Sun StorEdgeTek 99XX System: How to Disable the disksort Flag for Externally Cached Storage, Such as EMC and HDS

Asset ID:	1-71-1010505.1
Update Date:	2012-08-18
Keywords:

Solution Type Technical Instruction Sure

Solution 1010505.1 : Sun StorEdgeTek 99XX System: How to Disable the disksort Flag for Externally Cached Storage, Such as EMC and HDS

Applies to:

Sun Storage 9980 System - Version Not Applicable and later
Sun Storage 9970 System - Version Not Applicable and later
Sun Storage 9985 System - Version Not Applicable and later
Sun Storage 9990 System - Version Not Applicable and later
Sun Storage 9990V System - Version Not Applicable and later
All Platforms

Goal

Description
The disksort flag in the sd/ssd driver makes use of a routine named disksort to reorder IO requests at the driver level. This routine is not required for IO requests that are sent to large cache-enabled storage devices.

Note: You should always check first with the 3rd party array supplier that the settings are appropriate for your array.

Fix

Steps to Follow

I- Solaris 9 and below:

There are two parameters for sd-config-list (in sd driver) and ssd-config-list (for ssd driver). The first parameter is the VID/PID. The VID/PID parameter should be eight characters for VID (vendor ID) and up to sixteen characters for PID (Product ID). Unlike VID, regular expression matching is performed for PID, so PID does not need to be padded with spaces.

You can obtain the VID/PID by doing the following:

(root test)# format -> choose the LUN/disk -> inquiry

If the length of VID is less than eight characters, pad the remaining characters with spaces. In the following examples, VID "EMC" is padded with five spaces before starting the PID.

This is a sample sd config list entry for the sparc platform to set the reservation release time, min throttle, and enable LUN resets.

sd-config-list="VENDOR1 PRODUCT1","sd-ver1-tst-data";
sd-ver1-tst-data= 1,0x00015,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,60,0,2,0,1;

# NOTE: Field Definitions
# sd-ver1-tst-data= version, flags, throttle (max), ctype, not_ready_retry,
# fabricate devid, nocache, busy_retries, rsvd, rsvd, rsvd, rsvd, rsvd,
# rsvd, reset_retries, reservation_release_time, TUR_check,
# throttle (min), disable_disksort, LUN reset

This is a sample ssd config list entry for the sparc platform to set the reservation release time, min throttle, and enable LUN resets.

ssd-config-list="VENDOR1 PRODUCT1","ssd-ver1-tst-data";
ssd-ver1-tst-data= 1,0x00015,0,0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,60,0,2,0,1;

# NOTE: Field Definitions
# ssd-ver1-tst-data= version, flags, throttle (max), not_ready_retry, busy_retries,
# fabricate devid, nocache, ctype, rsvd, rsvd, rsvd, rsvd, rsvd, rsvd,
# reset_retries, reservation_release_time, TUR_check,
# throttle (min), disable_disksort, LUN reset

To disable the disksort flag, perform the following steps:

1. Change the disksort setting:

a. Verify the type of storage that the SunFire[TM] system is attached to, EMC or Hitachi.

b. Make a backup copy of the /kernel/drv/sd.conf and /kernel/drv/ssd.conf files.

c. For EMC and Hitachi storage not using the Leadville stack of storage drivers, add the following lines to the end of the /kernel/drv/sd.conf file:

# Following to set max throttle, disable flush write cache, and disable disksort:

sd-config-list="EMC     SYMMETRIX", "sd-ver1-emc-data";

sd-ver1-emc-data=1,0x10011,16,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0;

# Following to set max throttle, disable flush write cache, and disable disksort:

sd-config-list="HITACHI OPEN", "sd-ver1-hitachi-data";

sd-ver1-hitachi-data=1,0x10011,32,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0;

or for both:

# Following to set max throttle, disable flush write cache, and disable disksort:

sd-config-list="EMC     SYMMETRIX", "sd-ver1-emc-data", "HITACHI OPEN", "sd-ver1-hitachi-data";

sd-ver1-emc-data=1,0x10011,16,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0;

sd-ver1-hitachi-data=1,0x10011,32,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0;

d. For Hitachi storage running a Leadville stack of storage drivers, add the following lines to the end of the /kernel/drv/ssd.conf file:

# Following to set max throttle, disable flush write cache, and disable disksort:

ssd-config-list="EMC     SYMMETRIX", "ssd-ver1-emc-data";

ssd-ver1-emc-data=1,0x10011,16,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0;

# Following to set max throttle, disable flush write cache, and disable disksort:

ssd-config-list="HITACHI OPEN", "ssd-ver1-hitachi-data";

ssd-ver1-hitachi-data=1,0x10011,32,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0;

or for both:

# Following to set max throttle, disable flush write cache, and disable disksort:

ssd-config-list="EMC     SYMMETRIX", "ssd-ver1-emc-data", "HITACHI OPEN", "ssd-ver1-hitachi-data";

ssd-ver1-emc-data=1,0x10011,16,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0;

ssd-ver1-hitachi-data=1,0x10011,32,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0;

2. Reboot the Sun Fire system to force changes to the sd/ssd driver.

II- Solaris 10 and above:

Solaris 10 introduce a new backwards compatible format for [s]sd-config-list property values which uses a name-value pair string, in JSON text format [10], to provide device-specific tuning.

The existing [s]sd-conf-list format is '"VIDPID-string", "property-name"'. The new [s]sd-config-list format is
'"VIDPID-string", "JSON-text"'. The format of the tuple can be detected by looking for ':' in the second string.

NOTE: CR 6518995 Synopsis: "Improved [s]sd-config-list and adding new tunable retries-timeout" was back ported from Solaris 11 to Solaris 10 under Patch ID: 139555-08 and documented in [s]sd man pages. Prior releases and systems without this patch installed will need to use the global method for setting ssd_max_throttle.

To disable the disksort flag, perform the following steps:

1. Change the max throttle, disable flush write cache and disksort setting:

a. Verify the type of storage that the SunFire[TM] system is attached to, EMC or Hitachi.

b. Make a backup copy of the /kernel/drv/sd.conf and /kernel/drv/ssd.conf files.

c. The following are examples of the ssd-config-list entries for setting max throttle, disabling flush write cache, and disksort in the /kernel/drv/ssd.conf for Solaris 10 SPARC:

ssd-config-list = "EMC SYMMETRIX", "cache-nonvolatile:true, disksort:false, throttle-max:32";

ssd-config-list = "HITACHI OPEN", "cache-nonvolatile:true, disksort:false, throttle-max:32";

or for both:

ssd-config-list = "EMC     SYMMETRIX", "cache-nonvolatile:true, disksort:false, throttle-max:32", "HITACHI OPEN", "cache-nonvolatile:true, disksort:false, throttle-max:32";

d. The following are exampls of the sd-config-list entries for setting max throttle, disabling flush write cache, and disksort in the /kernel/drv/sd.conf for Solaris 10 x86/x64 and /etc/driver/drv/sd.conf in Solaris 11:

sd-config-list = "EMC SYMMETRIX", "cache-nonvolatile:true, disksort:false, throttle-max:32";

sd-config-list = "HITACHI OPEN", "cache-nonvolatile:true, disksort:false, throttle-max:32";

or for both:

sd-config-list = "EMC     SYMMETRIX", "cache-nonvolatile:true, disksort:false, throttle-max:32", "HITACHI OPEN", "cache-nonvolatile:true, disksort:false, throttle-max:32";

2. Reboot the Sun Fire system to force changes to the sd/ssd driver.

Internal Comments
added Solaris 10 and later parameter implementation
Bug 6518995: Improved [s]sd-config-list and adding new tunable retries-timeout

* The 'sd_lun' structure can be dumped, using adb/mdb, to verify whether
the disksort has been disabled or not.
sd, ssd
Previously Published As
75153

Change History
Date: 2004-05-12
User Name: c8840
Action: Approved
Comment: I edited this article with revisions that included, but were not limited to, the following:
* Title: Inserted trademarked product name at beginning of title, revised capitalization, replaced ampersand (&) with "and"
* Revised numbering scheme throughout text
* Revised alignment for indentations throughout text
* Re-worded text where appropriate
* Inserted trademark symbol after first occurrence of Sun Fire in text
Then, I submitted the article for publication.
Version: 0

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