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Why VIOS bootlist does not list all path IDs to both mirrored SAN devices/hdisks?

Question & Answer


Question

I installed VIOS on an IBM V7000 SAN disk (hdisk0).  I added a second SAN disk (hdisk1) to rootvg and successfully mirrored the volume group.  However, after mirrorios completed successfully (no errors), subsequent listing of the bootlist only includes 1 of 4 paths to the second disk.  Why is that?
Example:
$ lsvg -pv rootvg
rootvg:
PV_NAME           PV STATE          TOTAL PPs   FREE PPs    FREE DISTRIBUTION
hdisk0            active            799         584         159..66..39..160..160      (original disk)
hdisk1            active            799         799         160..160..159..160..160    (new disk)
$ lsdev -type disk
name             status      description
hdisk0           Available   MPIO IBM 2076 FC Disk
hdisk1           Available   MPIO IBM 2076 FC Disk

$ lspath|grep hdisk0 
Enabled hdisk0 fscsi0 500507680215cae5,0 
Enabled hdisk0 fscsi0 500507680215cae6,0 
Enabled hdisk0 fscsi1 500507680225cae5,0 
Enabled hdisk0 fscsi1 500507680225cae6,0

$ lspath|grep hdisk1 
Enabled hdisk1 fscsi0 500507680215cae5,1000000000000 
Enabled hdisk1 fscsi0 500507680215cae6,1000000000000 
Enabled hdisk1 fscsi1 500507680225cae5,1000000000000 
Enabled hdisk1 fscsi1 500507680225cae6,1000000000000 

$ bootlist -mode normal -ls
hdisk0 blv=hd5 pathid=0
hdisk0 blv=hd5 pathid=1
hdisk0 blv=hd5 pathid=2
hdisk0 blv=hd5 pathid=3
$ mirrorios
$
$ bootlist -mode normal -ls
hdisk0 blv=hd5 pathid=0
hdisk0 blv=hd5 pathid=1
hdisk0 blv=hd5 pathid=2
hdisk0 blv=hd5 pathid=3
hdisk1 blv=hd5 pathid=0    <- Why is only 1 of the 4 paths listed?

Cause

pSeries systems firmware only allows a maximum of 5 devices (hdisk) or paths in the boot list.  This is a limitation.

Answer

Given the system firmware limitation, starting in VIOS 2.2.0, an enhancement was added with IZ72620 for administrators to be able to choose which path IDs to include in the bootlist.
To specific 2 paths IDs per disk, run:
$ bootlist -mode normal hdisk0 pathid=0,1 hdisk1 pathid=0,1

$ bootlist -mode normal -ls
hdisk0 blv=hd5 pathid=0
hdisk0 blv=hd5 pathid=1
hdisk1 blv=hd5 pathid=0
hdisk1 blv=hd5 pathid=1
$

[{"Business Unit":{"code":"BU058","label":"IBM Infrastructure w\/TPS"},"Product":{"code":"SSPHKW","label":"PowerVM Virtual I\/O Server"},"Component":"","Platform":[{"code":"PF002","label":"AIX"}],"Version":"VIOS 2.2 and 3.1","Edition":"","Line of Business":{"code":"LOB57","label":"Power"}}]

Document Information

Modified date:
20 October 2021

UID

ibm11071776

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