I/O Subsystem

The I/O subsystem has been enhanced to support the next generation mass storage stack, as described in “Mass Storage Stack”. This includes support for persistent device special files, as well as hardware paths for lunpaths and LUNs.

Summary of Change

What’s New for Customers Migrating from HP-UX 11i v1 September 2005?

Four new commands manage or transition to the agile view of mass storage.
The existing ioscan, insf, lssf, rmsf, and mksf commands are updated to support the agile view.
To support the agile view, new drivers esdisk, estape, and eschgr supersede the legacy drivers sdisk, stape, and schgr.

What’s New for Customers Migrating from HP-UX 11i v2 June 2006?

See “What’s New for Customers Migrating from HP-UX 11i v1 September 2005?”

Impact

Several I/O commands have been introduced to manage the I/O subsystem. Existing commands support the next generation mass storage stack with new options and functionality, as described in their manpages. The four new commands are:

iobind - change driver bound to a LUN
iofind - help users migrate device special file names
io_redirect_dsf - redirect device special file to a new device
scsimgr - manage and troubleshoot mass storage.

The ioscan command introduces a number of new options. For details, see ioscan(1M). Here is a summary:

-N: display the agile view of the I/O system instead of the legacy versions
-P property_name: display property
-m dsf: display mapping of persistent device special file to legacy device special file(s)
-m hwpath: display mapping of legacy hardware path to lunpath hardware path and LUN hardware path
-m lun: display mapping of LUN to lunpath(s)
-e: display Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) format on HP Integrity servers and Boot Console Handler (BCH) format on HP 9000 systems
-s: display stale I/O nodes
-b: initiate deferred binding
-r: reverse a deferred binding
-B: list deferred bindings
-U: scan all unclaimed I/O nodes

The insf command, when run without options, now creates both legacy and persistent device special files for all new devices. It now supports a -L option to create legacy device special files and enable legacy mode. To determine if legacy mode is enabled, use insf -Lv.

The lssf command now supports an -s option which displays “stale” mass storage device special files: device special files for which there appears to be no hardware. It also supports a new -c option which performs critical resource analysis on a device special file.

The rmsf command now supports three new options. The -x option removes “stale” entries from the I/O configuration. The -u option, when used with the -H option, attempts to unbind a driver from a given hardware path. The -L option disables legacy mode and removes legacy device special files and their entries in the I/O configuration.

Compatibility

There are no known compatibility issues.

Performance

There are no known performance issues.

Documentation

For details on new or modified commands, please check their associated manpages. In particular, the following manpages are new:

Significant changes are also documented in:

Obsolescence

Not applicable.