Interface Card OL* Support Guide

During the deletion process, the driver instance for each port on the target card is suspended.
I/O to the ports are either queued or failed while the drivers are suspended. When the card is
removed, the driver instances deleted.
Critical Resources
Replacing a running card can seriously affect the system. Since slot power must be off when you
remove the old card and insert the new card, first consider the effects of shutting down the card's
functions, especially if there is no online failover or backup card to pick up those functions. For
example:
• Which mass storage devices will be temporarily disconnected when the card is shut down?
• Will a critical networking connection be lost?
A critical resource can cause a system crash or loss of data if the slot is suspended or disconnected.
For example, if the SCSI adapter to be replaced connects to the unmirrored root disk or swap
space, the system crashes when the card is shut down.
During an OL* procedure, it is essential to check the targeted card for critical resources. Also
check the effects on existing disk mirrors and other situations in which a card functions can be
taken over by another card that is affected by the OL* procedures.
Other Situations to Consider
This section presents situations you can encounter when performing OL* operations, and how
to handle them. These include the following:
• “Power Domains”
• “Multiport Cards”
• “Virtual Ports”
• “Firmware Patch Information”
• “Shared Slots”
• “Frequency Mismatch”
Power Domains
You cannot perform an OL* action for a card if any member of its power domain is a critical
resource.
Multiport Cards
Multiport PCI cards provide more than one function. Multiport cards have separate hardware
paths for each port, and separate drivers bound at each hardware path.
You cannot perform an OL* action for a card if any port is a critical resource.
Virtual Ports
Some driver designs create virtual ports that do not directly correspond to any physical hardware.
Virtual ports are identified by the driver that controls them. For example, HP Fibre Channel
mass storage card drivers create virtual ports with drivers named fcp, fcpdev, fcparray, and
fcpmux to control different aspects of the Fibre Channel mass storage network to which they
are attached.
The pdweb GUI does not explicitly list virtual ports on screens that affect physical ports, however
both types of ports are suspended and resumed as appropriate.
Since virtual ports are reported by ioscan, they appear with the same slot ID as their
corresponding physical port.
22 PCI Card OL* Overview