Solved: Reactivate hardware raid volume after system board replacement- Solaris

Replacing the systemboard/motherboard of a server which has hardware RAID enabled is a major activity. In this post we will discuss about the steps that you should follow.
Caution:- You should be extremely careful while doing this activity and take complete backup of all your data.
1) Collect the explorer and take full backup of all data specially OS.
2) Bring down the server.
3) Replace the motherboard and put back the old disks in server.
4) Change the setting from SP to factory default as many refurbished system board may have old LDOM config in them. It can be done as below:-
LDOM Resetting through the Service Processor.

-> set /HOST/bootmode config="factory-default"

-> stop /SYS

Are you sure you want to stop /SYS (y/n)? y

Wait for machine to power off.
We can then power on the system.

-> start /SYS

Are you sure you want to start /SYS (y/n)? y

Starting /SYS

-> start /SP/console

5) Now upgrade the firmware so that it's same as the firmware of old board. It can be done using sysfwdownload utility. Follow the readme of firmware patch for detailed instructions.
6) If you cannot see the disks in OS which are in hardware RAID it can be because the volume is inactive. It can be activated from ok prompt as follows:-
Go to the OBP prompt.
At the command line, set the auto-boot? and fcode-debug? variables to false and reset the system.

 ok setenv auto-boot? false
 auto-boot? = false
 ok setenv fcode-debug? true
 fcode-debug? = true
 ok reset-all

Find the path to the controller.

 ok show-disks
 a) /pci@0/pci@0/pci@2/LSILogic,sas@0/disk
 b) /pci@0/pci@0/pci@1/pci@0/usb@1,2/storage@1/disk
 q) NO SELECTION
 Enter Selection, q to quit: q
 ok

Note - You are looking for the path to the controller. It generally contains the phrase “LSILogic,sas@0” or the phrase “scsi@0“.
Select the controller.

 ok select /pci@0/pci@0/pci@2/LSILogic,sas@0

Show the volumes, look for any inactive volumes.

 ok show-volumes

Activate the inactive volumes. Repeat the command to activate all inactive volumes. For example, to activate volume number 1 type:

ok 1 activate-volume

Note - There might be more than two inactive RAID volumes, but you cannot activate more than two.
Deselect the controller.

ok unselect-dev

Set the auto-boot? and fcode-debug? variables to true and reset the system.

ok setenv auto-boot? true
 auto-boot? = true
 ok setenv fcode-debug? true
 fcode-debug? = true
 ok reset-all

7) Once the volume is enabled you should be able to see the LSI disk in probe-scsi-all and also in format once the server is booted.
Note:- This post is created just for your reference. Please try it first in your test server. We are not responsible for any loss caused by following this tutorial.

Solved: How to create hardware RAID in Solaris

If you want to create hardware RAID in Solaris you can use raidctl utility.

• Let’s create a mirrored RAID volume. Before you start remember that raidctl will destroy all data on the disk so be absolutely sure that you selected right disks.

# raidctl -c c0t0d0 c0t1d0Creating RAID volume c0t0d0 will destroy all data on member disks, proceed (yes/no)? yes...Volume c0t0d0 is created successfully!#

• Once you have created the RAID it can be in four below states:-

OPTIMAL – Disks in RAID are online and fully synchronized.
SYNC – Disks syncing is in progress.
DEGRADED – Shows that one of the disk in RAID is failed.
FAILED – When one or both disks are lost and you have to recreate the volume.

• Let’s check the current status of our volume.

# raidctl -l c0t0d0Volume            Size     Stripe     Status    Cache     RAID       Sub                 Size                           Level            Disk----------------------------------------------------------------c0t0d0            136.6G   N/A        SYNC       OFF      RAID1            0.0.0 136.6G              GOOD            0.1.0 136.6G              GOOD

• In the above output we can see that the sync is going on. While in below output we can see that disks are in sync now and RAID is optimal. Also we can see that it’s RAID 1 which is mirroring.

# raidctl -l c0t0d0Volume            Size     Stripe     Status    Cache     RAID       Sub                 Size                           Level            Disk----------------------------------------------------------------c0t0d0            136.6G   N/A        OPTIMAL   OFF      RAID1            0.0.0 136.6G              GOOD            0.1.0 136.6G              GOOD

If you want to change the system board of a system with hardware RAID, you will have to reactivate the volumes after hardware replacement. Refer to the post,  steps to follow for hardware replacement and reactivate hardware .