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NAME

fctest - Tests Fibre Channel environment.

SYNOPSIS

fctest [ -B ] [ -t minutes ] [ -v ] [ adapter ]

fctest -T [ -t minutes ] [ -v ] adapter

fctest [ -R ] [ -W ] [ -A ] [ -V ] [ -B ] [ -t minutes ] [ -n sects ] [ -v ] [ -s <shelf-list> ] [ -d <disk-list> ] [ -a <adapter-list> ]

DESCRIPTION

Use the fctest command to test Fibre Channel adapters and disks on an appliance. This command provides a report of the integrity of your Fibre Channel environment. It is only available in maintenance mode. By default, it takes about 5 minutes to complete.

The -R option executes a sequential read test with optionally specified large block size (default is 1024 kb per I/O).

The -W option executes a sequential write test with optionally specified large block size (default is 1024 kb per I/O).

The -A option executes a test that alternates between writes and reads with optionally specified large block size (default is 1024 kb per I/O). No data verification is performed.

The -V option executes a sequential write verify test which uses 4 kb per I/O operation. This is identical to the way fctest would function on previous releases.

The -T option executes a test that alternates between writes and reads with varying I/O sizes. It also steps through permutations of shelves on the specified loop. If -t minutes is specified, each iteration of the test will run for the specified time. This is a continuous test and will run until stopped via ^C.

The -n option is used to optionally specify the number of sectors to be read for each I/O of the -R,-A, or -W option. The number of sectors used by the -V command is fixed at 8 (4 kb) and cannot be altered.

The -d option allows for running fctest over a specific set of disks in the system by specifying a disk list of the form: <disk-name1> <disk-name2>

The -s option allows for running fctest over all disks contained in a specific shelf by specifying a shelf list of the form: <a>:<m> [<b>:<n> ...] where <m> and <n> are integer shelf ids and <a> and <b> are the PCI slot numbers of the Fibre Channel Adapter(s) the shelves are connected to. (On board adapter is slot 0a.). Hint: Use fcadmin device_map to get slot locations.

The -a option allows for running fctest over a specific set of Fibre Channel adapters in the system by specifying an adapter list of the form: <slot1> <slot2> ... <slotN>.

If the -v option is specified, the output is verbose.

If the -B option is specified, disks attached to the Fibre Channel loop via their B ports will also be tested.

By default, the test runs for about 5 minutes. However, if the [ -t minutes ] option is used, the test will run for the specified duration. If [ -t 0 ] is specified, the test will run CONTINUOUSLY until stopped with a ^C.

If the adapter or disk-list, adapter-list and shelf-list arguments are missing, all Fibre Channel adapters and disks in the system are tested. Otherwise, only the specified adapter and disks attached to it are tested.

When finished, fctest prints out a report of the following values for each Fibre Channel adapter tested:

1. Number of times loss of synchronization was detected in that adapter's Fibre Channel loop.

2. Number of CRC errors found in Fibre Channel packets.

3. The total number of inbound and outbound frames seen by the adapter.

4. A "confidence factor" on a scale from 0 to 1 that indicates the health of your Fibre Channel system as computed by the test. A value of 1 indicates that no errors were found. Any value less than 1 indicates there are problems in the Fibre Channel loop that are likely to interfere with the normal operation of your appliance.

If the confidence factor is reported as less than 1, please run the Config Advisor tool to verify the cabling and contact NetApp technical support.

The actual arithmetic that is used to compute the confidence factor is as follows:

The number of Fibre Channel errors is obtained by adding the number of underrun, CRC, Synchronization and link failure errors with all errors weighted the same.

The allowable number of errors by the Fibre Channel protocol is calculated by adding Fibre Channel frames (inbound + outbound) and then multiplying by 2048 bytes per frame and dividing by the BER of 1e-12 converted to bytes at 1e-11.

The confidence factor is calculated as follows:

if total errors = 0, then confidence factor = 1.0

if total errors < allowable errors, then confidence factor = 0.99

if total errors > allowable errors, then confidence factor is decremented by .01 for each error seen which the protocol error rate does not allow.

HA CONSIDERATIONS

In an HA configuration, only disks on a node's primary loop (the A loop) are tested, unless the -B option is specified. If -B is specified, disks on the B loop are tested as well.

EXAMPLES

The following command runs fctest for 5 minutes doing a sequential alternating write and read test in verbose mode on all Fibre Channel adapters in the system, while testing only those disks which are attached via their A ports:

fctest -v

The following command runs fctest for an hour doing a sequential write test in verbose mode, using 1024 kb I/O blocks while testing disks attached to adapter 8 via both A and B ports:

fctest -W -v -B -t 60 -a 8

The following command runs fctest for 5 minutes doing a sequential read test on all disks in shelf 0 on adapter 7:

fctest -R -s 7:0

The following command runs fctest continuously (until stopped) doing a sequential write test of 512 kb I/O's to all disks on shelf 1 on adapter 7, shelf 2 on adapter 7, disks 7.0 and 7.1 and all disks on adapter 8:

fctest -W -n 1024 -t 0 -d 7.0 7.1 -s 7:1 7:2 -a 8

The following command runs fctest continuously (until stopped) doing an alternating sequential write/read test with varying I/O sizes across all shelf permutations in the loop attached to adapter 7 for 4 minutes on each iteration:

fctest -T -t 4 7


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