User manual

Frequenty Asked Questions 231
SANTOOLS® is registered in US Patent and Trademark Office No 3,107,854 All rights reserved.
This library is supported by Q-Logic, Emulex, JNI, and other manufacturers of Fibre Channel HBAs as well as the
major computer manufacturers such as Sun and HP. The library is safe to run from the perspective that it does not
allow you to make any changes to anything on the SAN that can only be addressed through the SNIA drivers. That is,
if your system is physically attached to disks on the SAN, and your HBA and optional switches are zoned such that a
particular device can be accessed by your host computer, you will be able to make changes to it using the standard
commands and options that have always been in SMARTMonUX. If your system is not authorized by your
administrators to access a particular device, you will be able to see basic information about it using the SNIA
functions , but you will not be allowed to do anything else.
For example, suppose you have a LUN at WWN port number 20:00:00:99:88:AB:CD:EF and another at
20:00:00:99:88:AB:CD:F0. Both LUNs are attached to the HBA in this machine, but you configured your RAID engine
or switch to prevent you from mounting the second (... CD:F0) device. Our software would still let you see that the
second device existed and report information about it. It would not allow you to change mode pages for the device.
That is because the SNIA HBA API library was designed to prevent this for security reasons.
In general, the official SNIA web describes the API as:
"It defines a scope within which application software can be written without attention to vendor-specific
infrastructure behavior. Included within the scope of the Common HBA API are vendor independent
interfaces and services such as:
· Observation and modification of descriptive and operational characteristics of Fibre Channel HBAs and
ports;
· Access to Fibre Channel Fabric Services;
· Discovery and characterization of FCP-2 storage resources;
· Access to Fibre Channel Extended Link Services sufficient to satisfy the FC-MI manageability profile for
Host Bus Adapters;
· Observation of Fibre Channel HBA, Port, and storage access traffic statistics;
· Observation and modification of the availability and representation of Fibre Channel storage resources to
Operating System applications;
· Timely and selective reporting of HBA and fabric configuration, status, and statistical events."
This HBA API is distributed as a runtime file specific to your operating system and your HBA. They are all available
for download on your particular HBA vendor's web site and are typically bundled with the fibre channel device driver.
Below is the official HBA API FAQ. We removed some geeky parts only applicable to developers, reformatted, and
appended SANtools-specific information on our implementation in RED.
HBA API FAQ
1. Introduction
This FAQ is intended to address frequently asked questions about the HBA API. This FAQ is maintained by Benjamin
F. Kuo at TROIKA Networks, Inc. <[e-mail]> and Dixon Hutchinson at Legato Systems, Inc. <
[e-mail]> and is not endorsed or sponsored by the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA).
2. What's New
A little more information on iSCSI API's and the support Matrix.
Version history:
Version
Date
Description
1.0.0
June 29, 2001
Initial Draft
1.0.1
July 10, 2001
Resolved initial comments, added support
matrix
1.0.2
August 16, 2001
Reformat, remove copyright
1.0.3 - 1. 0.7
September 15, 2001 - January 30, 2002
Update vendor support matrix
3. General Questions
3.1. What is the HBA API?
The SNIA Common HBA API is an industry standard, programming interface for accessing management information
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