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ONTAP SAN Host Utilities

Configure Oracle Linux 7.7 for FCP and iSCSI with ONTAP storage

Contributors netapp-pcarriga netapp-ranuk netapp-madhulik netapp-sdaffy netapp-reenu netapp-sarajane netapp-aoife
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The Linux Host Utilities software provides management and diagnostic tools for Linux hosts that are connected to ONTAP storage. When you install the Linux Host Utilities on an Oracle Linux 7.7 host, you can use the Host Utilities to help you manage FCP and iSCSI protocol operations with ONTAP LUNs.

Note You don't need to manually configure Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) settings because ONTAP LUNs are automatically mapped to the hypervisor.

Step 1: Optionally, enable SAN booting

You can configure your host to use SAN booting to simplify deployment and improve scalability.

Before you begin

Use the Interoperability Matrix Tool to verify that your Linux OS, host bus adapter (HBA), HBA firmware, HBA boot BIOS, and ONTAP version support SAN booting.

Steps

  1. Create a SAN boot LUN and map it to the host.

  2. Enable SAN booting in the server BIOS for the ports to which the SAN boot LUN is mapped.

    For information on how to enable the HBA BIOS, see your vendor-specific documentation.

  3. Verify that the configuration was successful by rebooting the host and verifying that the OS is up and running.

Step 2: Install the Linux Host Utilities

NetApp strongly recommends installing the Linux Host Utilities to support ONTAP LUN management and assist technical support with gathering configuration data.

Install Linux Host Utilities 7.1.

Note Installing the Linux Host Utilities doesn't change any host timeout settings on your Linux host.

Step 3: Confirm the multipath configuration for your host

You can use multipathing with Oracle Linux 7.7 to manage ONTAP LUNs.

Note You can use the recommended settings for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.7 to configure Red Hat Compatible Kernel for Oracle Linux 7.7.

To ensure that multipathing is configured correctly for your host, verify that the /etc/multipath.conf file is defined and that you have the NetApp recommended settings configured for your ONTAP LUNs.

Steps

  1. Verify that the /etc/multipath.conf file exits. If the file doesn't exist, create an empty, zero-byte file:

    touch /etc/multipath.conf

  2. The first time the multipath.conf file is created, you might need to enable and start the multipath services to load the recommended settings:

    chkconfig multipathd on
    /etc/init.d/multipathd start

  3. Each time you boot the host, the empty /etc/multipath.conf zero-byte file automatically loads the NetApp recommended host multipath parameters as the default settings. You shouldn't need to make changes to the /etc/multipath.conf file for your host because the operating system is compiled with the multipath parameters that recognize and manage ONTAP LUNs correctly.

    The following table shows the Linux OS native compiled multipath parameter settings for ONTAP LUNs.

    Show parameter settings
    Parameter Setting

    detect_prio

    yes

    dev_loss_tmo

    "infinity"

    failback

    immediate

    fast_io_fail_tmo

    5

    features

    "2 pg_init_retries 50"

    flush_on_last_del

    "yes"

    hardware_handler

    "0"

    no_path_retry

    queue

    path_checker

    "tur"

    path_grouping_policy

    "group_by_prio"

    path_selector

    "service-time 0"

    polling_interval

    5

    prio

    "ontap"

    product

    LUN

    retain_attached_hw_handler

    yes

    rr_weight

    "uniform"

    user_friendly_names

    no

    vendor

    NETAPP

  4. Verify the parameter settings and path status for your ONTAP LUNs:

    multipath -ll

    The default multipath parameters support AFF and FAS configurations. In these configurations, a single ONTAP LUN shouldn't require more than four paths. If there are more than four paths, it might cause issues with the paths during a storage failure.

    An AFF or FAS configuration should have two groups of paths with higher and lower priorities. Higher priority Active/Optimized paths are served by the controller where the aggregate is located. Lower priority paths are active but non-optimized because they are served by a different controller. Non-optimized paths are only used when optimized paths aren’t available.

    The following example outputs show the correct parameter settings and path status for ONTAP LUNs in an AFF or FAS configuration with two Active/Optimized paths and two Active/Non-Optimized paths:

    Show example 
    multipath -ll
3600a0980383036347ffb4d59646c4436 dm-28 NETAPP,LUN C-Mode
size=10G features='3 queue_if_no_path pg_init_retries 50' hwhandler='1 alua' wp=rw
|-+- policy='service-time 0' prio=50 status=active
| |- 16:0:6:35 sdwb  69:624  active ready running
| |- 16:0:5:35 sdun  66:752  active ready running
`-+- policy='service-time 0' prio=10 status=enabled
  |- 15:0:0:35 sdaj  66:48   active ready running
  |- 15:0:1:35 sdbx  68:176  active ready running

Step 4: Optionally, exclude a device from multipathing

If required, you can exclude a device from multipathing by adding the WWID for the unwanted device to the "blacklist" stanza for the multipath.conf file.

Steps

  1. Determine the WWID:

    /lib/udev/scsi_id -gud /dev/sda

    "sda" is the local SCSI disk that you want to add to the blacklist.

    An example WWID is 360030057024d0730239134810c0cb833.

  2. Add the WWID to the "blacklist" stanza:

    blacklist {
	     wwid   360030057024d0730239134810c0cb833
        devnode "^(ram|raw|loop|fd|md|dm-|sr|scd|st)[0-9]*"
        devnode "^hd[a-z]"
        devnode "^cciss.*"
}

Step 5: Customize multipath parameters for ONTAP LUNs

If your host is connected to LUNs from other vendors and any of the multipath parameter settings are overridden, you need to correct them by adding stanzas later in the multipath.conf file that apply specifically to ONTAP LUNs. If you don't do this, the ONTAP LUNs might not work as expected.

Check your /etc/multipath.conf file, especially in the defaults section, for settings that might be overriding the default settings for multipath parameters.

Caution You shouldn't override the recommended parameter settings for ONTAP LUNs. These settings are required for optimal performance of your host configuration. Contact NetApp support, your OS vendor, or both for more information.

The following example shows how to correct an overridden default. In this example, the multipath.conf file defines values for path_checker and no_path_retry that aren't compatible with ONTAP LUNs, and you can't remove these parameters because ONTAP storage arrays are still attached to the host. Instead, you correct the values for path_checker and no_path_retry by adding a device stanza to the multipath.conf file that applies specifically to the ONTAP LUNs.

Show example 
defaults {
   path_checker      readsector0
   no_path_retry     fail
}

devices {
   device {
      vendor          "NETAPP"
      product         "LUN"
      no_path_retry   queue
      path_checker    tur
   }
}

Step 6: Review the known issues

The Oracle Linux 7.7 host with ONTAP storage has the following known issues:

NetApp Bug ID Title Description

1440718

If you unmap or map a LUN without performing a SCSI rescan, it might lead to data corruption on the host.

When you set the 'disable_changed_wwids' multipath configuration parameter to YES, it disables access to the path device in the event of a WWID change. Multipath will disable access to the path device until the WWID of the path is restored to the WWID of the multipath device. To learn more, see NetApp Knowledge Base: The filesystem corruption on iSCSI LUN on the Oracle Linux 7.

1311575

I/O delays observed due to Read/Write operations failed to switch through secondary paths during storage failover with Qlogic QLE2672(16G)

I/O operations might fail to resume through secondary paths during storage failover operations on Oracle Linux 7.7 kernel (5.4.17-2011.0.7.el7uek.x86_6) with QLogic QLE2672 16G HBA. If I/O progress stops due to blocked primary paths during storage failover, the I/O operation might not resume through secondary paths causing an I/O delay. The I/O operation resumes only after primary paths come online after the completion of the storage failover giveback operation.

1311576

I/O delays observed due to Read/Write operation failing to switch through secondary paths during storage failover with Emulex LPe16002(16G)

I/O operations might fail to resume through secondary paths during storage failover operations on Oracle Linux 7.7 kernel (5.4.17-2011.0.7.el7uek.x86_6) with Emulex LPe16002 16G HBA. If I/O progress stops due to blocked primary paths during storage failover, the I/O operation might not resume through secondary paths causing an I/O delay. The I/O operation resumes only after primary paths come online after the completion of the storage failover giveback operation.

1246134

I/O delays observed and reports are moving to blocked, NOT PRESENT state during storage failover with Emulex LPe16002(16G)

During storage failover operations on the Oracle Linux 7.6 with the UEK5U2 kernel running with an Emulex LPe16002B-M6 16G Fibre Channel (FC) host bus adapter (HBA), I/O progress might stop due to reports getting blocked. The storage failover operation reports change from "online" state to "blocked" state, causing a delay in read and write operations. After the operation is completed successfully, the reports fail to move back to "online" state and continue to remain in "blocked" state.

1246327

I/O delays observed and Rports are moving to blocked, NOT PRESENT state during storage failover with Qlogic QLE2672(16G) and QLE2742(32G)

Fibre Channel (FC) remote ports might be blocked on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.6 with the QLogic QLE2672 16G host during storage failover operations. Because the logical interfaces go down when a storage node is down, the remote ports set the storage node status to blocked. I/O progress might stop due to the blocked ports if you are running both a QLogic QLE2672 16G host and a QLE2742 32GB Fibre Channel (FC) host bus adapter (HBA).
When the storage node returns to its optimal state, the logical interfaces also come up and the remote ports should be online. However, the remote ports might still be blocked. This blocked state registers as failed faulty to LUNS at the multipath layer. You can verify the state of the remote ports with the following command:
# cat /sys/class/fc_remote_ports/rport-*/port_stat
You should see the following output:
Blocked
Blocked
Blocked
Blocked
Online
Online

What's next?

  • Learn about using the Linux Host Utilities tool.

  • Learn about ASM mirroring.

    Automatic Storage Management (ASM) mirroring might require changes to the Linux multipath settings to allow ASM to recognize a problem and switch over to an alternate failure group. Most ASM configurations on ONTAP use external redundancy, which means that data protection is provided by the external array and ASM doesn't mirror data. Some sites use ASM with normal redundancy to provide two-way mirroring, normally across different sites. See Oracle databases on ONTAP for further information.