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How to Check NPIV Virtual Fibre Channel Adapter Mapping on AIX

Starting with AIX 7.2 TL5 SP3 (and VIOS 3.1.3.00), AIX/Power System administrators can use an alternative to kdb for viewing VIOS “identifying info” from client AIX LPARs. For example:

# cat /proc/sys/adapter/fc/fcs0/hostinfo
fcs0
VFC client adapter name                   : fcs0
Host partition name  (VIOS)               : vio1
VFC host adapter name                     : vfchost0
VFC host adapter location code            : U9009.22A.7871D00-V3-C7
FC adapter name on VIOS                   : fcs2
FC adapter location code  on VIOS         : U78D3.001.WZS0AL9-P1-C8-T1

This will make tracking LPAR/VIOS changes, during large migrations (for example, from P9 to P10 with LPM), a lot easier (and more reliable than using kdb). It’s a great addition.

This new feature is mentioned under the “VIOS Enhancements” section of the “PowerVM features in the new Power10 Servers” blog post from Pete Heyrman (from the IBM Power Hypervisor development team).

Under the /proc/sys/adapter/fc directory you’ll find some new procfs entries for each virtual fibre channel (fcsX) adapter:

# oslevel -s
7200-05-03-2136
 
# cd /proc/sys/adapter/fc
# ls -ltr
total 0
dr-xr-xr-x    7 root     system            0 Oct 04 16:13 fscsi3
dr-xr-xr-x    7 root     system            0 Oct 04 16:13 fscsi2
dr-xr-xr-x    7 root     system            0 Oct 04 16:13 fscsi1
dr-xr-xr-x    7 root     system            0 Oct 04 16:13 fscsi0
dr-xr-xr-x    3 root     system            0 Oct 04 16:13 fcs3
dr-xr-xr-x    3 root     system            0 Oct 04 16:13 fcs2
dr-xr-xr-x    3 root     system            0 Oct 04 16:13 fcs1
dr-xr-xr-x    3 root     system            0 Oct 04 16:13 fcs0

In each of the fcsX directories you’ll find a new entry named hostinfo:

# cd fcs0
# ls -ltr
total 0
prw-r--r--    1 root     system            0 Oct 04 16:16 hostinfo

You can “cat” this file to determine which VIOS is serving your virtual fibre channel adapter:

# cat hostinfo
VFC client adapter name                   : fcs0
Host partition name  (VIOS)               : vio2
VFC host adapter name                     : vfchost2
VFC host adapter location code            : U9009.22A.7891CA0-V3-C16
FC adapter name on VIOS                   : fcs1
FC adapter location code  on VIOS         : U78D3.001.WZS0AJN-P1-C8-T1

You can “cat” each fcsX/hostinfo entry to capture all of the VIOS/vFC adapter info for your LPAR. You may wish to create a little shell script that can display this information, for each entry, quickly. For example:

# cat /usr/local/bin/lsviofcs
myfcslist=`cd /proc/sys/adapter/fc ; ls -d fcs*`
 
for i in $myfcslist
do
echo $i
cat /proc/sys/adapter/fc/$i/hostinfo
echo
done
 
# lsviofcs
fcs0
VFC client adapter name                   : fcs0
Host partition name  (VIOS)               : vio2
VFC host adapter name                     : vfchost2
VFC host adapter location code            : U9009.22A.7891CA0-V3-C16
FC adapter name on VIOS                   : fcs1
FC adapter location code  on VIOS         : U78D3.001.WZS0AJN-P1-C8-T1
 
fcs1
VFC client adapter name                   : fcs1
Host partition name  (VIOS)               : vio2
VFC host adapter name                     : vfchost3
VFC host adapter location code            : U9009.22A.7891CA0-V3-C17
FC adapter name on VIOS                   : fcs2
FC adapter location code  on VIOS         : U78D3.001.WZS0AJN-P1-C8-T2
 
fcs2
VFC client adapter name                   : fcs2
Host partition name  (VIOS)               : vio1
VFC host adapter name                     : vfchost2
VFC host adapter location code            : U9009.22A.7891CA0-V2-C18
FC adapter name on VIOS                   : fcs3
FC adapter location code  on VIOS         : U78D3.001.WZS0AJN-P1-C2-T1
 
fcs3
VFC client adapter name                   : fcs3
Host partition name  (VIOS)               : vio1
VFC host adapter name                     : vfchost3
VFC host adapter location code            : U9009.22A.7891CA0-V2-C19
FC adapter name on VIOS                   : fcs4
FC adapter location code  on VIOS         : U78D3.001.WZS0AJN-P1-C2-T2

It’s worth noting that you can prevent this information from being available to the client LPAR by changing the secure_va_info attribute on your 3.1.3.00 VIOS.

For example, if we were to change the secure_va_info value from no to yes, like so:

$ chdev -dev viosnpiv0 -attr secure_va_info=yes
viosnpiv0 changed
 
$ virtadapinfo -list 
secure : yes

Then the client LPAR will see the following (Secure) output for that VIOS:

# cat /proc/sys/adapter/fc/fcs1/hostinfo
VFC client adapter name                   : fcs1
Host partition name  (VIOS)               : Secure
VFC host adapter name                     : Secure
VFC host adapter location code            : Secure
FC adapter name on VIOS                   : Secure
FC adapter location code  on VIOS         : Secure

If your VIOS is not running the latest VIOS code, 3.1.3.00, you’ll find that the “FC adapter name on VIOS” attribute will be blank. For example:

fcs0
VFC client adapter name                   : fcs0
Host partition name  (VIOS)               : vio2
VFC host adapter name                     : vfchost2
VFC host adapter location code            : U9009.22A.7891CA0-V3-C16
FC adapter name on VIOS                   :
FC adapter location code  on VIOS         : U78D3.001.WZS0AJN-P1-C8-T1

Based on my tests, this new feature only stores information for AIX virtual fibre channel adapters and not vSCSI adapters. In that case you can still use the older, less reliable, and unsupported kdb method (for both vSCSI and VFCS). Of course this may change at any time in the future.

For example:

VSCSI
# echo cvai | kdb -script
read vscsi_scsi_ptrs OK, ptr = 0xF10009D5B0129E98
(0)> cvai
Executing cvai command
NAME       STATE    CMDS_ACTIVE  ACTIVE_QUEUE       HOST
vscsi0     0x000007 0x000000001A 0x0                vios2->vhost3
 
End of execution for cvai command
(0)> Executing q command
 
VFCS
# echo vfcs | kdb -script
read vscsi_scsi_ptrs OK, ptr = 0xF10009D5B0129E98
(0)> vfcs
Executing vfcs command
NAME    ADDRESS            STATE  OPENED CH HOST_ADAP   PHYS   HOST
fcs0    0xF1000B01C0084000 0x0010 0x0001 8  Secure    
fcs1    0xF1000B01C0088000 0x0010 0x0001 0  vfchost0           vios1