Using X11 Forwarding to access SANtricity via In Band Management

Sometimes SANtricity can be a very useful tool with our MDC Appliances and Q-series arrays. As you may know there is no built in Web GUI like the Dot Hill OEM and you need to use SANtricity for management. That being said you can either setup Out Band Management or In Band Management.

Out of Band Management:

This is done by giving the array controller an IP address and you load the SANtricity application on an OS that can route to that IP. So for example on one of our Appliance array you are communicating to the array through these ports.

In Band Management:

This is when you connect to the array via the SAS/iSCSI/FC port.

This method takes some forwarding and isn’t as straight forward. However if the customer isn’t onsite and doesn’t have an ETH cable plugged in, you can still pull up SANtricity remotely which is a huge advantage. All you need is an application that can do X11 forwarding and a SSH session. Here are the steps to get there, I’ll try to clean this up for a wiki article for reference in the future.

-Enabled X11 forwarding from SSH client. Putty Example here.

-Check if arrays are available with SMcli using the -d -v options.

[root@up ~]# SMcli -d -v

There are currently no storage systems listed in the configuration file. Add

storage systems using the Add Storage System option in the storage management

software or by command line.

SMcli failed.

-Check if SMagent is running.

[root@up ~]# SMagent status

SMagent is stopped

-Start SMagent.

[root@up ~]# SMagent start

SMagent started.

###This STDOUT takes some time to scroll###

[root@up ~]# SANtricity ES Storage System Host Agent, Version 10.02.A0.24

Built Tue Aug 28 03:54:23 CDT 2012

Checking device /dev/sdi (/dev/sg10) : Activating

Checking device /dev/sdj (/dev/sg12) : Skipping

Checking device /dev/sdk (/dev/sg13) : Skipping

Checking device /dev/sdl (/dev/sg14) : Skipping

Checking device /dev/sdm (/dev/sg15) : Skipping

Checking device /dev/sdn (/dev/sg16) : Skipping

Checking device /dev/sdo (/dev/sg17) : Skipping

Checking device /dev/sdp (/dev/sg18) : Skipping

Checking device /dev/sdq (/dev/sg19) : Activating

Checking device /dev/sdr (/dev/sg20) : Skipping

Checking device /dev/sds (/dev/sg21) : Skipping

Checking device /dev/sdt (/dev/sg22) : Skipping

Checking device /dev/sdu (/dev/sg23) : Skipping

Checking device /dev/sdv (/dev/sg24) : Skipping

Checking device /dev/sdw (/dev/sg25) : Skipping

Checking device /dev/sdx (/dev/sg26) : Skipping

Checking device /dev/sdy (/dev/sg27) : Skipping

Checking device /dev/sdz (/dev/sg28) : Skipping

Checking device /dev/sdaa (/dev/sg29) : Skipping

Checking device /dev/sdb (/dev/sg3) : Skipping

Checking device /dev/sdab (/dev/sg30) : Activating

Checking device /dev/sdac (/dev/sg31) : Skipping

Checking device /dev/sdad (/dev/sg32) : Skipping

Checking device /dev/sdae (/dev/sg33) : Skipping

Checking device /dev/sdc (/dev/sg4) : Skipping

Checking device /dev/sdd (/dev/sg5) : Skipping

Checking device /dev/sde (/dev/sg6) : Activating

Checking device /dev/sdf (/dev/sg7) : Skipping

Checking device /dev/sdg (/dev/sg8) : Skipping

Checking device /dev/sdh (/dev/sg9) : Skipping

-Use the 'SMcli –A’ command to scan devices.

[root@up ~]# SMcli -A

Starting auto discovery.

..................................................................................................................................................................................

Auto discovery operation successful.

SMcli completed successfully.

-Look for devices present again with 'SMcli -d -v'.

[root@up LSIcollect]# SMcli -d -v

sps-qseries suppqseries2.dnw.quantum.com suppqseries.dnw.quantum.com Optimal

sps-qseries suppgate2.dnw.quantum.com Optimal

sps-qseries 10.17.21.1 up.dnw.quantum.com Qarray1a Optimal

qvc6000 10.20.232.81 qvc6000.dnw.quantum.com Needs Attention

Qarray1 spsa10.dnw.quantum.com 10.20.232.68 Optimal

Qarray1 10.20.238.8 Optimal

Qarray1 10.17.21.1 up.dnw.quantum.com Qarray1a Optimal

Qarray1 10.20.238.31 Optimal

sesESX 10.20.234.42 10.20.234.43 Needs Attention

sesRepo 10.20.234.26 Needs Attention

sesRepo 10.20.234.46 10.20.234.45 Needs Attention

SMcli completed successfully.

-You can now use SMclient to pull up SANtricity. Remember you need some way of handling the GUI for the X11 forwarding. For example, since we have X11 forwarded in PUTTY and I'm writing this using a Windows environment I've loaded 'XMING' (http://sourceforge.net/projects/xming/) to do this.

In putty type 'SMclient'.

[root@up LSIcollect]# SMclient

[root@up LSIcollect]#

You then will get a popup of the SANtricity GUI. This lets you use the loop back IP to connect to the array via 'In-Band Management'.

This will give you EVERY array seen on the FC/SAS/iSCSI controllers, you select the storage your troubleshooting and continue from there.

DON'T FORGET TO STOP SMAGENT, IT'S UNEEDED OVERHEAD ON THE BOX.

[root@up LSIcollect]# SMagent stop

Stopping Agent process 4703.

[root@up LSIcollect]#