8.6 Upgrading Procedure for Dell EMC PowerPath

This section explains how to upgrade PowerPath in the system where the Dell EMC PowerPath device is registered to GDS.

All user operations must be stopped for taking this procedure.

Back up the system disks and the data of customers before taking the following steps.

[Procedure]

1) Displaying class information

Execute the following command on all the nodes to check the configuration information of created classes.

# sdxinfo -C
OBJ    NAME     TYPE     SCOPE      SPARE
-----  ------- ------- ------------ -----
class  class00 shared   node1:node2 0
class  class01 shared   node1:node2 0
class  class02 local    node1       0

2) Stopping applications

Stop all the applications that are accessing the disks of Dell EMC storage units.

Also, execute the umount(8) command to unmount the file systems created on the disks of Dell EMC storage units.

3) Stopping RMS

Take the following steps to stop RMS.

3-1) Execute the following command on any one of the nodes where RMS is running to stop RMS.

# hvshut -a

3-2) Execute the following command on all the nodes to check that RMS is correctly stopped and the message "RMS is not running." is output.

# hvdisp -a
RMS is not running.

3-3) Set up to avoid the automatic startup of RMS until Dell EMC PowerPath is upgraded.

Execute the following command on all the nodes where RMS is used.

# hvsetenv HV_RCSTART 0

4) Backing up GDS configuration information

Take the following steps to back up the GDS configuration information.

Specify any directory other than /tmp or its subdirectories for mydir in the following procedure.

4-1) Back up class configuration information.

For all the classes where the disks of Dell EMC storage units are registered, execute the following command on any one of the nodes that is included in the class scope.

You can check the class scope in the SCOPE field output by the sdxinfo -C command executed in step 1).

# sdxconfig Backup -c classname -o /mydir/classname.bkup

4-2) Stop volumes.

For all the classes where the disks of Dell EMC storage units are registered, execute the following command on any one of the nodes that is included in the class scope.

Shared classes:
```
# sdxvolume -F -c classname -e allnodes
```

Local classes:
```
# sdxvolume -F -c classname
```

4-3) Change shared classes to local classes.

For all the shared classes where the disks of Dell EMC storage units are registered, execute the following command on any one of the nodes that is included in the class scope.

# sdxattr -C -c classname -a type=local

4-4) Remove classes.

For all the classes where the disks of Dell EMC storage units are registered, execute the following command on the same node as step 4-3).

# sdxconfig Remove -c classname

5) Switching to single-user mode

Take the following steps to switch the mode to single-user mode.

5a) RHEL6

5a-1) Execute the vim(1) command, for example, to edit the id entry in the /etc/inittab file as follows.

Note

The default runlevel before changing the id entry (3 in the example below) changes depending on an environment.

Write down the default runlevel before changing the id entry to change back the default runlevel later.

(Example)

[Before change]

# Default runlevel. The runlevels used by RHS are:
...

id:3:initdefault:

[After change]

# Default runlevel. The runlevels used by RHS are:
...

id:1:initdefault:

5a-2) Restart the system in single-user mode.

# shutdown -r now

5b) RHEL7

5b-1) Check the current default target.

Note

The default target (multi-user.target in the example below) changes depending on an environment. Write down the current default target to change back the default target later.

(Example)

# systemctl get-default
multi-user.target

5b-2) Change the default target.

# systemctl set-default rescue.target

5b-3) Restart the system in single-user mode.

# shutdown -r now

6) Upgrading PowerPath

PowerPath must be upgraded by Dell EMC engineers.

After PowerPath is upgraded, check that both the emcpower device and the native device name are not changed before and after the upgrade.

If these device names have been changed, contact Dell EMC engineers to change them back to the original names before the upgrade.

7) Switching to multi-user mode

7a) RHEL6

7a-1) Change back the id entry in the /etc/inittab file that was changed in step 5a-1).

(Example)

[Before change]

# Default runlevel. The runlevels used by RHS are:
...

id:1:initdefault:

[After change]

# Default runlevel. The runlevels used by RHS are:
...

id:3:initdefault:

7a-2) Restart the system.

# shutdown -r now

7b) RHEL7

7b-1) Change the default target.

# systemctl set-default multi-user.target

7b-2) Restart the system.

# shutdown -r now

8) Setting excluded device list

If the excluded device list is not created, create it.

Take this step on all the nodes where the disks of Dell EMC storage units are registered to the class.

For how to create the excluded device list, see "6.1.1 Excluded Device List" and "6.1.3 To Use Dell EMC Storage Units."

9) Restoring GDS configuration information

Take the following steps to restore the GDS configuration information.

9-1) Restore the class configuration information.

For all the classes where the disks of Dell EMC storage units are registered, execute the following command on any one of the nodes that is included in the class scope.

You can check the class scope in the SCOPE field output by the sdxinfo -C command executed in step 1).

# sdxconfig Restore -c classname -i /mydir/classname.bkup

When the above command is executed, the classes will be restored as local classes on the node where the command was executed.

9-2) Restart the system.

Execute the following command on the same node as step 9-1).

# shutdown -r now

9-3) Change local classes to shared classes.

For all the shared classes where the disks of Dell EMC storage units are registered, change the local classes that were restored in step 9-1) to shared classes.

For the classes whose TYPE fields are listed as shared in the output of the sdxinfo -C command when it was executed in step 1), execute the following command on the same node as step 9-1).

# sdxattr -C -c classname -a type=shared,scope=nodename1:nodename2

9-4) Set up the classes to be used as RMS resources.

For all the shared classes where the disks of Dell EMC storage units are registered, execute the following command on any one of the nodes that is included in the class scope.

# /opt/SMAW/SMAWRrms/bin/hvgdsetup -a classname

10) Checking restored classes

Execute the following command on all the nodes to check that all the restored classes are correctly displayed.

# sdxinfo -C

11) Starting RMS

Take the following steps to start RMS.

11-1) Execute the following command on any one of the nodes to start RMS.

# hvcm -a

11-2) Execute the following command on all the nodes to check that RMS has correctly started.

# hvdisp -a

11-3) To start RMS automatically during node startup, execute the following command on all the nodes where RMS is used.

# hvsetenv HV_RCSTART 1

12) Starting applications

Execute the mount(8) command to mount the file systems on the disks of Dell EMC storage units.

Also, start the applications that use the disks of Dell EMC storage units.