Well I got some new hardware in. This has allowed me to play with some various configuration settings – settings that I wish I had known about some years earlier.

Above, you can see where I’ve got two members, ONR1, and ONR2 in differing RAID formats, connected (below) the same storage pool,

Below you can see the volumes setup on the storage pool.

After some time, you’ll see that the volumes redistributed across the two sans.

Pretty sweet eh?

To install the Equallogic Multi Pathing Module

SCP the zipped vib to a location accessible by your vHost.

dell-eql-mem-esx5-1.2.0.365964.zip to vHost01

Then SSH to the vHost and run the following command, editing for your location

~ # esxcli software vib install –depot /vmfs/volumes/*****/dell-eql-mem-esx5-1.2.0.365964.zip

You’ll see the result similar to below (from an older version installed)

Installation Result
Message: Operation finished successfully.
Reboot Required: false
VIBs Installed: Dell_bootbank_dell-eql-host-connection-mgr_1.1.1-268843, Dell_bootbank_dell-eql-hostprofile_1.1.0-212190, Dell_bootbank_dell-eql-routed-psp_1.1.1-262227

Once you’re running equallogic storage multi pathing module run

esxcli equallogic param list

————— —– —– — ———————————————
TotalSessions 512 1024 64 Max number of sessions per host.
VolumeSessions 12 12 1 Max number of sessions per volume.
MemberSessions 4 4 1 Max number of sessions per member per volume.
MinAdapterSpeed 1000 10000 10 Minimum adapter speed for iSCSI multipathing.
~ # esxcli equallogic param set -n=VolumeSessions -v=12
~ # esxcli equallogic param set -n=MemberSessions -v=4

run those two esxcli statements on ssh.

your member sessions are probably 2 and the volume sessions are probably 4 or 6

then rescan the paths on ths iscsi software adapter, you should triple the paths

MPM

After updating the mpm config on my vhosts

vhost01-iscsi-network

Ok, we all know that updating controller firmware on the EqualLogic Systems is an easy task, basically open the GUI, upload a file, click a few buttons and Bang! updated.

http://www.matavesi.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/kit_V9.0.3-R427117_1120407684.tgz

http://www.matavesi.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/kit_V8.1.3-R422462_334193118.tgz

So now you’re getting emails from SANHQ complaining about disk firmware. What then?

http://www.matavesi.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/kit_V10.0_DriveFw_2480353603.tgz

http://www.matavesi.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/kit_V8.0_DriveFw_2285700222.tgz

http://www.matavesi.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/kit_V11.0_DriveFw_2875173717.tgz

First, open your favorite FTP software, mine’s WinScrape aka WinSCP.

FTP over to your EQL box’s group IP or management IP.

Upload the .tgz package, I used kit_V8.0_DriveFw_2285700222.tgz

I did not unzip the file, repeat, it does not need any further work.

Then I Putty (ssh) over to the EQL box’s group IP or management IP and perform the following command – update.. yes that’s it. just type “update”. and best part is you can do it hot, no outage necessary!

I’ll just paste in the entire output from my instance.

Welcome to Group Manager

Copyright 2001-2014 Dell Inc.

EQLSAN> update
13:24:23 Updating from kit file “kit_V8.0_DriveFw_2285700222.tgz”

This command will install the update kit file that was
copied to the array.

If you choose to proceed, you will be shown the current firmware version
and the version to which you will update. You will then be given the
choice to proceed again.

Do you want to proceed (y/n) [y]: y

13:24:39 Verifying kit integrity.
Starting Disk Firmware update… V8.0
…Initializing support libraries…

Identifying drives that qualify for firmware upgrades… Please wait.

22 drive(s) in this array qualify for a firmware upgrade.

The process will now update the 22 drives that qualify for a firmware upgrade.

If you proceed, please do not power off or restart the array, or remove

any drives until the update process completes.

Do you want to continue at this time (Y/N)? y
SKIPPING DriveID 0 No firmware is available for Model: HUS723030ALS640

SKIPPING DriveID 1 No firmware is available for Model: HUS723030ALS640

SKIPPING DriveID 2 No firmware is available for Model: HUS723030ALS640

Checking health status of Array
UPGRADING DriveID 3 firmware from RN08 to RE12 using ./fwbin/RE12.lod
Drive firmware successfully updated : on drive 3

SKIPPING DriveID 4 No firmware is available for Model: HUS723030ALS640

SKIPPING DriveID 5 No firmware is available for Model: HUS723030ALS640

SKIPPING DriveID 6 No firmware is available for Model: HUS723030ALS640

Checking health status of Array
UPGRADING DriveID 7 firmware from RN08 to RE12 using ./fwbin/RE12.lod
Drive firmware successfully updated : on drive 7

SKIPPING DriveID 8 No firmware is available for Model: HUS723030ALS640

SKIPPING DriveID 9 No firmware is available for Model: HUS723030ALS640

Checking health status of Array
UPGRADING DriveID 10 firmware from RE0C to RE12 using ./fwbin/RE12.lod
Drive firmware successfully updated : on drive 10

SKIPPING DriveID 11 No firmware is available for Model: HUS723030ALS640

SKIPPING DriveID 12 No firmware is available for Model: HUS723030ALS640

SKIPPING DriveID 13 No firmware is available for Model: HUS723030ALS640

Checking health status of Array
UPGRADING DriveID 14 firmware from RE0C to RE12 using ./fwbin/RE12.lod
Drive firmware successfully updated : on drive 14

SKIPPING DriveID 15 No firmware is available for Model: HUS723030ALS640

SKIPPING DriveID 16 No firmware is available for Model: HUS723030ALS640

SKIPPING DriveID 17 No firmware is available for Model: HUS723030ALS640

Checking health status of Array
UPGRADING DriveID 18 firmware from RE0C to RE12 using ./fwbin/RE12.lod
Drive firmware successfully updated : on drive 18

SKIPPING DriveID 19 No firmware is available for Model: HUS723030ALS640

SKIPPING DriveID 20 No firmware is available for Model: HUS723030ALS640

SKIPPING DriveID 21 No firmware is available for Model: HUS723030ALS640

Checking health status of Array
UPGRADING DriveID 22 firmware from RE0C to RE12 using ./fwbin/RE12.lod
Drive firmware successfully updated : on drive 22

SKIPPING DriveID 23 No firmware is available for Model: HUS723030ALS640

Checking health status of Array
UPGRADING DriveID 24 firmware from RE0C to RE12 using ./fwbin/RE12.lod
Drive firmware successfully updated : on drive 24

SKIPPING DriveID 25 No firmware is available for Model: HUS723030ALS640

Checking health status of Array
UPGRADING DriveID 26 firmware from RN08 to RE12 using ./fwbin/RE12.lod
Drive firmware successfully updated : on drive 26

Checking health status of Array
UPGRADING DriveID 27 firmware from RN08 to RE12 using ./fwbin/RE12.lod
Drive firmware successfully updated : on drive 27

Checking health status of Array
UPGRADING DriveID 28 firmware from RE0C to RE12 using ./fwbin/RE12.lod
Drive firmware successfully updated : on drive 28

SKIPPING DriveID 29 No firmware is available for Model: HUS723030ALS640

Checking health status of Array
UPGRADING DriveID 30 firmware from RE0C to RE12 using ./fwbin/RE12.lod
Drive firmware successfully updated : on drive 30

Checking health status of Array
UPGRADING DriveID 31 firmware from RN08 to RE12 using ./fwbin/RE12.lod
Drive firmware successfully updated : on drive 31

Checking health status of Array
UPGRADING DriveID 32 firmware from RE0C to RE12 using ./fwbin/RE12.lod
Drive firmware successfully updated : on drive 32

SKIPPING DriveID 33 No firmware is available for Model: HUS723030ALS640

Checking health status of Array
UPGRADING DriveID 34 firmware from RN08 to RE12 using ./fwbin/RE12.lod
Drive firmware successfully updated : on drive 34

Checking health status of Array
UPGRADING DriveID 35 firmware from RN08 to RE12 using ./fwbin/RE12.lod
Drive firmware successfully updated : on drive 35

Checking health status of Array
UPGRADING DriveID 36 firmware from RE0C to RE12 using ./fwbin/RE12.lod
Drive firmware successfully updated : on drive 36

SKIPPING DriveID 37 No firmware is available for Model: HUS723030ALS640

Checking health status of Array
UPGRADING DriveID 38 firmware from RN08 to RE12 using ./fwbin/RE12.lod
Drive firmware successfully updated : on drive 38

Checking health status of Array
UPGRADING DriveID 39 firmware from RN08 to RE12 using ./fwbin/RE12.lod
Drive firmware successfully updated : on drive 39

Checking health status of Array
UPGRADING DriveID 40 firmware from RE0C to RE12 using ./fwbin/RE12.lod
Drive firmware successfully updated : on drive 40

SKIPPING DriveID 41 No firmware is available for Model: HUS723030ALS640

Checking health status of Array
UPGRADING DriveID 42 firmware from RN08 to RE12 using ./fwbin/RE12.lod
Drive firmware successfully updated : on drive 42

SKIPPING DriveID 43 No firmware is available for Model: HUS723030ALS640

Checking health status of Array
UPGRADING DriveID 44 firmware from RE0C to RE12 using ./fwbin/RE12.lod
Drive firmware successfully updated : on drive 44

SKIPPING DriveID 45 No firmware is available for Model: HUS723030ALS640

Checking health status of Array
UPGRADING DriveID 46 firmware from RN08 to RE12 using ./fwbin/RE12.lod
Drive firmware successfully updated : on drive 46

SKIPPING DriveID 47 No firmware is available for Model: HUS723030ALS640

Logging post run disk information

Entering cleanup phase… Please Wait…
The update was successful.
Would you like to email the results to Dell (Y/N)? n
Done cleanup … quitting with an exit status of 0

EQLSAN>

SANHQSetup32And64_v3.2.1