Now I can't administer my Xserve RAID using RAID Admin utility?

Hi

You say you 'hooked' up the XServe RAID to your MacPro? It's an obvious question and judging from your post did you forget to 'hook' up the network cable(s)?

RAID Admin won't work unless there's an ethernet connection to the unit. There's many ways of troubleshooting the ethernet connection and not knowing anything more about your network it's difficult to give specific advice. It's possible the previous network connection was with a fixed IP Address. Maybe you only used one of the NICs instead of both? It's also possible you've decided to change the IP Address Range because you've moved to a newer server or for other operational reasons? Only you really knows. If you've done this and co-incidentally you forgot to change it on the RAID this could explain what you're seeing. Resetting the controllers resets the NIC settings back to DHCP. If you have a DHCP Server on the network this will then assign an appropriate IP address and you should then be able to communicate with the Unit.

What I normally do is assign a fixed IP address to one NIC and leave the other one set at DHCP. Both NICs are connected to the main network. Alternatively and if your server has dual NICs, use the secondary NICs on both the Server and RAID and establish a secondary 'private' link between the Server and the RAID and nothing else using a completely different IP Address Range than the one on the primary network. Or you can come up with some other way of maintaining a backup connection.

Tony

Hi Bart,

Yes you could. You might find the following the easiest way of doing it.

Speak to your IT department get them to allow you to plug the RAID into the network. Reset the controller so it reverts to DHCP and then fire up RAID Admin once that's been done and your Mac Pro is also connected. Go to the settings page on RAID Admin and choose network. Change "configure" from DHCP to manually and assign it an IP address that is on a different subnet to your work one (assuming they wont allow you to plug this in permanently which is a bit silly) so possibly something like 172.16.99.10 and the 2nd controller to 172.16.99.11 then give your second ethernet port on the Mac Pro an address on the same range so 172.16.99.9 you can do this in System Preferences - Network.

If you then run a network cable from the mac pro to one of the ethernet ports on the RAID you should be able to see it and administer it.

Hope that helps, if you have lots of important data on the RAID you should flag it up to the IT department (or a higher up) that having the RAID plugged into the network and configured properly would allow it to send out warning emails should anything go wrong with it and you don't happen to be around.

All the best
Beatle

You need to have whatever port you're using to communicate with the RAID in the same IP address neighborhood. If the RAID is self-assigned to 169.254.x.x then your connecting machine needs to be in the same general range. Setting your subnet mask more liberally will allow you communicate to wider range of addresses.
eg If your address is 169.254.100.1 and your subnet mask is 255.255.255.0 you can "see" anything in 169.254.100.x while a subnet mask of 255.255.0.0 will let you see all 169.254.x.x.

Once you're in the right range choosing "Add RAID" should find the RAID and offer to add it to be monitored if you current settings doesn't seem to talk to the RAID.

You should be able to use your second port to connect to RAID but this set-up is much cleaner if the addresses are in very different ranges - like self assigned 169.254. or local 192.168. - for one port and something public on the other. That way it is clear which port requests should be directed to for what purpose. I usually have all my machines monitoring assigned to a local LAN address range and have them all run into a local ethernet hub and then attach my computer or a laptop (assigned to right range) to the hub when needed.

HTH,
=Tod