What follows is an IRC conversation between Hoff and myself regarding the evils of the Smart Array P410i RAID controller. This is detail relating to a writeup I did on Installing a BL860c i2.

<jfd> hoff: any experience with Smart Array Controller P410i in i2 blades?
<Hoff> I've been tussling with a P400 and a SmartArray 6404 recently.
<Hoff> Been a few months since I've tussled with an i2.
<Hoff> The SmartArray seems to work OK, but the configuration...
<jfd> yeah, well the thing says it's in hba mode, and I can see the blk
+devices at efi, but they are not visible from VMS
<jfd> and the documentation on the web sux
<jfd> ;-)
<Hoff> Have you access to the VGA?  (The BIOS stuff really requires that.)
<jfd> I *knew* you were going to say that
<jfd> not at the moment, but I can get access
<Hoff> Was just tussling with the serial emulation of the BIOS, and the result
+on the serial line was, well, not particularly useable.
<Hoff> Gave up.  Wired up a VGA console.  Still crayon-based (and with some
+bizarre ideas of settings) but the VGA worked.
<jfd> ok.  I'll give that a go.  I'm still mystified I can see the block
+devices at efi, but vms doesn't see them
<Hoff> That is a tad odd.
<jfd> yeah, well the i2 has been a tad odd all the way
<jfd> boot of DVD installation, and run boot_options, which works...
<jfd> but then attempt to boot from those, doesn't...
<jfd> had to go back and do a bcfg boot add to get it to work
<Hoff> Are you down-revision on your patches?
<Hoff> IIRC, there was a mandatory update patch in this neighborhood.
<Hoff> (Why they didn't remaster the media?)
<jfd> what patches?  VMS?
<jfd> just applied update 4 yesterday
<jfd> haven't tried boot_options since
<Hoff> Yes; VMS.  I don't remember if it was a SYS or an UPDATE or a DRIVER or
+a SCSI off-hand; fuzzy memory.
<jfd> yeah, I'll retry
<jfd> seems a rather obvious thing to make sure it works before shipping
<Hoff> I'm trying to sort out TCP/IP Services version support.
<Hoff> The SPD says its supported in this configuration, but other
+documentation implies not.
<Hoff> And why would you need to boot the box?
<Hoff> :-)
<jfd> right.  I can just point to the glowing green lights on it and say
+"pretty" ;-)
<Hoff> "Ooooh, Shiney!"
<Hoff> Have you seen the pedestal-mount control-panel orientation?
<Hoff> That was, odd.
<jfd> of the i2?
<Hoff> Of the BladeSystem enclosure.
<jfd> I haven't even seen my new toy yet, except on the web interface
<Hoff> See figure one (no pun intended) here http://h20000.www2.hp.
+com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01508406/c01508406.pdf
<Hoff> The display overhangs one of the slots.
<Hoff> (And on the box I was looking at at an eon ago - an early box - the
+display panel orientation was rotated 90 degrees from readable with the
+pedestal mount.  Looks like they fixed that, though.)
<jfd> heh.  I'm using c7000s, which seem fine
<Hoff> Hey, here you go.  https://mail.encompasserve.
+org/anon/htnotes/note?f1=ECO&f2=2738  Search for HBA
<jfd> ah completely nonintuitive
<jfd> thanks
<Hoff> Looks like UPDATE V2 was the patch you needed.  V5 is out now, AFAIK.
<jfd> V4 I think, unless V5 came out in the last week
<jfd> knowing how my day is going, it probably came out in the last week
<Hoff> V5 has been out for a while.
<Hoff> (Just checked to confirm.)
<jfd> ok, what else can go wrong today?
<jfd> and it's friday too
<Hoff> The week is yet young, then.  Or so Murphy will tell you.
<jfd> ok, I (finally) have saupdate.efi.  HP make things easy... not
<Hoff> http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/1782
<jfd> I'll give you some more ammo shortly :-)
<Hoff> I usually end up burning disks, but it's also feasible to network boot
+some of this stuff.
<jfd> the box is remote from me, so booting using vmedia is the way to go
<Hoff> InfoServer was interesting, too.
<jfd> possible to write efi partition from vms?
* jfd learns a lot today
<Hoff> EFI$CP
<jfd> yep, just found it
<Hoff> EFI$CP and the SETBOOT code were among my parts of the Itanium port.
<jfd> This EFI$CP utility should only be used under the explicit
<jfd>      direction of HP Customer Services.
<jfd> hehe
<Hoff> Yeah; I didn't want to end up discussing how to unsnarl the boot
+partitions.
<Hoff> There was a fair chunk of time spent writing the help text
<Hoff> http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/724
<Hoff> There was a bunch of stuff I never got to fix/update/extend, though.
<jfd> ta
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<Hoff> never: well, AFAIK.
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<jfd> I'll have to write this up so that when I get my _next_ i2 I'll remember
<jfd> if I get my next i2 ;-)
<Hoff> Could well be an i3 or whatever the next round of iron will be called?
<jfd> well, yes
<jfd> but I get the funny feeling I might be buying i2s to upgrade production
<jfd> even if that's in 18 months time
<Hoff> Do get UPDATE V4 or V5 loaded; that was the bugfix update.  And UPDATE
+V3 was the release for the i2 gear.
<jfd> yeah, I've got 4 on
<jfd> If not 5.  I downloaded it last week, so it must be 5
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<jfd> ah yeah it was 5.  thank bog for that
<jfd> one thing that's gone right
<jfd> lol
<Hoff> We're probably due for a new UPDATE, too.
<jfd> saupdate set_mode all raid
<jfd> yay
<jfd> hoff: thanks for the pointers.  I'll write it all up and link
<Hoff> night...
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