Fibre channel link down

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Level 1

10 points

Fibre channel link down

Sorry in advance for my English...
Maybe I ask something evident, but I cannot find the solution by myself.
We have a XServe G5 and a Raid XServe. They are connected to each other by fibre channel copper cables and, in addition, both the XServe G5 and the Raid XServe are connected to our switch. After having made all the necessary connections, I launched the Raid Admin : all lights were green except the light of fibre channel which appeared in yellow color (meaning 'link down'). I updated firmware, I restarted the whole system, but nothing changed. While the Raid was restarting, the lights of the fibre channel connections on the back panel blinked green and after they went out. Is it normal? On the back panel of the server, the lights of the fibre channel card are constantly yellow. I read in the fibre channel's booklet that it means that the link is not established. I removed and reinstalled the fibre channel card but without any success. Still another strange thing : the fibre channel utility says me that the fibre channel card cannot be found or that it is not properly installed. But I reinstalled it already 2 times... It is maybe important to mention that I connect to the server in target disk mode.
I don't know what to think. I looked through all the server and raid documentation but nowhere was spoken about my type of problem. Despair to understand anything logically, I decided to make array 1 to see how the fibre channel would react... The lights of the fibre channel became red. Where is the trouble? I don't want to think that it is a defective fibre channel card (it is an Apple Fibre Channel PCI card).

Mac OS X (10.4.5)

Mac OS X (10.4.5)

Posted on Mar 13, 2006 5:52 AM

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Answer 1

Cutter4

Level 1

10 points

Mar 13, 2006 8:57 AM in response to Irishka

Irishka,

If I understand your configuration then I have 3 comments:
1) All fibre channel cables should plug directly into the switch only. No devices plug directly to each other.
2) I have found the fibre channel cards to be sensitive to devices plugged into other pci slots, especially SCSI cards. Try moving the fibre channel card one slot to the left or right.
3) To my knowledge you can not use fibre channel in target disk mode.

Clear up these 3 items and see where you are.

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Answer 2

Mar 13, 2006 10:51 AM in response to Irishka

Is the switch you are refering to a ethernet switch, or fiber channel? Can you tell us some specs on your Xserve G5 and also what type of Fibre channel card you have? Is it PCI Express or PCI-X? The PCI Express card will only work in newer dual and quad core PowerMac G5's.

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Answer 3

Mar 13, 2006 4:00 PM in response to Irishka

Hi,

Is it actually working, though? I didn't catch whether things are actually working or not. This may be no issue at all... here are a couple KBase articles worth reading:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86448

\ http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107542

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Answer 4

Irishka Author

Level 1

10 points

Mar 14, 2006 4:51 AM in response to Irishka

Thank you for your answers,

For more information : we have an Ethernet switch (Linksys 24 port 10/100) with 1 Gigabit port and 1 miniGBIC which normally can be used for the fibre channel too. I did a test by connecting one of the cables between the switch and the RAID with the same unsuccessful result. But it is absolutely possible that the port of the switch and the connector of an optical cable are not compatible to each other.
Maybe there is an explanation in the card itself. The question of Chris about the type of card intrigued me, because in the name of the card there is not any mention of neither X nor Express. Just simple PCI card. I read more attentively the requirements for the card and that is what is exactly written :
"• An Xserve system, a Power Mac G5, or a Power Mac G4 computer ... (what is further of less importance)
• Mac OS X v.10.2.7 (G5) (or later) for Power Mac G5, Mac OS X v.10.2.6 (or later) for Power Mac G4, or Mac OS X server v.10.2.4 (or later) for Xserve. "
Does it mean that the card is not corresponding to our XServe G5 Dual Processor, Mac OS X v.10.4.5?

Mac OS X (10.4.5)

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Answer 5

Irishka Author

Level 1

10 points

Mar 14, 2006 5:06 AM in response to Irishka

I will try to contact an Apple Centre where we bought the PCI card.

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Answer 6

Cutter4

Level 1

10 points

Mar 14, 2006 5:18 AM in response to Irishka

The Linksys is an ethernet TCPIP switch. The miniGBIC is for uplinking TCPIP traffic over fiber cable between ethernet TCPIP switches. It is simply passing the TCPIP traffic across the Fibre cable. The switch itself will not route Fibre Channel traffic. What you are doing will not work. Refer to my prior post that you do not plug Fibre Channel devices directly into each other. They must be plugged into a Fibre Channel switch.

Fibre Channel is it's own networking protocol. It is not compatible with ethernet / TCPIP. You will need to purchase a Fibre Channel switch to plug all of your Fibre Channel devices into. A popular one that Apple recomends is from QLogic.

As for the issue with your Fibre Channel card - it will show link down or some other error if it is plugged into an ethernet switch. With thr Fibre Channel cable unplugged your computer should recognize the card. Did you try my prior suggestion ofr moving it one slot to the left or right. Also, go to Apple / About this Mac / More information and see if it is showing PCI or PCI-X slots. Does your card show up in either of those?

Dual Core G5 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

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Answer 7

Irishka Author

Level 1

10 points

Mar 14, 2006 8:57 AM in response to Cutter4

Hi, Cutter,

I don't completely agree with you about not having a possibility to connect RAID to the XServe by fibre channel cables. It is one of the possible connections which is proposed in User Guide for RAID: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86671 (we have the second generation of RAID)
I tried too plugged the card into different slots of the server but it did not help. Always the same yellow lights...
This is what I get about the PCI card from Apple System Profiler Report :
PCI Cards:

LSI,929:

Name: IntraServer,fc
Type: scsi-2
Bus: PCI
Slot: SLOT-3
Vendor ID: 0x1000
Device ID: 0x0622
Subsystem Vendor ID: 0x1000
Subsystem ID: 0x1020
Revision ID: 0x0002

LSI,929:

Name: IntraServer,fc
Type: scsi-2
Bus: PCI
Slot: SLOT-3
Vendor ID: 0x1000
Device ID: 0x0622
Subsystem Vendor ID: 0x1000
Subsystem ID: 0x1020
Revision ID: 0x0002

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Answer 8

Mar 14, 2006 9:30 AM in response to Irishka

Irishka,

Have you tried connecting the RAID directly to the server, without the switch?

I don't think PCI versus PCI-X is your problem -- both cards will work with OS X.

Here's Apples list of certified switches:

http://www.apple.com/xserve/raid/certifications.html

Qlogic, Brocade, McDATA, Emulex, Cisco (MDS-9000 series). I don't see Linksys on there -- and again it has to be a fibre channel switch, not an Ethernet switch that supports fiber.

fibre channel != fiber.

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Answer 9

Cutter4

Level 1

10 points

Mar 14, 2006 11:35 AM in response to Irishka

Irishka,

Yes you can plug Raid to Fibre Channel. I thought you were trying to connect multiple devices directly into each other without a switch. Sorry. I'm also not clear on what role the Linksys is playing.

I tend to go back to the fact that the fibre card utility does not see the card. I have had cards show up in System Profiler but not function correctly. Out of 10 cards I have installed 1 of them did not function because it was having a conflict with a SCSI card. It was a one or the other solution and the fibre card won! I would keep focusing on a possible scsi conflict.

Dual Core G5 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

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