User Guide

Console: PowerEdge Expandable RAID Controller 2/SC

Components

NOTE: If you are running the Microsoft� Windows NT operating system and don't have more than one PERC in a host system, make sure at least one logical drive is configured on every PERC in the host system before you access the controllers from the PERC Console. You can configure the logical drives with BIOS Setup.

PERC Console

Any computer running the Microsoft Windows 95 or Windows NT operating system can run PERC Console. Running PERC Console allows the computer to access any RAID server registered in the Registration Server.

Registration Server

The Registration Server contains a database of all computers that have registered as users of PERC Console or RAID Server. Before any computer running PERC Console or RAID server can use PERC Console, the computer must be registered in the Registration Server.

Dell Server

The Dell Server software runs in any server that has one or more PERC controllers and has registered with the Registration Server.

Windows NT� and Windows� 95 Installation

PERC Console is an object-oriented GUI utility that configures and monitors RAID systems locally or over a network with several servers.

PERC Console for Windows NT can have different configurations:

PERC Registration Server
PERC Server
PERC Client Workstation

Installation Prerequisites

Complete the following tasks before installing the PERC Console software:

Install the proper operating systems.
Install network cards in all computers that will need them.
Install a PowerEdge Expandable RAID Controller 2/SC (hereafter referred to as "PERC 2/SC") adapter card in the Windows NT RAID server.
Install the TCP/IP protocol on all specified systems.
The PERC Console installation process does not prompt you to do so, but you should edit the HOSTS file in the same directory.

The HOSTS file information varies depending on the type of installation.

Type of Installation Required Action

PERC Registration Server Enter the IP address and name for all PERC RAID servers including the registration server (the server you are working on).

PERC RAID server Enter the IP address and name of the registration server.

For Windows NT Workstation or Windows 95 Enter the IP address and name for all PERC servers including the registration server (the server you are working on).

Press <Enter> after typing the name of the registration server. If you do not, Notepad will enter the information.

Ping all IP addresses to make sure you have a proper connection.
Install the PERC Console software. Insert the PERC Console diskette into drive A. Click the Start button, click the Run button, and select Browse A. Select SETUP.EXE from PERC Console installation diskette and click Next when the first screen appears.
Type the name of the NT server and the company name. When the license agreement and readme screens appear, click Next. Choose 1, 2, or all 3 installation packages.

Select Stand-Alone or Network installation from the next screen.

The Select Component screen appears only for network installation.

Installation Component Description

PERC Registration Server Makes the server a Registration Server

PERC Server Allows the server to register to the Registration Server

PERC Client Allows the server to monitor other servers with a PERC 2/SC adapter

Any configuration is valid. The following table describes common combinations.

Configuration Description

PERC Server only You cannot monitor any other server.

PERC Console Client Allows you to register in the registration server. You can monitor any other server including the server your currently work on.

PERC Registration Server only Allows other servers to register so they can be monitored by the PERC client. You cannot monitor any server, including the server you currently work on.

PERC Registration Server and PERC Client Allows other servers to register so they can be monitored by the PERC client. You can monitor any registered server.

PERC Client only Allows you to monitor any server. You do not have to have a RAID controller installed in this system.

PERC Server only Allows you to register in the Registration server.

Click Next.
Type C:\DELLRAID as the destination directory and type PERC Console as the Program Folder name.

The INSTALL utility creates c:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc and installs the following files in this subdirectory:

HOSTS

LMHOSTS

NETWORKS

PROTOCOL

RAIDPASS.VAL

REGSERV.DAT

SERVICES

Edit REGSERV.DAT in c:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc using the Notepad program. When editing REGSERV.DAT, replace the name of the local host with your Registration Server name, regardless of what configuration you have selected even if the Registration Server is the server you are working on. Press <Enter> after typing the name of the Registration Server. If you do not, Notepad will not enter the information.
After changing the server name, save the file and exit.
After changing the file, save and exit.

DELL� RAID Service Monitor

The Dell RAID Service Monitor Program is a Windows NT Service Process. The monitor program runs in the background and tracks status changes for hardware devices. It polls the status of the resources connected to PERC 2/SC adapters every 10 to 15 seconds.

The monitor program can be started automatically the same time Windows NT starts or it can be started manually after you log into Window NT. The monitor program writes peripheral device activities and status changes to the Log View Utility Tool. Status changes are stored in the DELLRAID.LOG file. This filename could be different if the system has been customized. The contents of the displayable activity log include all status changes and device activities.

The two programs that make up the monitor program are:

DELLCTRL.EXE
DELLSERV.EXE

Installation

DELLSERV.EXE should be installed in the %SystemRoot%\system32 directory. DELLCTRL.EXE can be in any path.

Starting the Monitor Program With Windows NT

Go to the Windows NT DOS shell. Type DELLCTRL -START and press <Enter>.

Dell Monitor Program

Command Line Options

Option	Description
-start	Starts the monitor program when Windows NT is started. This option can be selected form the Windows NT Services Utility.
-stop	Stops the monitor program. This option can be selected from the Windows NT Services Utility.
-add	Adds the monitor program to the Services Utilities. This option can only be used when running DELLCTRL from the MS–DOS� prompt.
-pause	Stops the monitor program temporarily. Use the -resume option to start the monitor program after it has been stopped. This option can be selected from the Windows NT Services Utility.
-resume	Starts the monitor program after it has been stopped with the -pause command line option. This option can be selected form the Windows NT Services Utility.
-del	Moves the monitor program to the Services Utilities. This option can only be used when running DELLCTRL from the MS–DOS prompt.

The -start, -pause, -resume, and -stop command line options can also be issued in the Services Utility. Only -add and -del should be executed from the DOS Shell.

Starting the Monitor Program Automatically

You can start the monitor program automatically or you can start it manually using the Services Utility. Type DELLCTRL -start at the DOS prompt and press <Enter> to start the monitor program automatically. Before starting the monitor program each time, make sure the program is added or is already in the Services Utility.

Adding the Monitor Program

To add the monitor program to the Services Utility, type DELLCTRL -add at the DOS prompt and press <Enter>.

Deleting the Monitor Program

To delete the monitor program from the Services Utility, type DELLCTRL -del from the DOS prompt and press <Enter>.

Running PERC Console

Double-click the PERC Console icon in the PERC Console program group on the Windows screen. The following screen appears:

Click the Adapter box in the upper part of the screen. Select an adapter from the displayed list.

Click the right mouse button on any logical drive icon to display a list of actions that can be performed on the selected drive.

Select Change Policy to change the read, write, or cache policy. Click the checkbox to display the policy options. The following window appears:

Right click a logical drive. Click Advanced Menu. The following screen appears:

Click Change Config and change the RAID level.

You can add a physical disk drive to a logical drive by clicking on the Logical drive, Advanced Menu, and then Add Drive. To change the RAID level, click the RAID Level checkbox. Only valid RAID levels are displayed.

Click Property to display the properties for the logical drive.

Click the right mouse button on any drive in a logical drive to display a menu of actions that you can take for that drive.

Click the Tools menu to display additional actions that can be performed on this drive.

PERC Console Icons

PERC Console includes several toolbox icons near the top of the screen. These icons provide easy access to PERC Console features. You can remove the toolbox from the screen by clicking the Hide Toolbox button in the Adapter menu. See the PowerEdge Expandable RAID Controller PERC 2/SC User's Guide for descriptions of the toolbox icons.

PERC Console Menu Options

Main Menu Options

Option	Description
Adapter	Choose this option for adapter-related functions. You can configure logical drives, enable the speaker, toggle object identification, invoke the performance monitor, and display the toolbar by selecting an item from this menu.
Physical Drv	Choose this option to rebuild, format, and display the properties of the physical drives.
Logical Drv	Choose this option to create, delete, or initialize logical drives or to display the properties of or check parity of logical drives.
Window	Choose this option to view the progress of a disk rebuild, diagnostic test, initialization, parity check, or reconstruction or to view the performance monitor.
Help	Choose this option to display information about the PERC Console.

	CAUTION: To provide maximum reliability, PERC 2/SC only supports PowerEdge hard-disk drives purchased from Dell. Only Dell PowerEdge hard-disk drives have been thoroughly tested with PERC in all types of RAID environments.

CAUTION: Because of differences in drive sizes across the industry, PERC 2/SC will coerce hard-disk drives of nominally different sizes to a common drive size so they can be used in the same logical drive and so they can be used easily as replacement drives. For example, a 4-GB drive from one manufacturer may be 4196 MB and a 4-GB from another manufacturer may be 4128 MB. These drives will be coerced to a usable size of 4088 MB each (4095 minus 7 bytes used by the controller). The coercion will occur at 200-MB intervals. A 4396-MB drive would be coerced to a usable size of 4288 MB. A 4500-MB drive would be coerced to a usable size of 4488 MB.

PERC Console Adapter Menu

The PERC Console Adapter menu is shown on the following screen.

	WARNING: If you use hard-disk drives with different capacities in an array, all hard drives in the array are treated as if they have the capacity of the smallest hard-disk drive in the array.

Option	Description
Configuration	Configures or reconfigures RAID arrays and drives.
Flush Cache	Forces PERC 2/SC to send the contents of cache memory to the logical drives.
View Log	Displays an event log.
Properties	Displays the firmware and BIOS versions, the rebuild rate, and cache memory size.
Hide/Show Toolbox	Displays the toolbox if it is not displayed on the PERC Console screen, or removes the toolbox from the screen if it is already displayed.
Performance Monitor On/Off	Displays a graph of the performance of a logical drive. You can select a bar graph or a line graph.
Object Identification On/Off	Turns Object Identification on or off. Object identification is a PERC Console feature that identifies all objects displayed on the screen.
Enable/Disable Sound	Enables or disables the integrated speaker. To silence the speaker when it is activated, you must choose Disable Sound and Disable Alarm Control.
Enable/Disable Alarm Control	Select this option to enable or disable the system alarm when a drive failure occurs.
Exit	Exits the utility. You cannot exit if disk operations are ongoing. New configurations are not saved unless the Save Configuration option is selected.

Configuring Drives

Select Configure from the Adapter menu to configure RAID arrays and logical drives. The following screen appears:

There are 7 different types of configuration. Choose a configuration from the following chart and perform the described steps.

Option	Description
Auto Configuration	Select this option to automatically configure RAID arrays and logical drives. This option generates the simplest RAID configuration possible with the current physical drives attached to the selected adapter. Auto configuration: Attempts to gather physical drives of the same size into groups of 5 Attempts to gather the remaining drives into groups with up to 3 drives per group Groups the remaining drives into groups of 2 drives each and single drives Combines each group of 3 or more drives into a RAID 5 logical drive Combines each group of 2 drives into a RAID 1 logical drive Designates single physical drives as RAID 0 logical drives The drive configuration that results from auto configuration is displayed. Select OK to program this configuration in the PERC firmware. All new configurations are added to existing configurations. Any existing logical drive configuration is not changed.
Custom Configuration	Select this option to delete existing configuration information and configure new arrays and logical drives into different groups. You can perform logical drive configuration functions and associate logical drives with multiple or partial arrays. You must first create an array. Arrays are groups of physical drives that define the stripe width common to one RAID type. Arrays are combined into logical drives. Logical drives can be created out of part of an array or can be a combination of several arrays if the arrays have the same properties.
Save Configuration	Select this option to save the new RAID drive configuration.
Easy Configuration	With this option, each array you create is automatically treated as exactly one logical drive. The Create Logical Drive screen appears when you select this option. Select the physical drives that make up the logical drive. Select the RAID type, stripe size, and write policy. Configuring RAID 10 or RAID 50 Logical Drives Configure RAID 10 by spanning 2 contiguous RAID 1 logical drives. The RAID 1 logical drives must have the same stripe size. Configure RAID 50 by spanning 2 contiguous RAID 5 logical drives. The RAID 5 logical drives must have the same stripe size.
Reset Configuration	Select this option to erase the current configuration information from the PERC NVRAM. The current RAID configuration becomes invalid after you select this option. Use this option carefully. This option should be used only when configuring a new system.
Display Configuration	Select this method to display the configuration. You can also display other arrays and logical drives.
Print Configuration	Select this option to print the current RAID drive configuration.

Securing PERC Console Under Windows NT

Log in as the Administrator.
Run File Manager.
Select the path containing the PERC Console executable.
Pull down the Security menu in File Manager and select Permissions.
When the Permission dialog box appears, assign the LIST permission to all Groups except Administrator, Backup Operators, System, and Creator Owner.
In the Permission dialog box, select Replace Permissions on Subdirectories to apply the permissions to the subdirectories as well.
After you have set permissions, click OK and exit File Manager. Log in as a guest and make sure the permission changes have been saved.

After you have set permissions, only those who are part of the selected groups can delete, copy, move, or execute any PERC Console file.