Mike found http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-44890 which may have some interesting things on it on how to configure the FAStT500. It may be worth reading. Near the bottom it warns NOTE: During installation of the VMware ESX Server software, do not connect the fiber cable to the Qlogic HBA. Doing so will cause the Qlogic to be enumerated first during setup, no matter which slot in which the Qlogic card is installed. Do not connect the fiber cable until after VMware ESX server is installed. After installation, when the fiber is reattached, VMware will re-enumerate the drives, and the fiber drives will show up first; the local SCSI drives will be second. Is this relavent? I dunno. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here are the pains I went through to configure the FAStT, aka IBM's 3542-1RU. First of all, it comes with an ethernet connection that gets hard-wired to 192.168.128.101. So the first thing I wanted to do, is to change that I.P. address. How do you do it? The IBM TotalStorage FAStT Storage Manager Version 8.3 Installation and Support Guide for Linux manual (G:\docs\naj1mst.pdf on the FAStT Storage Manager Version 8.3 Support for Microsoft Windows NT, Windows 2000 CD) says on the bottom of its page 21 (or PDF's page 45 of 98), Note: If you want to assign static IP addresses for the controllers, see RETAIN Tip H171389 "Unable To Setup Networking Without DHCP/BOOTP" at the following Web site: http://www.ibm.com/pc/support The real and full URL is http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=psg1MIGR-4MMP53 But that page presumes that you already know how to connect to the FAStT's serial console, which is NOT trivial. After many hours of scouring the net, I finally gave up and called IBM. They talked me through it and later I found a Redbook reference to it. See page 24 of http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpapers/pdfs/redp0205.pdf under the "FAStT setup" section. It says, Iniital IP address assignments is done using a serial connection (with a null-modem cable) between the FAStT200 unit and a "dumb ASCII terminal." In practice, this terminal is probably the HyperTerminal application provided with Microsoft Windows. Our FAStT200 had two controllers; each must be assigned an IP address. Serial Connection We connected the null modem cable provided with the FAStT200 (the long black cable RAJ) to contoller A and to serial port 1 of our PC (com1 RAJ). We started a HyperTerminal session using 9600 bps, 8 data bits, no parity, and 1 stop bit. This configuration is sometimes written as 9600-8-N-1. We also used the autodetect mode, although the ANSII mode can also be used. Start the terminal (with the Connect option, through the toolbar) and press Ctrl-Break (where the Break key is the same as the Pause key above F12). This should produce a logo screen and a request for a password. The default password is infiniti. ************************************************************************************* * What actually happened was, I couldn't get HyperTerminal to work at all. * * The IBM guy sent me another terminal emulater called term31, apparently from * * Microsoft. It's in c:\junk\terminal.exe. * * * * Send for shell access or baud rate change * * prompt, at which point you hit Ctrl-Break. You then get * * * * Press within 5 seconds: for SHELL, for baud rate * * prompt, at which point you hit the Escape key. You then get * * * * Baud rate set to 19200 * * shell restarted. * * * * @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ * * @@ @@@@ @@ @@ @@@@ @@@ @@ @@ @@ This is suppose to be * * @@ @@ @@ @@ @@@ @ @ @@@@ @ @@@@@ LSI LOGIC, where the * * @@ @@@ @@ @@ @@@ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ "LOGIC" is written in * * @@ @@ @@ @@ @@@ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ reverse. It's pretty * * @@@@ @@@@ @@ @@ @@ @@@ @@ @@ @@ ugly unless you back * * @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ up a couple of feet. * * @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ * * @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ * * @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ * * @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ * * @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ * * @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ * * * * SHV RAID Controller * * LSI Logic Storage Systems, Inc. * * SHVRAID Version 05.30.09.00 * * Current Date and Time: September 15, 2004 23:06:40 * * * * Enter password to access shell: * * At which point, you enter the password (infiniti) within 10 seconds or so. * * * * Copyright Wind River Systems, Inc., 1984-2002 * * Copyright LSI Logic Storage Systems, Inc., 1999-2003 * * * * VxWorks: VxWorks5.4.2 * * KERNEL: WIND version 2.5 * * BSP: 1.2/0 * * Creation date: Feb 21 2003 09:25:06 * * CPU: SHV i960 * * Memory Size: 0x2800000 (40 MB) * * * * And finally, the * * -> * prompt. * ************************************************************************************* Another side note to investigate later: 9/17/2004 ********************************************************************** * From ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/pc/pccbbs/pc_servers/26r0609.txt, * * * * When making serial connections to the FAStT storage controller, * * the baud rate is recommended to be set at either 38200 or 57600. * ********************************************************************** Once logged into the FAStT200, use help to obtain a parial list of line commands available. The resulting list is helpful, but does not contain one of the key commands (netCfgSet) that is required at this stage (the netHelp and ifShow commands are also useful). Remember to use to scroll through all the help commands before attempting to enter another command. It goes on with more useful things. Finally it says It's necessary to cycle the power off and back on for both FAStT200 controllers after entering parameters through the serial port. The big problem I had with all this is, how the heck was I suppose to know how to make this work? Where are my, the customer's directions? How am I suppose to know the default password. The IBM guy I asked said, "Tough. You don't. You call IBM or your vendor and ask them to come out and configure this for you for additional money." Phooey on that!!! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anyway, after finally being able to login through the serial console, I started to follow the directions in that RETAIN Tip (http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=psg1MIGR-4MMP53). But even that was apparently out of date. Their screen shots didn't quite match what I was seeing. For example, it said to do a moduleShow command to see if the NCM module was loaded. I didn't have a NCM module, yet the netCfgShow command worked just fine. For the record, my moduleShow command said MODULE NAME MODULE ID GROUP # TEXT START DATA START BSS START --------------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- PSVKI 0xa17f2d80 1 0xa1773960 0xa1770c60 0xa1746580 RAID 0xa17d7190 2 0xa0d2ac90 0xa17c9d00 0xa0aab790 ffs:FcLite 0xa16ad1c0 3 0xa15d8be0 0xa15cf2e0 0xa16f2500 value = 0 = 0x0 And the output of the netCfgShow command was different also. Here was mine ==== NETWORK CONFIGURATION ==== Interface Name : dse0 My MAC Address : 00:a0:b8:0b:e5:de My Host Name : target <--- Change to fastt My IP Address : 192.168.128.101 <--- Change to 10.224.88.xx Server Host Name : host , keeping the current setting. ==== NETWORK CONFIGURATION ==== My Host Name : target fastt My IP Address : 192.168.128.101 10.224.88.235 Server Host Name : host Server IP Address : Gateway IP Address : 10.224.88.1 Subnet Mask : 255.255.255.0 Network Init Flags : 0x00 Network Mgmt Timeout : 30 Network Route #1 : dest= RAIDMGR Server #1 : <--- I may want to change this to jacob Network Manager #1 : Shell Password : User Name : guest User Password : NFS Root Path : NFS Group ID Number : 0 NFS User ID Number : 0 Network Configuration successfully written to NVSRAM. Send for shell access or baud rate change NET: Requesting boot parameters from a boot server Oh, and one more thing. The RETAIN Tip says you can ping "10.224.88.1" (the quotes are required), but it warned that you may not be able to stop the ping. Sure enough, I wasn't, even after disconnecting and reconnecting the console. I finally had to power-cycle the dumb box to get the ping to stop. Sigh!