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Info Guide UNX005:
SCO Unix 3.2v4.2 / OpenServer 5 with DPT 3224 RAID controller

Whilst this guide was initially written detailing the FT//ex 1000 system, much of it is relevant for the Shogun system.

Throughout this Info Guide the following typefaces have special meaning:

dptmgr - The name of a command, file, menu item, or on-screen option.
Boot - Output displayed on screen.
arad dptr - Keyboard input
Logical Storage Unit - Terminology used by DPT and is described in the DPT SmartRAID User's Manual

This Info Guide makes the following assumptions:

  • That the DPT card and the hot-plug backplane have been installed in the FT//ex. For guidance with these tasks review the installation documentation supplied with them.

  • That a single array of drives configured as a RAID 5 array is to be installed. This type of array provides drive redundancy without the need for duplicating the entire array of drives with a mirrored array, and provides a disk performance increase through striping. RAID 5 requires at least 3 drives. Assuming all drives are of the same size, an amount of storage capacity equal to that of one drive in the array is lost, it being used throughout the array to hold parity information for rebuilding data should a drive fail. So, for an array of 5 drives each of 1Gb, the size of the logical drive that the DPT card offers the host is 4Gb.

  • That SCO Unix 3.2v4.2 or OpenServer 5 is to be installed from a SCSI tape set to ID 2, or a CD-ROM set to ID 5, connected to the on-board AIC-7870. There are potential problems with using the 7870 for installation and these will be discussed and an alternative offered. These SCSI ID’s are mandatory for installation, this being an SCO feature.

Only Apricot supported drives for the FT//ex with DPT card should be used. At the time of writing such drives being the Quantum 540Mb, IBM DPES-31080 1Gb “Pegasus”, and IBM 2Gb “Starfire”. For earlier Apricot supplied drives check with Unix Support.

This guide still has relevance for a Shogun installation, but for additional Shogun specific information refer to the “Shogun Facts Tips & Tricks Engineering Document” available on Insight from release 10 and from area 44 of Apricot Insight BBS as the file SHOGFTT.ZIP.

Follow these notes in the order written to start from an unconfigured system through to SCO Unix/OpenServer 5 installed onto a RAID 5 drive array.

FT//ex 1000 RAID system configuration
Installing SCO Unix
Installing SCO OpenServer 5
DPT utilities
Emergency floppies

 

 

(Release 3.02 - 22nd July 1996)

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FT//ex 1000 RAID system configuration

Prior to configuring the RAID array or installing software onto any hard disks, the system’s configuration must be checked as outlined in the following sub-sections.

There are four separate software/BIOS setups to be run, these are:

  • The motherboard “BIOS Utility”

  • The DPT card “DPT Configuration Utility”

  • The Adaptec AIC-7870 on-board PCI SCSI controller “SCSISelect(TM) Utilty”

  • The “EISA System Configuration Utility” or ECU.

These quoted names are the names of these setup utilities as they appear on-screen.

Hold F10 to make system boot

At boot-up the system should display output from the DPT BIOS and the Adaptec AIC 7870 BIOS. If either are missing or if the system does not boot DOS from one of the hard disks (systems are supplied with DOS installed from our factory), assume that there is a problem with stored CMOS configuration and power on again with the F10 key held down until the system beeps once.

This will reset the CMOS configuration to a working state that will allow the floppy to boot and the ECU to be run. Pressing F10 in this way does not affect the ECU settings that are in place. See the later sub-section entitled “ECU settings” for the settings required.

After configuring the ECU you must configure the settings in the motherboard “BIOS Utility”, the DPT card “DPT Configuration Utility”, and the Adaptec AIC-7870 on-board PCI SCSI controller “SCSISelect(TM) Utilty”. These settings, and the ECU settings, that should be defined are detailed in the following sub-sections.

ECU settings

Firstly review the ECU settings. After the ECU has booted select the Configure computer - advanced method option. At this point the EISA slots 1 to 5 are listed and so is the system motherboard. Select the motherboard - the menu option M5.

Shown below is the ECU listing for the motherboard with comments included to give relevant explanations:

System Memory Functions
 Base System Memory............640K Base Memory
 4   -   16MB Extended Memory..16MB Ext Memory with 15-16MB System used

For systems with at least 16MB the above is set to 16MB.

 16  -   64MB Extended Memory  Ctrl-R to add the Memory

For memory up from 16Mb to 64Mb enter <cntrl>R followed by <tab> and then enter the value of the memory in megabytes (as a number followed by M) above 16Mb. Eg. for a 32Mb system, enter 16M.

 64  -  128MB Extended Memory <cntrl>R to add the Memory

For memory up from 64Mb to 128Mb enter <cntrl>R followed by <tab> and then enter the value of the memory in megabytes (as a number followed by M) above 64Mb. Eg. for a 96Mb system, enter 32M here and 48M in the 16 - 64MB Extended Memory menu item.

PCI Devices IRQ assignment
 On board 7870 SCSI controller.......IRQ 11

The actual mapping of the Adaptec 7870 PCI interrupt to IRQ mapping is setup in the motherboard “BIOS Utility”. Therefore, although the above setting for the 7870 SCSI controller can be set to disabled, it should be set as IRQ 11 here to stop the ECU assigning this IRQ to another card.

 On board Enhanced IDE controller....Disabled
 PCI slot 1..........................IRQ 14

The actual mapping of the DPT 3224 card’s PCI interrupt to IRQ mapping is setup in the motherboard “BIOS Utility”. Therefore, although the above setting for the PCI slot 1 can be set to disabled, it should be set as IRQ 14 here to stop the ECU assigning this IRQ to another card.

 PCI slot 2..........................Disabled
 PCI slot 3..........................Disabled
 
Sysem BIOS type......................E, F Segment System used
 
Peripheral Device Status
 Mouse port..........................Enabled
 Keyboard port.......................Enabled
 Floppy Disk Controller..............Enabled
 IDE HDD Interface...................Disabled
 Parallel port.......................Enabled as LPT1 (3BCh)
 Serial port 1 (9 pins)..............Enabled as Serial 1 (3F8h)
 Serial port 1 (25 pins).............Enabled as Serial 2 (2F8h)
 
System Setting
 Special System Ports................Enable
 EISA Reserved Devices...............Enable

To save the ECU definitions, enter <alt> to highlight the top row of menu items. Open the System menu by pressing the <down arrow>. Select Exit and then select Save configuration and exit at the next menu.

The motherboard BIOS Utility

After defining the ECU settings as shown in the previous sub-section reboot the system and wait for the memory test to run. Next you will either see the DPT BIOS run followed by the Adaptec AIC 7870 BIOS or you may not see either of these which probably means that F10 was pressed to force the system to boot the ECU floppy. You are then presented with a blue configuration display in the top third of the screen.

Once whichever of the above occurs after the memory tests, enter <cntrl><alt><esc> to run the motherboard BIOS Utility. This will give the following menu:

Basic System Configuration
Advanced System Configuration
PCI System Configuration
System Security
Load Setup Default Settings

Basic System Configuration

Select Basic System Configuration and review the following definitions:

Date----------------------------- [DD/MM/MM]
Time----------------------------- [hh:mm:ss]
Diskette Drive A ---------------- [1.44 MB 3.5-inch]
Diskette Drive B ---------------- [      None      ]
                                            Cylinder  Head  Sector
Fixed Disk 0 (   0 MB) ---------- [Auto]           0    0       0
Fixed Disk 1 (   0 MB) ---------- [Auto]           0    0       0
 
 
Base Memory --------------------- [   640] KB
Extended Memory ----------------- [ 31744] KB   This for a 32Mb system
Total memory -------------------- [ 32384] KB
Math Coprocessor ---------------- [  Installed  ]
Video Display ------------------- [VGA/EGA]

Enter <pg down> to review page 2 of 2

Communication Settings
 
    Baud Rate ------------------- [ 9600] BPS
    Parity ---------------------- [ Odd]
    Stop Bits ------------------- [1] Bits
    Data Length ----------------- [8] Bits
 
Enhanced IDE Features
    IDE Fixed Disk Block Mode --- [Disabled]
    Large Hard Disk Capacity ---- [Disabled]
    Advanced PIO Mode  ---------- [Disabled]

Num Lock After Boot ------------- [Enabled]
Memory Test --------------------- [Disabled]

The Memory Test (memory count and test at power-up) option above can only be enabled if the Fast Boot Mode option below is disabled

Auto Configuration Mode --------- [Enabled]
 

The Auto Configuration Mode option above is normally enabled. If disabled it is possible to disable the processor cache in the Advanced System Configuration menu.

Fast Boot Mode ------------------ [Enabled]

Advanced System Configuration

Select Advanced System Configuration and review the following definitions:

Shadow RAM
    E0000h-FFFFFh (System BIOS) ------------- [Enabled ]
    C0000h-C7FFFh (Video BIOS) -------------- [Enabled ]
    C8000h-CFFFFh --------------------------- [Disabled]
    D0000h-D7FFFh --------------------------- [Disabled]
    D8000h-DFFFFh --------------------------- [Disabled]
 
Internal Cache(CPU Cache) ------------------- [Enabled ]
External Cache ------------------------------ [Enabled ]
    Cache Scheme ---------------------------- [Write Back]

If it is ever required to disable the processor cache the Auto Configuration Mode option in the Basic System Configuration menu must be disabled.

System Memory Parity ------------------------ [Disabled]
Memory at 15MB-16MB Reserved for ------------ [  System  ] Use
E0000h-FFFFFh (System BIOS) ----------------- [Noncacheable]
C0000h-C7FFFh (Video BIOS) ------------------ [Noncacheable]

Enter <pg down> to review page 2 of 2

Guaranteed Access Time Mode ----------------- [Enabled ]
Highest Priority Device for PCI Arbitration - [EISA/IO]

PCI System Configuration

Select PCI System Configuration and review the following definitions:

PCI Slot Number ------------------------------ [1]
   Function Number Of Device ----------------- [0]
      Device Function ------------------------ [Enabled ]
      Bus Master ----------------------------- [Enabled ]
 
   IRQ Level for INTA Pin -------------------- [14]
   IRQ Level for INTB Pin -------------------- [--]
   IRQ Level for INTB Pin -------------------- [--]
   IRQ Level for INTB Pin -------------------- [--]

System Security

Select System Security and review the following definitions.

Disk Drive Control
    Diskette Drive --------------- [       Normal       ]
    Fixed Disk Drive ------------- [       Normal       ]
    System Boot Drive ------------ [Drive A Then C]
 
On Board Communication Ports
    Serial Port 1 Base Address --- [  3F8h  ]
    Serial Port 2 Base Address --- [  2F8h  ]
    Parallel Port Base Address --- [  3BCh  ]

If the parallel port is required, the mkdev parallel command is used and the Parallel/Monochrome adapter option is normally selected. The SCO default I/O address being 3BCh. Use the left and right arrow keys to change the hardware default from 378h to 3BCh.

      Operation Mode  ------- [ Standard Parallel Port(SPP) ] Mode
      EPP Version Selection - [1.7]
 
Setup Password -------------- [ None  ]
Power On Password ----------- [ None  ]

Initial DPT BIOS screen

The DPT 3224 card BIOS gives the following type of display for a new system where the drives attached are not configured as a RAID array. In the example below the card has five IBM “Pegasus” DPES-31080 1Gb drives attached and they are set to SCSI ID’s 0,1,2,3,4 respectively

   DPT SCSI BIOS v003.B1
   Distributed Processing Technology
   (c) Copyright 1990-1994
 
   <Ctrl-D>  for DPT Configuration Utility
 
Controller: PM3224A/9X -R  v07A.6  4.0MB Port:0510h  IRQ:14
   Drive  :  0 (0,0,0)    IBM     DPES-31080        517 x  65 x 63
   Drive  :  1 (0,1,0)    IBM     DPES-31080        517 x  65 x 63
   Drive  :  2 (0,2,0)    IBM     DPES-31080        517 x  65 x 63
   Drive  :  3 (0,3,0)    IBM     DPES-31080        517 x  65 x 63
   Drive  :  4 (0,4,0)    IBM     DPES-31080        517 x  65 x 63

Note the line DPT SCSI BIOS v003.B1 which shows the card’s firmware version. The DPT card MUST NOT have version 3B0 firmware installed as this is known to corrupt vital DPT specific data on any of the attached hard disk drives. Version 3B1 (full version name is actually 7A63B1) is the first satisfactory version to be used. Contact Apricot Technical Support for the latest version as it is likely that another release will be preferred in the future.

The line above starting Controller: indicates that the card has a single 4Mb cache simm installed and that its PCI interrupt A line is mapped to the computer’s IRQ 14 line. If the IRQ is incorrect it should be set correctly in the computer’s BIOS setup (<cntrl><alt><esacpe> during boot-up) - this setup is described elsewhere in these notes. The I/O port of 510h is also identified - this is dependent upon the PCI slot used and cannot be changed, 510h indicates PCI slot 1.

DPT BIOS screen with RAID array configured

Once the drive array is configured with the DPT Manager utility (dptmgr.exe) the five lines will be replaced with a single line that identifies the drive array as a single logical drive as shown below:

Controller: PM3224A/9X -R  v07A.6  4.0MB Port:0510h  IRQ:14
   Drive  :  0 (0,0,0)    DPT     RAID-5            527 x 255 x 63

Label drive trays

Label the drive trays that are fitted with hard disks with their SCSI ID. This will allow location of a drive when action is required in response to messages from the DPT firmware/BIOS or the DPT software utilities

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Installing SCO Unix

Required BTLD floppies

In addition to the SCO distribution floppies and tape, BTLD driver disks are required for the on-board Adaptec AIC-7870 and the DPT3224.

However, do not use the BTLD driver disk for the AIC-7870 that ships in the FT//ex box as a modified BTLD driver is required that allows installation from a SCSI tape or CD-ROM connected to the Adaptec onto a SCSI disk connected to another SCSI adapter. This is because under SCO Unix 3.2v4.2 the installation SCSI device must be on the same SCSI bus as the root hard disk. Once Unix is installed however, such limitations do not exist - Unix will support the DPT disks and AIC-7870 SCSI devices.

The modified AIC-7870 BTLD floppy image is available from area39 of Apricot Insight BBS or from release 8 of the Insight CD. The filename is dpt7870.Z.

The DPT card’s BTLD floppy is created by the DOS based dptmgr.exe utility used to create the drive array. Refer to the notes covering the use of this utility supplied during the Apricot RAID training day or the Initial Syatem Configuration section of the DPT SmartRAID User’s Manual for a full description of the creation of such operating system specific floppies. This DPT OS Setup diskette as DPT call it, is created by performing an Initial System Configuration. An image of this floppy is also on Insight from release 10 and in area 39 of Apricot Insight BBS as the file DPTBTLD.Z.

Installing
Boot from the SCO N1 floppy as normal and at the Boot: prompt enter:

     link restart Stp=alad(0,2,0) disable=dpt

This will force an installation from a SCSI tape connected to the AIC-7870. For a CD-ROM installation use the following boot string:

     link restart Srom=alad(0,5,0) disable=dpt 

The boot string causes the SCO supplied dpt driver not to be used as this driver is for earlier DPT cards and is not suitable for the 3224 SmartCache card.

Enter the following when asked what drivers are to be linked in for version 1EB or later of the DPT Manager:

     dptr4 alad 

For version 1E9 of the DPT Manager enter:

     dptraid alad

Continue with a normal installation. You will be asked to insert the volumes that contain these drivers on two separate occasions during the installation.

The installation will default to a SCSI tape on ID 2 connected to the AIC-7870 (alad driver). If a CD-ROM is being used the installation will say that the CD-ROM is to be on SCSI ID 5, as mentioned in the Introduction section.

Once SCO Unix is installed check the /etc/conf/cf.d/mscsi file for a SCSI tape entry. If not present re-create the SCSI tape with the mkdev tape command in the normal manner.

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Installing SCO OpenServer 5

The procedure above for Unix 3.2v4.2 is not appropriate for OpenServer 5. However, it should be referred to and the differences here noted.

The DPT Storage Manager software must be at least release 1EB - earlier releases have no support for OpenServer 5.

Required BTLD floppy

The DPT card’s BTLD floppy is created by the DOS based dptmgr.exe utility used to create the drive array. An image of this floppy is also on Insight from release 10 and in area 39 of Apricot Insight BBS as the file DPTBTLD.Z. For an OpenServer 5 installation, release 1EB or later DPT Manager is required. The menu to create an SCO DPT OS Setup diskette floppy does not actually list OpenServer 5 as an option with version 1EB, but selecting the SCO Unix 3.2v4.2 option will create a BTLD floppy that contains the OpenServer 5 driver.

Installing
Boot from the SCO Boot floppy as normal and at the Boot: prompt enter:

     defbootstr ahslink=dptr5 Stp=alad(0,2,0) disable=dpt

This will force an installation from a SCSI tape connected to the AIC-7870. For a CD-ROM installation use the following boot string:

     defbootstr ahslink=dptr5 Srom=alad(0,5,0) disable=dpt

The boot string causes the SCO supplied dpt driver not to be used as this driver is for earlier DPT cards and is not suitable for the 3224 SmartCache card.

Note that the alad driver exists in the standard OpenServer 5 product.

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DPT utilities

From release 1E7 of the DOS based Storage Manager utility dptmgr.exe the DPT OS Setup diskette that is created contains the BTLD driver plus a Unix version of the Storage Manager and an event logger/broadcaster. From version 1EB there is also support for OpenServer 5.

Installation of the utilities

Installation at Unix install time
If the system is installed with a BTLD floppy of at least release 1E7 the utilities will be placed into the /usr/dpt directory. One other file will also be installed, this being the rc startup script /etc/rc2.d/S33dpt.

The files in /usr/dpt are as follows:

S33dpt dptlog dptmgrsc.rsc
dptelog dptmgr dptsig
dptelog.20 dptmgrsc read.me
dptelog.def dptmgrsc.hlp readme.apps
dpteng dptmgrsc.ini zilmouse.sco

Of particular interest is the file readme.apps which provides usage and configuration information.

The file dptelog.def configures the error logger utility dptelog. It is strongly suggested that this file be amended to enable such features as emailing of failures. See the sub-section entitled “Suggested modifications” below for more detail.

Installation onto a running system
If updating to a later release of the DPT driver, perhaps from the 1E3 release that did not include a Unix based manager and utility set, use the installpkg command in the normal way.

Suggested modifications
The file dptelog.def configures the error logging program dptelog. Given below are some entries which may be desirable. Refer to the file readme.apps for a full description.

# TIME is the minutes between checks 
TIME=1

The DPT default for the above setting is that the card is checked for possible problems every minute. A longer time could be specified here if desired. The default should be satisfactory.

# SYSLOG= allows you to enable/disable logging the ascii events to a file
SYSLOG:/usr/adm/messages

The above setting defines that errors are logged to the /usr/adm/messages file. This should not be changed.

# ELOG allows you to enable/disable logging to the binary adapter event file
ELOG=ON
# NOTIFY allows you to specify users to be notified
NOTIFY=root

The DPT default for the above setting is no users defined - commented out.

# NOTIFY=D: allows you to specify a device to be notified to
NOTIFY=D:/dev/console
# MAIL will email the events to any currently set up users
MAIL

The DPT default for the above setting is no mail - commented out.

# NOCLEAR will not clear the adapter data so each scan will get the same data
#NOCLEAR
# NOWAIT will scan the system once and exit
#NOWAIT

Using the utilities

The only utility that should be needed from the command line is the Unix version of the Storage Manager. This command is /usr/dpt/dptmgr. It can support the use of a mouse and if this is required use the Unix mkdev mouse utility to configure a mouse. However, it is quite usable without a mouse and works in a similar manner to the DOS Storage Manager dptmgr.exe. This command is actually a script that uses /usr/dpt/usemouse to establish if a mouse is attached, and then runs one of two manager binaries dependent upon whether there is a mouse or not. There is a slight difference to the DOS version however; the <alt> key is not used with other keys as a short-cut to an option. Instead the same character is preceded with an <escape>, so to Switch View for example use the key sequence <escape>v.

Note. It is possible that the command /usr/dpt/dptmgr mistakenly assumes that there is a mouse is attached when there is not. In this case use the command /usr/dpt/dptmgrscr to run the manager. This is the keyboard-only binary that the /usr/dpt/dptmgr script should invoke.

For a full description of the Storage Manager’s functions and options refer to the notes accompanying the hardware and RAID array setup and the DPT SmartRAID User’s Manual.

A couple of minor bugs have been seen so far:

  1. If dptmgr is running when a drive fails it fails to identify the model type details when the replacement drive is re-installed. You cannot view the failed or rebuilding drive. To overcome this, exit Storage Manager and run it again.

  2. The error logger seems to generate spurious High temperature detected and Normal temperature restored error messages. The card is fitted with a temperature sensor and is also able to receive such messages from an attached SmartRAID Storage Cabinet which is a proprietary DPT piece of hardware not used by Apricot.

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Emergency floppies

There is a potential risk of an inexperienced user damaging the data held on the array by using the DPT utilities. For this reason alone it is desirable to make an emergency boot set of floppies and a full root filesystem backup using cpio. With the emergency floppies and the cpio backup tape the root filesystem can be restored onto a re-created system drive.

Related documentation

Refer to Info Guide UNX003 for guidance on the subject of creation of emergency floppies, backing up, and restoring such tapes onto blank (low level formatted) root disks. The Info Guide covers such details as making a hard disk bootable, creating the Unix partition, creating the root filesystem and restoring the backup tape onto the filesystem. By using this method there is no need to carry out a Unix installation from the SCO media prior to restoration of the backup tape.

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