Tech Brief
Installation and
Configuration Tips
for Oracle Linux SANs
At a glance
This application note is targeted towards
system and storage administrators managing
Emulex LightPulse® host bus adapters
(HBAs) and converged network adapters
(CNAs) that are connected to a Fibre Chanel
storage area network (SAN) for use with
Oracle Database. This document will cover
installation and configuration of the Emulex
driver, HBAnyware® management utility, and
multipathing for Oracle Enterprise Linux 5
(OEL5) and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (RHEL5).
This document will also discuss installation
and configuration of MultiPulse,® an Emulex-
exclusive multipath solution for RHEL5 and
Hewlett Packard servers.
Content
· Driver Installation
· HBAnyware Installation
· DM-MPIO Installation for OEL5 and RHEL 5
· MultiPulse Installation for RHEL 5
Introduction
The Emulex Linux driver and HBAnyware utility provide optimized
performance and management support for Emulex LightPulse HBAs and
CNAs. Installation and configuration is easy and straight forward. This
document provides tips to help server and storage administrators.
Driver Installation
Download the driver
Download the latest Emulex driver kit for OEL5 and RHEL5 (Linux 2.6
kernel) from the Emulex web site:
http://www.emulex.com/support/linux/linux_26_2.jsp
The driver kit contains the Emulex driver in an RPM package.
Install Linux components
The driver installation requires installation of components from the OEL5
or RHEL5 distribution. The required RPMs can be found on the first two
installation CDs for the operating system.
Perform the following steps to install the Linux components for OEL5:
From OEL5 installation CD 1:
cd /media/cdrom/Server
rpm –Uvh kernel-devel-2.6.18-92.el5.i686.rpm
rpm –Uvh kernel-headers*
rpm –Uvh kernel-PAE-devel*
Note—For Oracle VM, the first command would be:
rpm –Uvh kernel-xen-devel-2.6.18-92.el5.i686.rpm
From OEL5 installation CD 2:
cd /media/cdrom/Server
rpm –Uvh glibc-headers*
rpm -Uvh glibc-devel*
rpm -Uvh libgomp*
rpm -Uvh gcc-4*
Perform the following steps to install the Linux components automate management functions. Emulex provides
for RHEL5: powerful Linux script examples that can be downloaded at:
From RHEL5 installation CD 1: http://www.emulex.com/support/linux/tools.html
cd /media/cdrom/Server
rpm -Uvh kernel-devel-2.6.*
Download HBAnyware
Download the applications kit from the Emulex web:
From RHEL5 installation CD 2:
http://www.emulex.com/support/linux/linux_26_2.jsp
cd /media/cdrom/Server
rpm -Uvh compat-libstdc++-33-3* Note that there are two download options for HBAnyware:
rpm -Uvh glibc-headers*
c HBAnyware kit—Contains the software components
rpm -Uvh glibc-devel*
rpm -Uvh compat-gcc-34-3*
needed to use the HBAnyware CLI or GUI on the local
rpm -Uvh compat-gcc-34-c++-3* server.
rpm -Uvh libgomp* c Core (CLI) apps kit—Contains the software components
rpm -Uvh gcc-4*
needed to use the HBAnyware CLI only on the local
Install the Emulex driver server. The local server can be managed remotely using
After downloading the driver tar kit, expand the tar. Change the CLI or GUI.
to the expanded lpfc_driver_kit directory and type the
following command: Install HBAnyware
The following example is for the HBAnyware kit that
./lpfc-install
includes the full HBAnyware installation (GUI and CLI). A
The system will need to be rebooted after the installation similar procedure could be followed for a core kit.
completes. One of the three management modes must be chosen
during the installation:
HBAnyware Installation
c Strictly local management—Management of adapters
HBAnyware is a comprehensive management utility
on the local server. No management of adapters on
with a graphical user interface (GUI) and command line
remote servers. No management of local adapters from
interface (CLI) that supports a wide variety of management
remote servers.
scenarios for Emulex adapters.
c Local management plus—Management of adapters on
Some of the key HBAnyware features include:
the local server. No management of adapters on remote
c Discovery of all SAN elements with a choice of GUI views servers. Management of local adapters from remote
based on the host, fabric, ports and virtual ports. servers.
c Management of local and remote servers using a Fibre c Full management—Management of the adapters
Channel connection or a LAN connection. on the local server and remote servers that allow it.
c Management modes to limit both local and remote Management of local adapters from remote servers.
management. After downloading the Emulex Linux Application kit, expand
c Batch download option to update firmware on multiple the tar and perform the following steps to install the
servers and adapters with a single command. HBAnyware Utility.
c Optional Internet access for management from a remote Change to the expanded ElxLinuxApps directory and type
laptop, workstation or server using the HBAnyware the following command:
WebLaunch feature. ./install

The HBAnyware CLI supports all of the basic commands After the installation completes, type the following to
that are available in the HBAnyware GUI. The CLI is a launch the management utility:
command-line interface requiring no user interaction,
/usr/sbin/hbanyware/hbanyware
allowing commands to be integrated into scripts to
 Tech Brief

Figure 1—HBAnyware GUI showing port view Use one of the following commands to install and load the
device-mapper-multipath RPM.
From OEL5 installation CD 1:
rpm -Uvh device-mapper-multipath-*

From RHEL5 installation CD 3:

rpm -Uvh device-mapper-multipath-*

Configure Multipathing
After loading the multipath RPM, make a backup copy
of the /etc/multipath.conf file and edit the original file.
Uncomment the following entries (by removing the # ). Note
that vendor and product values are informational only and
would typically reference the storage array being used.
defaults {
user_friendly_names yes
DM-MPIO Multipath Installation }
for OEL5 and RHEL5 devnode_blacklist {
devnode “^(ram|raw|loop|fd|md|dm-|sr|scd|st)[0-9]*”
Install DM-MPIO devnode “^hd[a-z]”
Multipathing solutions use redundant adapters to provide devnode “^cciss”
load balancing for maximum total bandwidth and failover }
to continue I/O if an adapter link goes down. The SAN can devices {
also include redundant switches and array controllers to device {
vendor “vendor”
implement a fully fault-tolerant environment.
product “product”
Device Mapper Multipath I/O (DM-MPIO) is the generic path_grouping_policy multibus
Linux multipath solution that is included with OEL5 and }
REL5. DM-MPIO provides native Linux multipath failover }

support only. This section will cover installation and basic
configuration steps for DM-MPIO. It‘s assumed that the
server has multiple HBA ports connected to a common set
of storage targets.
The following RPMs must be loaded:
device-mapper-1.02*
device-mapper-multipath-0.4.7*
In most OEL5 or RHEL5 installations, the device-mapper
The section devnode_blacklist includes devices that
should not have multipathing enabled. This is useful if there
are direct attached SCSI or IDE drives that should not be
part of the multipath.
To add the multipath service to the boot sequence, type
the following commands:
chkconfig --add multipathd
chkconfig multipathd on

RPM is loaded by default. The device-mapper-multipath Basic multipathing on Linux is Active/Active with a round-
RPM is usuallly not loaded by default and needs to be robin algorithm. More advanced features such as grouping
installed. by priority, serial, or node name can be configured after
Type the following to check for the presence of device installation.
mapper RPMs: Reboot the system to complete the installation.
rpm –qa | grep device-mapper After rebooting, login and type:
rpm –qa | grep multipath
cd /dev/mapper
 Tech Brief

Verify that there are newly listed mpath* files. An example MultiPulse Multipath Installation for RHEL5
of the directory listing follows: MultiPulse is a high-availability technology that provides
# ls /dev/mapper/ failover and static load balancing capabilities for Emulex
control mpath1 mpath3 mpath5 HBAs provided by HP.
mpath0 mpath2 mpath4 VolGroup00-LogVol00
Download MultiPulse
To view a list of multipath devices, use:
MultiPulse is supported on Red Hat Enterprise Linux
# multipath –d –l
Server and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. At the time of
# multipath –l
this publication, the latest MultiPulse driver kit can be
The following example shows 2 LUNs with 2 paths. Each downloaded from HP at:
section (mpath1, mpath0) is specific to a storage target,
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/
or LUN in this example. Multiple paths are listed for each
SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&swItem=
target. In this example, they are SCSI paths 2 (2:0:n:0) and
co-61248-1&jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN
3 (3:0:n:0), which correspond to two HBAs installed in the
initiator, or server. One HBA is active (round-robin 0 [prio=0] Install MultiPulse
[active]). The second HBA is enabled and available for After downloading the driver package, use the following
failover (round-robin 0 [prio=0] [enabled]). commands to install MultiPulse:
mpath1 (320000011c6810684) dm-4 SEAGATE,ST336854FC # tar zxf hp-lpfc-2008-05-30.tar.gz
[size=34G][features=0][hwhandler=0] # cd hp-lpfc-2008-05-30
\_ round-robin 0 [prio=0][active] # ./INSTALL
\_ 2:0:2:0 sdd 8:48 [active][undef] # rpm -Uvh hp-multipulse-2.2.22-1.linux.rpm
\_ round-robin 0 [prio=0][enabled]
\_ 3:0:2:0 sdj 8:144 [active][undef] Once the MultiPulse RPM is installed, HBAnyware can be
mpath0 (320000011c6810689) dm-2 SEAGATE,ST336854FC used to monitor and configure multipath connections.
[size=34G][features=0][hwhandler=0]
\_ round-robin 0 [prio=0][active]
Figure 2—HBAnyware GUI showing multipath connections
\_ 2:0:0:0 sdb 8:16 [active][undef]
\_ round-robin 0 [prio=0][enabled]
\_ 3:0:0:0 sdh 8:112 [active][undef]

This document refers to various companies and products by their trade names. In most, if not all cases, their respective companies claim these designations as trademarks or
registered trademarks. This information is provided for reference only. Although this information is believed to be accurate and reliable at the time of publication, Emulex assumes
no responsibility for errors or omissions. Emulex reserves the right to make changes or corrections without notice. This report is the property of Emulex and may not be duplicated
without permission from the Company. 09-490 · 12/08
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