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Swap failed controller in duplex MD3000i
We own an MD3000i with two active RAID controllers. Both controllers are running ‘gen 2’ firmware. Recently, one controller began failing (after booting the MD3000i, network ports come up, then about 5 minutes later management port and iSCSI ports go ‘dead’..no link lights.)
We have a spare controller and have tried swapping it in, but the alarm light is on and network ports don’t come up. I’ve tested the spare controller in another MD3000i chassis and confirmed that the spare controller has ‘gen 1’ firmware and that the management port and iSCSI ports work fine.
According to this document (written specifically for an MD3000) the controller may take up to 30 minutes to sync firmware and come up properly:
A few questions:
- should we try swapping in the spare controller and give it more time to do its voodoo?
- does it matter that the spare is ‘gen 1’ firmware, will a sync update this to the ‘gen 2’ firmware that’s on the working controller?
- does the warning light on the replaced controller indicate anything?
DELL-Kenny K
685 Posts
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January 20th, 2014 07:00
The first thing that would be best to do would be to connect a serial cable to the failing controller and use PuTTY to enable output logging and boot the array up. All the output from the controller will be put in the txt file you setup and that will tell us more exactly what is causing the fault.
When it comes to replacing the controller with a controller with Gen 1 FW, it will take longer as it syncs the firmware load and reboots about 3 different times. I would also recommend that you connect the serial cable and enable logging for this process as well to ensure that everything goes as it should.
joelrwilliams1
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January 23rd, 2014 08:00
Thanks for the suggestion. I got a serial cable and will review the boot sequence for issues.
I'm testing with the serial cable out on my spare controller (in a separate chassis) Not that this is important at this stage, but I can't get the 'typical' default password to work when trying to access the Service Interface. Always get 'Password incorrect'.
I can get to the Boot Operations Menu, I can change the baud rate, etc.
The spare controller is running 06.70.17.60 FW. Is there a way to reset this to the default? Or is the default PW different with this firmware?
DELL-Sam L
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January 23rd, 2014 11:00
Hello joelrwilliams1,
The password should be the same for the controllers. make sure that there is no space in between & that the D on dell is capitalized. Also what you can do is to try & remove the battery on the controller and leave it out for a few minutes then insert it back in & then try again to see if that will allow it to let you login.
Please let us know if you have any other questions.
joelrwilliams1
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January 25th, 2014 13:00
The serial cable gave us good information, indicating that controller 1 was indeed bad and boot-cycling. We hot-swapped the spare controller and were able to watch as the firmware and config were copied from the working controller.
The only wonky thing was that we ended up having to power-cycle the enclosure once or twice before we saw the replaced controller show as 192.168.128.101 on the management port. (Even after waiting for 45 minutes after initial insertion of replacement controller.)
Once we saw the 'default' IP of the mgmt port, we were able to change it back to the old value, drop the SAN from MDSM and re-add it with two mgmt ports.
Thanks for the help.