Trying to use KTN-STL4 FC from TrueNAS core 12

[Borja]

I use a HP microserver Gen8 (TrueNAS 12) mostly for CIFS share and some backups. Recently it becomes full (96% used space) and remember i have a KTN-STL4 drive enclosure full of 1TB SATA disks i would like to use to create a new pool or extend the current one.
For connection i have a Qlogic card that is correctly detected by the system and following the guide avaliable for FreeNAS 9.3 and 11.2 i changed the role of the card to target.
I use camcontrol devlist to check the drives but i cant see the disks inside the drive enclosure. Looking for more info i read that maybe all FC functionality was removed from TrueNAS and now is a paid addon.
I would like to know if its possible to use it from trueNAS.

Thanks

 

[HoneyBadger]

i changed the role of the card to target.

If you're trying to use the card to connect to a disk shelf, it's an initiator, not a target. Change it back.

Edit: And while the QLogic should pick up on the topology automatically, if it doesn't, you'll need to tell it to negotiate the connection as an arbitrated loop (FC-AL) and not a point-to-point link.

 

[Borja]

If you're trying to use the card to connect to a disk shelf, it's an initiator, not a target. Change it back.

Edit: And while the QLogic should pick up on the topology automatically, if it doesn't, you'll need to tell it to negotiate the connection as an arbitrated loop (FC-AL) and not a point-to-point link.

Yes, i also tried to set the role to initiator and also is not detecting the disks. I changed to target because was following this guide here:

Fibre Channel on FreeNAS 11.1u4

There are a few cobbled guides for setting up fibre channel LUNs from version 9.x. I have tested a few things and found one shortcoming on the guides. they leave your LUNs exposed via iSCSI as well as fiber channel. Here I will provide a method...

www.truenas.com

and they set role to 0 "none" and then it sets to target with a post-init script.
I will check if i can do some config in the card itself at booting but i remember i see FC-AL doing some log checks.

 

[Borja]

This is part of the log at booting:

Mar 16 10:33:31 NASI isp0: <Qlogic ISP 2532 PCI FC-AL Adapter> port 0x4000-0x40ff mem 0xfbff0000-0xfbff3fff irq 16 at device 0.0 on pci1
Mar 16 10:33:31 NASI isp0: Chan 0 setting role to 0x2

And

root@NASI:~ # sysctl -a | grep isp
device isp
net.isr.dispatch: direct
irq264: isp0:0:65 @cpu0(domain0): 2
irq265: isp0:1:67 @cpu0(domain0): 0
dev.vgapci.0.%desc: VGA-compatible display
dev.isp.0.use_gff_id: 1
dev.isp.0.use_gft_id: 1
dev.isp.0.topo: 0
dev.isp.0.loopstate: 0
dev.isp.0.fwstate: 0
dev.isp.0.linkstate: 0
dev.isp.0.speed: 0
dev.isp.0.role: 2
dev.isp.0.gone_device_time: 30
dev.isp.0.loop_down_limit: 60
dev.isp.0.wwpn: 2377900762149875931
dev.isp.0.wwnn: 2305843168111947995
dev.isp.0.%parent: pci1
dev.isp.0.%pnpinfo: vendor=0x1077 device=0x2532 subvendor=0x1077 subdevice=0x015c class=0x0c0400
dev.isp.0.%location: slot=0 function=0 dbsf=pci0:7:0:0 handle=\_SB_.PCI0.PT02.SLT0
dev.isp.0.%driver: isp

dev.isp.0.%desc: Qlogic ISP 2532 PCI FC-AL Adapter
dev.isp.%parent:

But no disk detected over FC:

root@NASI:~ # camcontrol devlist
<HGST HDN726040ALE614 APGNW7JH> at scbus1 target 0 lun 0 (pass0,ada0)
<HGST HDN726040ALE614 APGNW7JH> at scbus2 target 0 lun 0 (pass1,ada1)
<HGST HDN726040ALE614 APGNW7JH> at scbus3 target 0 lun 0 (pass2,ada2)
<HGST HDN726040ALE614 APGNW7JH> at scbus4 target 0 lun 0 (pass3,ada3)
<AHCI SGPIO Enclosure 2.00 0001> at scbus7 target 0 lun 0 (ses0,pass4)
<HP iLO Internal SD-CARD 2.10> at scbus9 target 0 lun 0 (pass5,da0)
root@NASI:~ #

The disks shown there are the SATA drivers inside the drive bays of the HP Gen8

Not sure what more to check now...

 

[Arwen]

If you can get down time, you might try booting Linux or straight FreeBSD. Make sure your hardware is right, and sees the disks. Then boot back into TrueNAS Core. If Core still does not see it, you have your answer, not supported.

 

[Borja]

If you can get down time, you might try booting Linux or straight FreeBSD. Make sure your hardware is right, and sees the disks. Then boot back into TrueNAS Core. If Core still does not see it, you have your answer, not supported.

I reboot the machine with a display and i have accesed a configuration menu of the Qlogic card. I have enabled host adapter and it has some options to look for devices, LUN and disks connected to the card. It cant find anything.
So maybe the card is bad or the cable is not the right one for this card but im pretty sure the disk enclosure is ok and the cable is what it came with it.
Im not sure...

 

[Borja]

After a lot of research i could find some guy having the same problem and he solved it changing the card speed to auto. Then it works at 2Gb/s. Now, the card is set to 4Gb/s which is the speed of the DAE, but for some reason maybe that speed is not supported in this config of card, cable and DAE. I will check tomorrow.

 

[Arwen]

One thing with Fibre Channel, is that their are multiple options for optics & cables. Short range over multi-mode plastic fiber, (though it does come in glass too), is pretty common. Especially for such distances as same room, (or even same rack).

However, if either side has a long range or single mode optic transceiver and the other side is short range, they probably won't work together.

So, try and get the part of the disk tray's optics.

And the part number of the Q-Logic card, and it's optics.

 

[Borja]

One thing with Fibre Channel, is that their are multiple options for optics & cables. Short range over multi-mode plastic fiber, (though it does come in glass too), is pretty common. Especially for such distances as same room, (or even same rack).

However, if either side has a long range or single mode optic transceiver and the other side is short range, they probably won't work together.

So, try and get the part of the disk tray's optics.

And the part number of the Q-Logic card, and it's optics.

I only have the HSSDC to FC cable that comes with the DAE, the rest of the cables i have are HSSDC to HSSDC to chain DAEs.
I was able to light up the 4GB/s link led on the DAE side, but the lights on the Qlogic are always blinking (the three at same time), and at some point it should be solid orange i think, that is the 4Gb/s link led light.
So maybe the SPF transceiver on the qlogic side is not compatible with the card, the transceiver is tyco branded. i have been looking for other HSSDC to FC cable or FC-HSSDC transceiver but i cant find anything.

 

[Arwen]

Sorry, I can't help further.

 

[HoneyBadger]

Have you actually completed the FC-AL loop back to your HBA in the TrueNAS unit? It's been a while since I poked the old FC based EMC gear but I believe it's expecting a complete round-trip.

Also did you ensure that the drives themselves are receiving power/spinning up? And they'll likely be 520bps out of the box if they were originally EMC drives as well, you'll need to reformat them with sg_format to set it to 512b.

 

[Borja]

Have you actually completed the FC-AL loop back to your HBA in the TrueNAS unit? It's been a while since I poked the old FC based EMC gear but I believe it's expecting a complete round-trip.

Also did you ensure that the drives themselves are receiving power/spinning up? And they'll likely be 520bps out of the box if they were originally EMC drives as well, you'll need to reformat them with sg_format to set it to 512b.

I managed to get into the card configuration, something like a BIOS menu. From there i could look for devices and disks. I tried many many configurations and it was unable to see the disk neither any device. I think the cable i have is not compatible with Qlogic card or similar. But FC cables are very expensive for such an old disk array, also, the noise it makes its like an airplane. For all this reason i gave up on this.
I think the cable is the problem because the card has 3 leds on the back to show speed of the link, and they are always on or blinking, but the three of them, and only one should stay on if the link is ok, for example, 4GB/s.