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Oracle® Storage 12 Gb/s SAS PCIe RAID HBA, Internal Installation Guide For HBA Models 7110116 and 7110117

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Updated: April 2020
 
 

Using the pcli Utility to Create a Bootable Drive (SPARC)

This section describes how to use the pcli utility to create a logical drive on a SPARC system prior to installing the Oracle Solaris operating system (OS). This section contains the following topics:

To Prepare to Use the pcli Utility

  1. Open an xterm or a gnome terminal window.

    pcli commands can produce large amounts of detailed output. The xterm and gnome terminal windows provide scroll bar functionality, which helps with viewing such output.


    Note -  If you do not have access to a terminal window with scroll bars, such as the xterm or gnome windows, you can use the pcli pagination feature. This feature enables you to specify a number of lines to be printed on the screen before pausing, at which time you must hit a key to continue. For example, the following pcli command prints 20 lines at a time to the screen: {0} ok ok cli show page 20
  2. Enter the OBP environment by performing one of the following tasks:
    • Press STOP+A on a Sun keyboard from Oracle.
    • Issue a break from a remote console.
  3. Use the show-devs command to list the device paths on the system and select the device path for the HBA.
     {0} ok show-devs
    <...>
    /pci@1e,600000/pci@0/pci@3/LSI,mrsas@0
     /pci@1e,600000/pci@0/pci@3/LSI,mrsas@0/disk
     /pci@1e,600000/pci@0/pci@3/LSI,mrsas@1
    <...>
    
  4. Use the select-dev command to select the HBA on which the pcli commands that you issue will operate.

    {0} ok “ /pci@1e,600000/pci@0/pci@3/LSI,mrsas@0” select-dev

    You have now selected the HBA upon which all pcli commands will operate. This means you do not need to specify the HBA in any pcli command that you issue, unlike with the storcli utility. For example, if you issue the pcli command, show, the command automatically applies to the selected HBA. However, the equivalent command through the storcli utility would apply only to the card that you specify (the 0 card, as shown here):

    SPARC pcli: {0} ok cli show

    storcli: storcli /c0 show

  5. Review the following table for useful pcli commands.
    pcli Command
    Description
    cli /c0/eall/sall show
    Lists all physical drives.
    cli add
    Creates a RAID logical drive.
    cli /c0/vX del
    Deletes a logical drive.
    cli /c0/vall show
    Displays information about logical drives.
    cli show
    Displays HBA configuration information.
    cli /c0/vall show
    Lists all logical drives.

    You are now ready to use the pcli commands to create a logical drive, or MegaRAID virtual drive, on the HBA.

To Create a Logical Drive With the pcli Utility

  1. Use the /c0/eall/sall show command to list all the physical drives attached to the HBA.

    Drives attached directly to the HBA are assigned an Enclosure Device ID number of 252 (only eight physical drives can be attached in this way). Drives connected to the HBA through a SAS expander or an external enclosure are assigned different Enclosure Device ID values. In the following example, the physical drive listed in the output is attached directly to the HBA (Enclosure Device ID value of 252).

    {0} ok cli /c0/eall/sall show
    Drive Information : 
    =================
    
    {0} ok cli /c0/eall/sall show
      
      Drive Information :
      =================
        
      -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
      EID:Slt DID State  DG       Size Intf Med SED PI SeSz       Model            Sp
      -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
      252:0    41 UGood   0 557.861 GB SAS  HDD N   N  512B       ST360057SSUN600G  U         
      252:1    25 UGood   0 557.861 GB SAS  HDD N   N  512B       ST360057SSUN600G  U  
      
    
  2. Use the add command to create a logical drive (MegaRAID virtual disk) from the physical disks.
    {0} ok cli add vd r0 drives=252:0 -- for RAID 0, with Enclosure #252 and Slot 0 --
    {0} ok cli add vd r1 drives=252:0,1 -- for RAID 1, with Enclosure #252 and Slots 0 and 1 --
    
  3. Use the format(1M) utility to label the physical disks from which you created the logical drive.

    All disks used by the HBA must be labeled, or contain a volume table of contents (VTOC). If you attempt to use an unlabeled disk with the HBA, the disk might not be recognized by the OS or the OS installation itself might fail. For more information about labeling disks, see the documentation for the physical disks.

  4. Create an alias for the drive, as described in To Create an Alias for a Bootable Drive (SPARC).

To Create an Alias for a Bootable Drive (SPARC)

After you have created a bootable drive, as described in To Create a Logical Drive With the pcli Utility , you can create an alias for that drive. The alias helps to simplify the process of booting the drive.

  1. Issue the show-disks command to list the disks on the system.

    Note that, as shown in the following example, you can determine the HBA drives by looking for the LSI,mrsas@number label, where number is 0 for the first HBA detected, and increments for each additional HBA detected.

    {0} ok show-disks
    <...>
    a) /pci@1e,600000/pci@0/pci@3/LSI,mrsas@0/disk
    b) /pci@1e,600000/pci@0/pci@3/LSI,mrsas@1/disk
    c) /pci@1e,600000/pci@0/pci@3/LSI,mrsas@2/disk
    <...>
    q) NO SELECTION
    Enter Selection, q to quit: 
    
  2. Select the bootable drive for which you want to create an alias.
    a) /pci@1e,600000/pci@0/pci@3/LSI,mrsas@0/disk
    b) /pci@1e,600000/pci@0/pci@3/LSI,mrsas@1/disk
    c) /pci@1e,600000/pci@0/pci@3/LSI,mrsas@2/disk
    <...>
    q) NO SELECTION
    Enter Selection, q to quit: c
    /pci@1e,600000/pci@0/pci@3/LSI,mrsas@2/disk has been selected.
    
  3. Issue the nvalias alias-name HBA-drive-path command to create an alias for the bootable drive that you selected in the previous step (you can press Ctrl+Y to paste the device path).

    In the following example, the alias name is mydev.

    {0} ok nvalias mydev /pci@1e,600000/pci@0/pci@3/LSI,mrsas@2/disk
    
  4. You can now boot from the bootable drive by using the boot alias-name command.
    {0} ok boot mydev
    
  5. To optionally add the bootable drive to the boot-device list and then automatically boot from the drive by controlling the boot device order, issue the following commands, as shown.
    {0} ok printenv boot-device
    boot-device = disk0 disk1
    {0} ok setenv boot-device mydev disk0
    boot-device = mydev disk0
    

    In this example, the mydev alias is set as disk0, the first disk in the boot device list. This results in the automatic booting of the bootable drive, /pci@1e,600000/pci@0/pci@3/LSI,mrsas@2/disk.

  6. Validate the label of the bootable drive that you created (see Validating the Label of the HBA Logical Drive).