Manage your storage arrays Common Array Manager

Another CAM release has gone out the door and can be picked up here.

This release is significant because it includes the much anticipated SAS zoning (a.k.a SAS domain access configuration) feature. You can now control which hosts have access to which disks inside a Sun Storage Expansion Array. It is highly recommended that you read through Chapter 5 of the Sun StorageTek Common Array Manager User Guide for Open Systems (that's a mouth full) and the Using Access Configuration Features section in the release notes to get a basic understanding of this feature and the best practices for using it.

This release is also a recommended upgrade for RAID array users, especially those using the Sun StorageTek 2500 arrays, who are using array firmware 7.x or later.

Some additional important notes about this release:

1. For Sun StorageTek 2500 users: before you can upgrade to the latest firmware included with CAM 6.4.1 you must run the Firmware Upgrade Utility 07.35.xx.xx first.
   
2. For Sun Storage Expansion Array users:  When it is desired to centralize the management of multiple arrays which may be connected to multiple direct attached hosts, download the entire CAM installation kit and during the installation choose the "in-band proxy agent only" option for any hosts which are not the designated to be the centralized CAM management station. The centralized CAM management station will require the "full" distribution to be installed.

If you attempt to install CAM 6.4.0 or earlier into an OpenSolaris zone you'll find that the installer will exit with the following error

In a non-global zone.  You must manually install the following patches in the
global zone first:

119043-09

126539-01

What's going on here is that the version of the Sun Web Console that is bundled with CAM (version 3.0.5) requires these patches on Solaris 10 x86. The CAM installer logic assumes that a zone capable host is a Solaris 10 host (this assumption will be removed in the future) and since these patches can only be applied in the global zone it insists that they be applied before installing CAM.

To get around this you can modify line 170 in the RunMe.bin script. That line reads

found=0

If changed to

found=1

you can then install CAM into a zone. As mentioned before in this post, it is only possible to get Sun Web Console 3.0.2 on OpenSolaris.

CAM comes with two CLIs: a remotehost CLI and a localhost CLI. The remotehost CLI allows you to administrator another CAM management host. The remotehost CLI is written in Java. Due to 6771432 this CLI does not work on OpenSolaris 2008.11 assuming your are using the default system java (which is 1.6.0_10-b33). Your choices are to use java 1.6.0_07 or earlier or wait for 1.6.0_14 which is in early access. Alternatively, if you will only be accessing the localhost you can use the localhost CLI. The localhost CLI is available from /opt/SUNWstkcam/bin/sscs. The remote cli from /opt/SUNWsesscs/cli/bin/sscs.

CAM uses the Sun Java Web Console to host its web application. Version 3.0.5 is bundled into the CAM distribution and is installed as required (Solaris 10 includes version 3.1 which CAM will use). In the case of OpenSolaris, which does not include any version of the Sun Java Web Console, you will end up with version 3.0.2 and not 3.0.5 after installing CAM. This is due to the fact that version 3.0.5 was actually a patch release. That is you first install 3.0.2 and then apply a patch to get to 3.0.5. Patches were released for Solaris 8, Solaris 9 and Solaris 10 --

SPARC Platform

• Solaris 8 patch 136987-01
• Solaris 9 patch 125950-07
  
• Solaris 10 patch 125952-07
  

x86 Platform

• Solaris 8 patch 136986-01
  
• Solaris 9 patch 125951-07
  
• Solaris 10 patch 125953-07

Since there are no patches for OpenSolaris there is no way to get to version 3.0.5 on an OpenSolaris host when installing CAM. In a future release we will address this and will allow the same version of the console to be installed on an OpenSolaris host.

It should be noted that Sun Web Java Console 3.0.2 does have a security vulnerability which is described here.

Although not officially supported, CAM can be installed and used on OpenSolaris. (CAM 6.2 and earlier can not be installed in graphical mode since the installer uses java 1.4 which requires the Motif libraries; the other install modes do work). We have released patches for CAM and it was believed that since OpenSolaris includes the SVR4 patch utilities that the Solaris patches could be applied on an OpenSolaris host. Unfortunately, OpenSolaris only comes with ksh93 and the patch utilities were written using ksh88. Due to incompatbilities between ksh93 and ksh88 the patch utilities will not work. CAM is unbundled software that is released for Solaris, Windows and Linux and we intially want to release one distribution that can be used on both Solaris and OpenSolaris.

One option to get CAM or any other Solaris patches for unbundled software installed on OpenSolaris would be to get a copy of ksh88 and then use it with the patchadd script. Here are steps that worked sucessfully on 2008.11:

1. Obtain Solaris 10 install media.
2. Install the SUNWcsu package into an alternate root.
3. Run the patchadd script using ksh88

For example. these commands can be used to apply the CAM 6.2 patches on a OpenSolaris 2008.11 host:

# pkgadd -R <path to tool root> -d <path to Solaris 10 install media>/Solaris 10/Product SUNWcsu

# <path to tool root>/usr/bin/ksh /usr/lib/patch/patchadd 140064-02

...

# <path to tool root>/usr/bin/ksh /usr/lib/patch/patchadd 140060-02

...

Long term this won't be a workable solution since the patch utilities are being removed from OpenSolaris. Ultimately CAM will be made available from an IPS repository (there are a few factors that prevent this today namely the CAM webapp is written to run in the Sun Java Web Console which is not present in OpenSolaris).

UPDATE (05/11/09):

Even with ksh88 the patch utilities may still not work. On a 2008.11 host with a large ZFS root (~ 114 GB), the following is seen:

Insufficient space in /var/sadm/pkg  to save old files Space
required in kilobytes 132579 Space available in kilobytes 1168640410
patchadd terminating

Without having looked at the patchadd script some sort of integer overflow is probably occuring which causes the space check to fail.

Now that CAM 6.4.0 has come out, which is a new, full package release, our recommendation is to use that version of CAM on OpenSolaris instead of CAM 6.2.

The next release of CAM, 6.4.0, is now available from Sun Downloads here.

This release adds the following features:

1. 8Gb FC host interface (and 8Gb / 4Gb intermix) with the Sun StorageTek 6580 and 6780 arrays
2. support for up to 448 HDDs
3. mixed drive support within a drive tray
4. new array controller firmware v7.50 for the Sun StorageTek 6140, 6540, 6580 and 6780 arrays

This release is a strongly recommended upgrade for the 6000 array series.

Do not install CAM 6.4 to manage the SUN STORAGE J4200, J4400, J4500 or Sun Blade 6000 products. Critical PATCHES for CAM 6.4.0 that provide support for these products will be available on SunSolve in May 2009. Until then, please remain on your current version of CAM.

It's not uncommon for us to release patches for CAM that update the firmware we include with the host software. The following SunSolve page lists all of the firmware patches we have released this calendar year. We've also recently released a patch for 6.1.2 that updates the device API library the management software uses to administer J4200 and J4400 storage systems. These patches can be obtained from here. The library update is required in order to support updating the firmware of the J4200 and J4400 storage systems to the firmware included in the 6.1.2 firmware patch. Consult the README files for a complete list of problems addressed by each patch.

CAM 6.2.0 is now available. Here's what's new for this release:

• Support for the new Sun StorageTek 6580 and 6780 arrays (7.30.xx.xx firmware)
• Support for 7.15.xx.xx firmware for the Sun StorageTek 6140, 6540 and FLX380 arrays, with the following features
• RAID 6 (6140 arrays only)
• >2TB LUN Support (varies by operating system)
• Portable Volume Groups
• Batch Volume Operations
• Support for 7.35.xx.xx firmware for the 2500 Series arrays with the following features:
• Third Expansion Try (48-Drive) Cabling patch
• RAID 6
• 4, 8 and 16k Cache block sizes
• >2TB LUN Support (varies by operating system)
• Volume-Copy (optional)
• Portable VDisks
• Batch Volume Operations
• Varying Cache Block size
• IPV6 Support
• Increased Number of Global Host Spares
• Mixed Drive Support
• 8k Cache Block Size
  

This release also supports Sun's other existing storage arrays, i.e. Sun Storage J4200 and J4400, Sun Blade 6000, Sun StorEdge 6130 and StorageTek FLX240 and FLX280 Arrays, but is not a required upgrade for those platforms.

CAM 6.1.2 has been released and is available for download from here. This release adds support for the following new storage systems from Sun:

• Sun Storage J4500 Array
• Sun Blade 6000 Disk Module
• Sun Blade 6000 Multi-Fabric Network Express Module
  
• Sun Blade 6000 10GbE Multi-Fabric Network Express Module
  

In addition to support for these new devices, this release also includes the following new features:

• Support for 7.10.xx.xx firmware for the 6140, 6540, and FLX380 arrays with the following features:

            RAID 6 (6140 arrays only)
            >2TB LUN Support
            Portable Volume Groups
            Batch Volume Operations
            8K Cache Block size

• Support for in-band management for Solaris x86 and Microsoft Windows
• CLI Minimal Installation
• Remote Proxy Agent for JBODs
• Data in Place Migration (DIPM) and the concept of portable vdisks
• Third Expansion Tray (48-Drive) Cabling patch for the 2500 Series Arrays

Welcome to CAM, the Common Array Manager web log. CAM is the management software for Sun's
midrange storage arrays including the Workgroup Disk, Modular Disk, and new Storage Expansion Array lines. This blog is devoted to all things CAM -- both the free product released by Sun and the new OpenSolaris project. CAM is distributed with every new midrange storage array and is also available for download from the Sun Download Center. The OpenSolaris project is devoted to making the software and technology available to the community. CAM has been designed with an architecture that allows new device support to be added to the product through a plug-in mechanism. One of the main goals we have for the project at this point is to build up a collection of CAM plugins which would allow the software to manage many other types of storage arrays and disk systems. We are planning to release some sample plugins soon along with a toolkit that will provide documentation and guidance for writing new plugins.

CAM is java software and is supported on Solaris, Windows and Linux. It includes a monitoring agent, a web application and a command line utility. The web application currently runs in the Sun Java Web Console and the common line utility can be installed on a separate host and remotely connect to the agent. Additionally, the agent can operate in a proxy mode where it can act on behalf of an agent installed on another host. With these software configuration options CAM provides flexibility with how to arrange your disk management infrastructure. CAM offers both in-band and out-of-band management of devices. Some of the supported devices can only be managed in-band (the Storage Expansion Arrays are an example of such devices). In these cases either a proxy agent or a full CAM installation is required on the host that is attached to the storage device.

That's all for now. We hope to provide regular postings on usage, tips and tricks of the software and more detailed information on the design and implementation of the software as our OpenSolaris project evolves. Stay tuned and we look forward to your comments and suggestions.