Setting up MDS 9120

greywolf241 · ‎05-11-2010

Hello,

Complete newbie question I'm afraid. I have done the usual "purchased switch of ebay" and am struggling to set it up.

I think the switch has been reset to default, and it has the username: admin & password: adminpass written on top of the switch.

I wish to set up an xsan 2 storage network utilising 2 x Xserve RAIDs (all controllers in 7x750GB RAID 5) with an Xserve G5 metacontroller, connected to the xsan would also be my Mac Pro.

My first question is how do I configure the switch? And for any experts out there, what should I be setting the switch settings to.

Regards,

Ben

bfeeny · ‎05-12-2010

There is really no easy way to answer this question.

To properly setup the switch, you really should configure it for best practices with regards to administration, security, performance, etc.

I would suggest reading the Quick Configuration Guide for MDS switches or the Cisco MDS Cookbook. Both of these are probably your best bet at just plugging it all up and getting some functionality.

At the very least you will plug the XRaid and hosts into a fibre channel ports and configure it like so:

conf t

int fc1/1

switchport mode F

no shut

exit

It is likely the XRaid shows as a single drive, since that is how many RAID's work. If its configured to appear as a JBOD (bunch of disks) then you will need to make the switchport mode FL.

after doing this you should see the hosts and disks "login" to the fabric and can see their WWN's with:

show flogi database

In order to get them to talk, you still need to zone the devices together. If your just trying to get started quickly you could set the default to be that all devices talk to eachother. This is not best practices, but if your just trying to mess around, you have to start somewhere:

conf t

zone default permit vsan 1

exit

Don't forget to save your configuration:

copy runn start

But don't make this scribble your production configuration. I am just trying to help you out with some pointers. The reality is, the XRaid may have multiple interfaces (I am not sure, I dont know much about XRaid), it may have multiple modes of operation. You need to investigate the speeds of your optics, speed of HBA on server, speed of XRaid. Figure out how to partition the XRaid, which hosts need to talk to it etc. Let us know how you do, we can certainly help you along, but please read the quick config guide and MDS cookbook, I think it will help you alot.

Best of luck

Brian

greywolf241 · ‎08-05-2010

Thanks Brian,

I have managed to get the Xserve RAID's talking across the switch to the Xserve Server.

With regard to the startup config, my switch no longer boots up to the switch prompt, but instead just boots to the loader prompt:

Loader Version 1.2(2)

loader>

I then need to use the command below to boot into the boot prompt:

loader> boot m9100-s1ek9-kickstart-mz.3.0.2a.bin

And the following is displayed:

Booting kickstart image: m9100-s1ek9-kickstart-mz.3.0.2a.bin....

....................................................................Image verification OK

Starting kernel...

blah, blah, blah

switch(boot)#

From here I use the command:

switch(boot)# load m9100-s1ek9-mz.3.0.2a.bin

And the switch loads the system image, resulting in the switch prompt being displayed, and I now configure my switch.

mds9100 login:

My question, how can I save the booting configuration so that the switch boots and loads the system image from a power down state?

Thanks,

Ben

Ozden Karakok · ‎08-05-2010

Hi Ben,

In the configuration prompt, you only need to save the boot variables:

MDS#conf t

MDS(config)#boot kickstart bootflash:m9100-s1ek9-kickstart-mz.3.0.2a.bin

MDS(config)#boot system bootflash:m9100-s1ek9-mz.3.0.2a.bin

MDS(config)exit

Check the boot variables:

MDS# show boot

Current Boot Variables:

kickstart variable = bootflash:/m9100-s1ek9-kickstart-mz.3.0.2a.bin

system variable = bootflash:/m9100-s1ek9-mz.3.0.2a.bin

No module boot variable set

Boot Variables on next reload:

kickstart variable = bootflash:/m9100-s1ek9-kickstart-mz.3.0.2a.bin

system variable = bootflash:/m9100-s1ek9-mz.3.0.2a.bin

No module boot variable set

MDS#copy running-config startup-config { Copy running configuration to startup-configuration}

It will be all set.

Thanks,

Ozden