge A5000 recognized by AP using sf(socal) or fp(qlc) controllers

• Sun StorEdge T3 recognized by AP using sf(socal) or fp(qlc) controllers

• Sun Enterprise E3500 internal drives recognized by using sf(socal) or fp(qlc) controllers

• SunFastEthernet™ 2.0 (hme)

• SunFDDI/S 6.0 (nf) SAS (Single-Attach Station) and DAS (Dual-Attach Station)

• SCSI-2/Buffered Ethernet FSBE/S and DSBE/S (le)

• Quad Ethernet (qe)

• Sun Quad FastEthernet™ (qfe)

• Sun Gigabit Ethernet 2.0 (ge)

The following table lists the devices supported in each release:

SunFDDI and Gigabit Ethernet Devices

AP 2.3.1 validation tests were performed on SunFDDI/S (revision 7.0) and Gigabit Ethernet (revision 2.0). If you install either of these devices, you must use the revision level that was tested, unless a higher revision level exists. In addition, you must install all of the available patches for these devices. Refer to http://www.sunsolve.sun.com for more information about the patches.

Sun StorEdge A3000

The Sun StorEdge A3000 supports failover capabilities that are similar to those provided by AP 2.3.1. Because of this, AP 2.3.1 does not support the Sun StorEdge A3000. See that product's documentation for more information about its failover support.

Sun StorEdge A5000

AP 2.3.1 supports the Sun StorEdge A5000 for this release.

Sun StorEdge A7000

AP 2.3.1 does not support the Sun StorEdge A7000 for this release.

Sun StorEdge T3

AP 2.3.1 supports the Sun StorEdge T3 in a path optimized AP configuration with this release. Path optimization refers to the efficient distribution of I/O traffic for the T3.

Software Compatibility

The following lists includes the possible combinations of AP and Solaris software you can install on a Sun Enterprise server.

• Solaris 8 with AP 2.3.1 and DR

• Solaris 8 with AP 2.3 and DR

• Solaris 7 with AP 2.3.1 and DR

• Solaris 7 with AP 2.3 and DR

• Solaris 7 with AP 2.2 and DR

• Solaris 2.6 with AP 2.3.1 and DR

• Solaris 2.6 with AP 2.3 and DR

• Solaris 2.6 with AP 2.1 and DR

• Solaris 2.5.1 with AP 2.0.1 and DR (Sun Enterprise 10000 server only)

• Solaris 2.5.1 with AP 2.0 and DR (Sun Enterprise 10000 server only)

AP does not support DR model 3.0, which runs on Sun Enterprise 10000 domains running the Solaris 8 2/02 operating environment. AP does support DR model 2.0 on Sun Enterprise 10000 domains. For details on the multipathing software compatible with DR model 3.0, refer to the SSP 3.5 Installation Guide and Release Notes.

AP Patches

Check the SunSolve website on a regular basis for any AP patches that may be available, and apply the recommended patches:

http://sunsolve.Sun.com

Dynamic Reconfiguration (DR) Issues

The DR Attach operation can complete without the controller being immediately accessible to AP. You must verify that the physical device is present before switching to the new controller using apconfig.

A Sun Enterprise 10000 server running the Solaris 2.6 operating environment requires Patch 106284-02 for AP 2.3.1 to run correctly with the dr_daemon.

Boot Disk Issues

AP 2.3.1 provides support for only one alternately pathed boot disk plus a mirror disk per domain.

In order to fix inconsistencies in boot recovery behavior, device aliases for the boot disk are not supported.

Boot recovery is architecture generic in AP 2.3.1. Boot recovery works on Sun Fire as well as Starfire platforms.

IPMP Issues

IPMP/AP path groups are not supported for this release.

Sun Fibre Channel Port Driver (qlc/fp) Issues

A SENA device that uses the qlc/fp drivers is considered a different physical device than a SENA device that uses the socal/sf stack. SENA devices do not support mixed configurations where qlc/fp and socal/sf drivers service a single SENA device. Therefore, the two devices cannot be combined in an AP metadevice.

Revising the firmware on a physical SENA device using socal/sf drivers to use qlc/fp drivers for your Fibre Channel controllers is the same as replacing the hardware with a different type of controller. (The converse is also true.) You must unconfigure Alternate Pathing on such controllers before you revise the firmware. For example:

# apdisk -d sf:0 
# apdb -C

Revise the SENA firmware.

After you have performed the revision, recreate your pathgroups using the new device names, for example:

# apdisk -c -pfp:0 -a fp:1
# apdb -C

If you change firmware without unconfiguring AP, file systems available from the new alternately-pathed controllers may not be accessible. If those file systems are required during boot, your system can become unbootable.

AP Documentation Locations

Documentation for AP 2.0 and 2.0.1 can be found in their respective collections under Hardware -> Enterprise Servers at docs.sun.com.

AP 2.1 and 2.2, however, are in the Hardware -> Solaris on Sun Hardware AnswerBook collection at docs.sun.com.

AP 2.3 and 2.3.1 are in their own collections under Hardware -> Enterprise Servers.