%CNXMAN, Using local access method for quorum disk every QDSKINTERVAL seconds (emulated Alpha V7.3-2)

[Scott Snadow]

Trying to replicate an old production system, hence the reason that I'm messing around with V7.3-2.

I'm running on a Windows 10 laptop...
...using VMware Workstation Player version 16 with six virtual cores...
......running Windows 11...
.........running FreeAXP version 679...
............running a freshly-installed V7.3-2

I created a quorum disk and made it $1$DKA600; initialized it, mounted it, ran SYS$MANAGER:CLUSTER_CONFIG.COM to point to it.

Rebooted the emulated Alpha a couple of times and it boots fine, goes through the expected "remote access" for the quorum disk, then changes to local, and all is well. The disk is mounted during the startup. But before the startup completes, I start getting that local access message across OPA0: every QDSKINTERVAL seconds FOREVER. Originally it was every 3 seconds since that's the default, then I increased it to 10, and now I get the message every 10 seconds.

The emulated Alpha isn't doing anything at this point, it's just booted with no other processing going on.

Am I forgetting something easy to fix this?

REASON WHY I'M DOING IT: Eventually I want to get a second emulated AlphaServer in the configuration too, and I need a quorum disk so that I can run with only one AlphaServer if necessary.

What's bugging me the most is that I *think* that I had this working a year ago, but then abandoned it and came back to it recently. Perhaps I'm just virtualizing too many levels deep and my laptop can't keep up with the load?

Thanks,
Scott

[Stephen Hoffman]

Post by Scott Snadow
Trying to replicate an old production system, hence the reason that I'm
messing around with V7.3-2.
I'm running on a Windows 10 laptop...
...using VMware Workstation Player version 16 with six virtual cores...
......running Windows 11...
.........running FreeAXP version 679...
............running a freshly-installed V7.3-2
I created a quorum disk and made it $1$DKA600; initialized it, mounted
it, ran SYS$MANAGER:CLUSTER_CONFIG.COM to point to it.
Rebooted the emulated Alpha a couple of times and it boots fine, goes
through the expected "remote access" for the quorum disk, then changes
to local, and all is well. The disk is mounted during the startup.
But before the startup completes, I start getting that local access
message across OPA0: every QDSKINTERVAL seconds FOREVER. Originally it
was every 3 seconds since that's the default, then I increased it to
10, and now I get the message every 10 seconds.

Absent—maybe—fibre channel, I don't know of any emulators that even
have any shared-access storage I/O paths to local or
directly-accessible non-served storage. OpenVMS would need much better
SMB support deeply integrated for the most common case, there.

Absent VSI hardware configuration rules for quorum disks for
virtualized x86-64—and not that I've gone looking for that—I'd avoid
quorum disk usage with virtualized x86-64, and also with emulated
configurations.

Absent a directly-accessible and shareable I/O path into storage, there
is no added benefit and there is added slowness running a quorum disk.
Assign the votes to the host(s).

[Scott Snadow]

Post by Stephen Hoffman

Post by Scott Snadow
Trying to replicate an old production system, hence the reason that I'm
messing around with V7.3-2.
I'm running on a Windows 10 laptop...
...using VMware Workstation Player version 16 with six virtual cores...
......running Windows 11...
.........running FreeAXP version 679...
............running a freshly-installed V7.3-2
I created a quorum disk and made it $1$DKA600; initialized it, mounted
it, ran SYS$MANAGER:CLUSTER_CONFIG.COM to point to it.
Rebooted the emulated Alpha a couple of times and it boots fine, goes
through the expected "remote access" for the quorum disk, then changes
to local, and all is well. The disk is mounted during the startup.
But before the startup completes, I start getting that local access
message across OPA0: every QDSKINTERVAL seconds FOREVER. Originally it
was every 3 seconds since that's the default, then I increased it to
10, and now I get the message every 10 seconds.

Absent—maybe—fibre channel, I don't know of any emulators that even
have any shared-access storage I/O paths to local or
directly-accessible non-served storage. OpenVMS would need much better
SMB support deeply integrated for the most common case, there.
Absent VSI hardware configuration rules for quorum disks for
virtualized x86-64—and not that I've gone looking for that—I'd avoid
quorum disk usage with virtualized x86-64, and also with emulated
configurations.
Absent a directly-accessible and shareable I/O path into storage, there
is no added benefit and there is added slowness running a quorum disk.
Assign the votes to the host(s).

Finally solved the problem myself; reluctantly admitting that I'd missed a documented detail that's easily overlooked when you've done this before a long time ago (that's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it!)

A quorum disk on a SCSI controller, whether physical or emulated, must support TCQ (tagged command queueing.) It says so in the "Guidelines for OpenVMS Cluster Configurations", at least as far back as OpenVMS Alpha V7.3-2:

"OpenVMS Cluster systems also place one restriction on the SCSI quorum disk, whether the disk is located on a single-host SCSI bus or a multihost SCSI bus. The SCSI quorum disk must support tagged command queuing (TCQ). This is required because of the special handling that quorum I/O receives in the OpenVMS SCSI drivers."

The FreeAXP emulator's implementation of SCSI disks lets you enable TCQ, but it's not the default setting. And so now I know what happens if that setting isn't right! [Another setting that's important to get correct for VMSclusters is write_share.]

Cheers,
Scott

[[e-mail]]

In the actual xdelta documentation you'll find the following:

Example

7FFE1600/'R0/ Linefeed Linefeed'

The ASCII string “R0/ LINEFEED LINEFEED” is stored at address 7FFE1600.
This string, if subsequently
executed with the ;E command, examines the contents of general register
0 (the command
R0/), then examines two subsequent registers (using two LINEFEED commands).

But as soon as I type in "7ffe1600/" xdelta prints out the famous "eh?".

So what do I do wrong?????

Eberhard

[Simon Clubley]

Post by ***@gmail.com
Example
7FFE1600/'R0/ Linefeed Linefeed'
The ASCII string ?R0/ LINEFEED LINEFEED? is stored at address 7FFE1600.
This string, if subsequently
executed with the ;E command, examines the contents of general register
0 (the command
R0/), then examines two subsequent registers (using two LINEFEED commands).
But as soon as I type in "7ffe1600/" xdelta prints out the famous "eh?".
So what do I do wrong?????

I don't suppose it's case sensitive by any chance is it ?

Also, what architecture is this (in case it matters) ?

Simon.

[Eberhard Heuser]

Post by Simon Clubley

Post by ***@gmail.com
Example
7FFE1600/'R0/ Linefeed Linefeed'
The ASCII string ?R0/ LINEFEED LINEFEED? is stored at address 7FFE1600.
This string, if subsequently
executed with the ;E command, examines the contents of general register
0 (the command
R0/), then examines two subsequent registers (using two LINEFEED commands).
But as soon as I type in "7ffe1600/" xdelta prints out the famous "eh?".
So what do I do wrong?????

I don't suppose it's case sensitive by any chance is it ?
Also, what architecture is this (in case it matters) ?
Simon.
--
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.

simh VAX/VMS V7.3

[[e-mail]]

Hi,

I have two blades that have the same problem after pressing the power
button:

Here is the event log:

ILO  4          1  2900255530E10001 2020202052455355 SYS_CTL_REQ_PWR_ON
ILO  4         *3  6080253530E10002 0000000000000000 SYSVARS_MISMATCHED
                                                     12 Mar 2010 16:37:10
ILO  4          2  408021A930E10004 0000000000000000 LOCAL_BLADE_POWERED_ON
                                                     12 Mar 2010 16:37:11
ILO  4          2  548022E730E10006 00000000000F000C SYSTEM_SOFT_RESET
                                                     12 Mar 2010 16:37:12
ILO             2  204B9A6DB8020008 FFFF006FFA220400 ACPI_ON
                                                     12 Mar 2010 16:37:12
SFW  4,1,0,0    2  548C006341E10009 0000000000000000 BOOT_START
                                                     12 Mar 2010 16:37:16
SFW  4,1,0,0    0  040C21EA41E1000B FFFFFF04FF00FF11
BOOT_CPU_PREP_SOCKET_CFG
SFW  4,1,0,0    0  030C24DF41E1000C 000000000000000D
IO_IOH_CRITICAL_CSRS_SAVED
ILO  4         *5  B64B9A6DC002000D FFFF020756010400 TEMP_CRITICAL
                                                     12 Mar 2010 16:37:20
ILO  4         *3  B64B9A6DC002000E FFFF010758010400 TEMP_WARNING
                                                     12 Mar 2010 16:37:20
ILO  4         *5  B64B9A6DC002000F FFFF010668020400 VOLTAGE_FAULT
                                                     12 Mar 2010 16:37:20
SFW  4,1,0,0    0  030C21A841E10010 0000000000003406 IO_IOH_PCIE_STATE_SAVED
SFW  4,1,0,0    0  000C001D41E10011 0000000000000000 BOOT_CPU_CONFIG
SFW  4,1,0,0    0  030C21DA41E10012 0000000800020008 BOOT_CPU_LOGICAL_INFO
SFW  4,1,0,1    0  030C005D43E10013 0000000000000009
BOOT_SLAVE_RENDEZ_HANDLER_START
SFW  4,1,2,1    0  030C005D4BE10014 000000000000000D
BOOT_SLAVE_RENDEZ_HANDLER_START
SFW  4,1,3,1    0  030C005D4FE10015 000000000000000F
BOOT_SLAVE_RENDEZ_HANDLER_START
SFW  4,1,2,0    0  030C005D49E10016 000000000000000C
BOOT_SLAVE_RENDEZ_HANDLER_START
SFW  4,1,1,1    0  030C005D47E10017 000000000000000B
BOOT_SLAVE_RENDEZ_HANDLER_START
SFW  4,1,3,0    0  030C005D4DE10018 000000000000000E
BOOT_SLAVE_RENDEZ_HANDLER_START
SFW  4,1,1,0    0  030C005D45E10019 000000000000000A
BOOT_SLAVE_RENDEZ_HANDLER_START
SFW  4,1,0,0    0  030C252541E1001A 0000000000000162 BOOT_ROM_REVISION
SFW  4,1,0,0    0  030C252641E1001B 2015091100005600 BOOT_ROM_TIMESTAMP
SFW  4,1,0,0    0  0A0C202841E1001C 0000000103020000
EVENT_STATUS_CODE_PROGRESS
SFW  4,1,0,0    0  030C232441E1001D 006D696550646350 BOOT_LOAD_FW_MODULE
SFW  4,1,0,0    0  030C232541E1001E 00000000FF2C8280 BOOT_LOAD_FW_ADDR
SFW  4,1,0,0    0  030C232441E1001F 0074696E49697343 BOOT_LOAD_FW_MODULE
SFW  4,1,0,0    0  030C232541E10020 00000000FF2E74F0 BOOT_LOAD_FW_ADDR
SFW  4,1,0,0    0  000C1F6D41E10021 0000000000000000 QPI_INIT_START
SFW  4,1,0,0    0  000C1FD741E10022 0000000000000000
QPI_RETRIEVE_DEFAULT_DATA
SFW  4,1,0,0    0  000C1F6E41E10023 0000000000000000 QPI_DATA_SETUP_START
SFW  4,1,0,0    0  030C1F7741E10024 0000000000000007 QPI_CONTROL_BITMAP
SFW  4,1,0,0    0  030C1F7641E10025 0001050000010200 QPI_MISC_PARMS
SFW  4,1,0,0    0  000C1FD941E10026 0000000000000000 QPI_UPDATE_DEFAULT_DATA
SFW  4,1,0,0    0  000C1F7141E10027 0000000000000000 QPI_DATA_SETUP_DONE
SFW  4,1,0,0    0  000C1F7241E10028 0000000000000000 QPI_LOCAL_INIT_START
SFW  4,1,0,0    0  030C1F7841E10029 0000000000000210 QPI_LOCAL_ENABLED_PORTS
SFW  4,1,0,0    0  040C1F7A41E1002A FFFFFF04FF010314 QPI_LOCAL_PORT_OP_SPEED
SFW  4,1,0,0    0  040C1F7941E1002B FFFFFF04FF010114 QPI_LOCAL_PORT_INIT
SFW  4,1,0,0    0  030C1FDB41E1002C 0000010000000001
QPI_SET_CPU_MONO_ROUTING
SFW  4,1,0,0    0  000C1F7341E1002D 0000000000000000 QPI_LOCAL_INIT_DONE
SFW  4,1,0,0    0  000C1F7441E1002E 0000000000000000 QPI_GLOBAL_INIT_START
SFW  4,1,0,0    0  000C1F7B41E1002F 0000000000000000 QPI_SBSP_INIT_START
ILO  4         *5  BA80252830E10030 FFFFFF04FF00FF11 CPU_POWER_POD_FAILURE
                                                     12 Mar 2010 16:37:21
SFW  4,1,0,0    0  030C1FDA41E10032 0000010000030002 QPI_FOUND_NEIGHBOR
ILO  4         *7  B64B9A6DC3020033 FFFF030755010400 TEMP_NON_RECOVERABLE
                                                     12 Mar 2010 16:37:23
ILO  4          1  2900255E30E10034 202048544C414548 SYS_CTL_REQ_PWR_OFF
ILO  4          2  408021AA30E10035 0000000000000000 LOCAL_BLADE_POWERED_OFF
                                                     12 Mar 2010 16:37:30
ILO             2  204B9A6DCC020037 FFFF056FFA220400 ACPI_SOFT_OFF
                                                     12 Mar 2010 16:37:32

I have no explanation why the "VOLTAGE_FAULT" and the
"CPU_POWER_POD_FAILURE" happens.

Another bl860c boots without problems in the same C7000 slot.

Are there any ideas how to repair these blades?

I have already exchanged the CPUs without success.

Best regards
Eberhard

[Hans Bachner]

Post by Scott Snadow
Trying to replicate an old production system, hence the reason that
I'm messing around with V7.3-2.
I'm running on a Windows 10 laptop...
...using VMware Workstation Player version 16 with six virtual cores...
......running Windows 11...
.........running FreeAXP version 679...
............running a freshly-installed V7.3-2
I created a quorum disk and made it $1$DKA600; initialized it, mounted
it, ran SYS$MANAGER:CLUSTER_CONFIG.COM to point to it.
Rebooted the emulated Alpha a couple of times and it boots fine, goes
through the expected "remote access" for the quorum disk, then changes
to local, and all is well.  The disk is mounted during the startup.
But before the startup completes, I start getting that local access
message across OPA0: every QDSKINTERVAL seconds FOREVER.  Originally
it was every 3 seconds since that's the default, then I increased it
to 10, and now I get the message every 10 seconds.

Absent—maybe—fibre channel, I don't know of any emulators that even have
any shared-access storage I/O paths to local or directly-accessible
non-served storage. [...]

Well, Scott already posted the solution for FreeAXP, CHARON-AXP supports
local container files as shared SCSI disks as well, and so does AVTware...

OpenVMS would need much better SMB support deeply integrated for the most common case, there.

OpenVMS does not need SMB for using a quorum disk, but you know that...

Hans.