The "SF" family of vendor-supplied firmware supports the FC Host Adapter LP7000E model (also known as the V4 board type) from Emulex.
This document supports the newest release and the previous release of SF firmware qualified for use with the DYNIX/ptx V4.5.x operating systems.
New Release: SF3.22a0, Section 3.1
See Table 1-1 for the latest recipe for the best set of SAN FC firmware to run on a given operating system.
This section contains the following:
Version SF3.22a0 of the FC Host Adapter firmware is compatible with:
Other members of its software release-sets as listed in Table 1-1
Switched or two-node arbitrated-loop fabric topology
Multimode, non-OFC, fiber-optic FC components
The Emulex LP7000E FC Host Adapter only (also known as the "SuperFly" and "V4" board type)
IBM Magstar 3590 E1A and E11 FC Tape Subsystems
IBM ESS Storage Server
CLARiiON® DAE and DPE Storage Subsystems
EMC Symmetrix Storage Subsystems running at least V5265.44.28 firmware.
Generally, the SF3.xx release is streamlined and optimised for the LP7000 FC Host Adapter. The preceding SF2.xx releases carried forward unnecessary code inherited from the older LP6000E family and has been stripped out in SF3.xx versions.
Version SF3.22a0 is a maintenance release. It has the same feature set as the previous SF3.xx and SF2.xx releases, but with the following improvements:
An improved method for handling out-of-order frames during serious network malfunctioning.
Improved Error Reporting Protocol (ERP) for FC-ported tape drives such as the IBM Magstar 3590 E1A and E11 Tape Subsystems.
Improved error handling when unrecoverable internal errors are encountered on an FC Host Adapter that could cause a system hang.
Regarding improved handling of the unrecoverable internal errors, the ff driver in DYNIX/ptx V4.5.2 is now enhanced to report these unrecoverable internal errors and gracefully halt the FC Host Adapter. The ff driver logs the following messages to /usr/adm/ktlog and to the EES log when an unrecoverable internal error is encountered:
warning:ff4: Adapter reported unrecoverable internal error,
error status: Internal :
warning:Adapter ff4 stopped responding. Disabling the adapter.
Deconfigure and reconfigure the adapter to restore :
The first message indicates that the FC Host Adapter has recognized a fatal hardware error. This error is severe enough that the OS immediately halts processing I/O through that particular PCI/FC Host Adapter, as indicated by the second message. This prevents data corruption. The ff driver then recovers all pending I/O operations on the FC Host Adapter and re-routes the pending I/O operations to other FC Host Adapters that have data paths to the same device (disk or tape).
If there are no other paths to the same device, then those pending I/O operations will not complete. Hard errors are recorded in /usr/adm/ktlog and the EES log. You should replace the FC Host Adapter and tag it with these messages. All other running applications and the operating system itself will continue to operate when this condition occurs.
ATTENTION Use the devctl -d command to deconfigure a disabled FC Host Adapter as soon as reasonable. Otherwise, future OLI operations involving a fabric that contains a disabled FC Host Adapter will fail. The failure occurs because a disabled FC Host Adapter cannot acknowledge a new device on the fabric, which in turn prevents that new device from being configured in the device naming database.
There are no outstanding Critical or Serious problems reported against the SF3.22a0 firmware specifically. See "FC I/O Subsystem-Level Problem Reports," Chapter 2 for possible I/O subsystem-level problems involving FC Host Adapters.
The SF3.22a0 software is installed on the system when the cfwdl-Compatible Firmware Bundle V1.3.2 is installed on your host. The cfwdl-Compatible Firmware Bundle contains firmware that is downloaded only with the common firmware downloader utility, cfwdl.
Within the bundle, the name of the firmware file for the LP7000E FC Host Adapter is fc_sf_322a0.sqfw.
Procedures for using the cfwdl utility to download firmware to any or all FC Host Adapters are provided in the "Downloading Firmware with cfwd," chapter of the DYNIX/ptx V4.5.2 and Layered Products Software Installation Release Notes.
All previous releases of SF3.xx software on DYNIX/ptx V4.5.x systems should be replaced with the new SF3.22a0 release.