Powerpath not showing adapters

Question

Hi folks,

sorry for posting this in the Linux group, but I was not able to find a place to ask my question related to Powerpath on Windows...

My problem:
I have installed 2 Emulex LP 10000 cards in a Windows 2003 server, with driver version 5.1.20.3. Windows detects the cards, and they are installed correctly. I can even see disks in the windows disk manager. Powerpath (version 4.4.1.65)however, refuses to detect the Emulex cards :-(

Has anyone an idea what the problem might be? I'm an experienced Windows admin, but have little experience with powerpath and (Emulex) fibercards.

Thanks!

dynamox · Answer

Nick,welcome to forums. PowerPath will not display your adapters until after you present some LUNs from your array. As soon you as present LUNs from the array you will need to reboot the system (i have never had any luck with PowerPath detecting new LUNs on the fly) and when the system comes back up, your LUNs and HBAs should be listed in PowerPath GUI.

xe2sdc · Answer

Maybe this thread can be moved in PowerPath area of the Host Software forums ..

MarkF4 · Answer

Moved thread to Host Software -> PowerPath area. This is the best place for Windows PowerPath questions.Mark ForemanHost Systems Moderator

DA · Answer

Keep in mind that PowerPath 4.4 is EOL. You might want to upgrade to the latest 5.x version. Not that I think it has anything to do with the problem.

Allen Ward · Answer

Funny, I rarely have to reboot Windows to get PowerPath recognizing new LUNs. Usually it is just when I'm cleaning up old ones that I have to reboot to get rid of old paths. Sometimes nothing else works (e.g. powermt check).

dynamox · Answer

most of my windows experience has been on win2k ...Powepath is doing a lot better on win2k3 ?

dynamox · Answer

good deal. I remember having to have to log off and log back on to terminal services on win2k when doing expansions with diskpart ..pain pain pain

AranH1 · Answer

There really is a big difference between the two versions of the OS. I just did an online expansion today of a server using terminal services. It was nothing. Upgrade man, that OS is 8 years already! It doesn't get better with age

AranH1 · Answer

Tons better, especially with SP1 and above with at least PP 5.0. Like Allen I almost never have to reboot a server to get LUNs or additional paths to appear. Win2k3 is much better than Win2k was on dynamic changes to the OS like drive and network changes.

AranH1 · Answer

More like the old sandwich fermentation process

I haven't had any problems with the process on a cluster that I can recall. I am confirming this on my two-node lab cluster running W2k3 x64 SP1 and PP 5.1 and SQL2k. Will post the results in the morning.

dynamox · Answer

it's not like wine fermentation process ?

i've been sort of removed from windows world at my current job, most of the stuff here runs on Linux/Solaris/AIX. My ECC box is running Win2k3 but i don't mess with it too much. I know you run a lot of clusters, do you ever have problem where you expand the LUN in diskpart but yet it does not show new capacity in Disk Administrator untill after reboot or moving cluster disk recource back and forth between the nodes ?

AranH1 · Answer

One caveat to the process is that you need to reboot the passive node before it can host the physical disk resources. The volume appears in the expanded size on the passive node but it will not be able to bring the partition online until you reboot the node. But it would still be non-disruptive to a cluster since the process on the active node is non-disruptive and you can reboot the passive node.

AranH1 · Answer

The test went smoothly. I expanded a LUN through a stripe expansion on the array, and once that was complete the free space showed up in disk management. With the resources online I extended the volume using diskpart on the active node of the cluster and the volume was expanded non-disruptively. I even made sure I had active I/O to the LUN for the test to observe the behavior under load during an expansion. No problems at all.

dynamox · Answer

thanks for running these tests Aran. It's good that you have that flexibility to have one node completely passive. In my last shop we were running production on one node and QA/Dev on another node, so there were no passive nodes per say ..of course it would be so much easier to schedule reboot for qa/dev versus production ..but you know how those developers are, when they need something you have to drop everything and help them but when you need to bounce a box ..it's like pulling teeth

AranH1 · Answer

We don't allow developers to have root access or perform development work on production servers, they just can't be trusted to not cause problems.

We consider all development servers and storage to be non-production, but as you know, if reboot one of their servers during the day it sure is treated like production!

PowerPath

Powerpath not showing adapters

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