Informations on X4500 and X4540

Solaris X4540 setup - use of the flash card

*Interesting discussion where it is argumented that by using ZFS on the flash card, the wear would be reduced, and one does not need to follow the recommendations on moving /var to external resources: http://opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa;jsessionid=99BCC2F5CAA76BF1318FE06906E8030D?messageID=423535&#423535

Linux on the X4500 / X4540

• http://www.hps.com/~tpg/notebook/thumper.php : extensive report on a troublesome first experience with Debian on X4500
• http://wiki.lustre.org/images/7/79/Thumper-BP-6.pdf : Linux + Lustre on the Tokyo Tech Tsubame Grid
• Lustre + X4500 at the "Deutsches Klimarechenzentrum" and their system setup (schema)

udev rules

http://wikitech-static.wikimedia.org/articles/s/u/n/Sun_Fire_X4500_and_X4540_cd48.html

Solaris device name symlinks can be made by udev. Put the following in /etc/udev/rules.d/99-thumper-disks.rules:

#
# /etc/udev/rules.d/99-thumper-disks.rules
# Written on 2009/08/15 by Mark Bergsma 
#

# Disk rules
SUBSYSTEM=="block", KERNEL=="sd*[a-z]", KERNELS=="*:0:0:0", PROGRAM="/etc/udev/scripts/solaris-name.sh %b", ENV{SOLARIS_NAME}="$result", SYMLINK+="disk/by-cntrl/$env{SOLARIS_NAME}"

# Partition rules
SUBSYSTEM=="block", KERNEL=="sd*[a-z][0-9]*", KERNELS=="*:0:0:0", PROGRAM="/etc/udev/scripts/solaris-name.sh %b %n", ENV{SOLARIS_NAME}="$result", SYMLINK+="disk/by-cntrl/$env{SOLARIS_NAME}"

And this (executable!) helper script in /etc/udev/scripts/solaris-name.sh:

#!/bin/bash

seq=$(echo $1 | cut -d':' -f 1)
controller=$(($seq / 8))
disk=$((seq % 8))

if [ -n "$2" ]; then
        echo "c${controller}t${disk}d0s$(($2 - 1))"
else
        echo "c${controller}t${disk}d0"
fi

-- DerekFeichtinger - 2009-10-30