There are three kinda of HBAs in my world. All are in use under Solaris only.
The QLC cards are fine for SAN disk storage but do not work with SAN tapes. That is, if you plan to attach your backup library jukebox to a solaris box, do not attempt to use QLC cards. They don’t work.
The QLA cards, apparently, do work with SAN tape storage, but it’s a work in progress.
The Emulex LP10000 and LP11000 cards are awesome. Basically, if you want to do SAN tape backups involving Solaris, buy these.
/dev/rmt contains the tape devices. These are created on boot if booting with -r (reboot – -r). If /dev/rmt is empty, then Solaris and the drivers involved didn’t pick up the drives (assuming they’re attached and zoned and all good). You will need to tweak /kernel/drv/st.conf and then do
rem_drv st add_drv st
With TSM and the legendary IBMtape, you need to edit the /usr/kernel/drv/IBMtape.conf and then run:
/opt/IBMtape/tmd -s rem_drv IBMtape add_drv -m '* 0666 bin bin' IBMtape /opt/IBMtape/tmd
If in doubt:
cd /dev/rmt rm * reboot -- -r
When the box comes back up,
ls -la /dev/rmt/*cbn
will list the tape drives.
This is a bit of a black art. There is a /kernel/drv/sgen.conf which is involved. Networker’s inquire command will find most changers without too much hassle. Depending on whether you’re using the native solaris driver or the LPFC driver will dictate whether you get a /dev/changer entry. Neither Networker or TSM seem to use this, though.
Depending on your Solaris patch level and update level, there are few things to know:
TSM (Tivoli Storage Manager) requires you to use the IBMtape driver and not the native Solaris ST driver to speak to your tapes. If you are using QLC cards, this won’t work. You need to install a QLA or a good old Emulex card. You also need to use LPFC and not the emlxs driver. So: