[Info-vax] Error using fibre channel target on FreeBSD from OpenVMS

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2022-04-24 12:47:21 +0000, Robert A. Brooks said:

> On 4/24/2022 2:18 AM, Matthew R. Wilson wrote:
>> This could be a long shot, but I'm hoping to experiment with OpenVMS 
>> clustering using a shared system disk over fibre channel.
>> 
>> My two VMS systems are Integrity rx1600s. I'm trying to use a system 
>> running FreeBSD as the target. After much experimentation and 
>> troubleshooting, I've gotten pretty far, but the volumes are still 
>> stuck "offline" in OpenVMS.
> 
> I'm inferring that there is no fibre switch between VMS and the 
> "storage array".
> 
> VMS does not support FC-AL (arbitrated loop).
> 
> That's probably among the issues.

Doc here tends to be... messy.

I'd start with a (good) summary of the basics of connecting Fibre 
Channel to OpenVMS posted in a thread here in the comp.os.vms 
newsgroup: 
https://groups.google.com/g/comp.os.vms/c/m-F8ucLqMBc/m/9IWuSvaIZq4J

HP/HPE had a document named the HPE SAN Design Guide, older versions 
were hp StorageWorks SAN Design, and in somewhat less antediluvian 
times and as OpenVMS information in that HPE SAN document and in SPOCK 
disappeared there was an informal OpenVMS-focused version of that SAN 
User's Guide briefly around, too. VSI doesn't have much published doc 
in this storage-integration area past the two clustering manuals and 
some HBA-related docs, AFAIK. For the HPE SAN doc: STNW-SDRG-ED102 
https://www.hpe.com/psnow/doc/c00403562

If you want shared storage on a couple of those low-profile 
rack-n-stack-n-screech leaf-blowers, shared multi-host SCSI with 
TCQ-capable controllers and an MSA30-MI multi-initiator shelf can be 
another option. If you can source that SCSI hardware.

As might well be clear already, any two-host cluster is necessarily 
primary-secondary, or manual failover, without multi-path shared 
storage configured.

OpenVMS shared storage support is largely limited to DAS and FC SAN for 
the foreseeable future, and I wouldn't expect SMB client support 
(TrueNAS, Synology, etc) or ilk added, nor iSCSI TOE, nor for 
newer/weirder stuff such as eSSD / NVMe-oF / computational storage, 
etc.; not until well past the completion of the port. 
https://www.snia.org/educational-library/ethernet-attached-ssds—brilliant-idea-or-storage-silliness-2020 






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