Emulex Adapters - Manual (Page 6)

Troubleshooting and Maintenance Manual Page 3
Emulex Configuration Parameters
Each Emulex driver has configuration parameters for the customization of the behavior of the driver.
Because these parameters can significantly change the behavior of the Emulex product, great care must
be taken in the setting or changing of the parameters. Storage and system providers put forth great effort
in determining what particular configuration parameters must be set to in order to provide optimal
storage area SAN performance.
How Emulex Device Driver Configuration Parameters Work
Emulex configuration parameters are stored in the server into which the adapter is installed. The device
driver acts upon these parameters. Emulex configuration parameters are NOT stored in the adapter
flash memory. Unlike other SCSI and Fibre Channel (FC) adapters, Emulex adapters do not store any
configuration information such as timers, FC topology or link speed in the adapter flash. When an
Emulex adapter is installed into a server, there is no separate configuration step required for the adapter.
Proper driver configuration is generally all that is required. The exception to this is if you boot from SAN.
In this case, you must use the adapter BIOS utility to configure the boot device. The adapter must be
told which device contains the boot volume, and that information is stored in the flash. These settings
are only in effect at boot time. After the operating system (OS) loads the device driver, most settings of
the driver are used and the adapter BIOS no longer functions.
Emulex Applications
Emulex provides a variety of applications that include diagnostic capabilities. Documentation is available
at http://www.emulex.com/downloads . These applications are:
• OneCommand Manager and HBAnyware applications
• The stand-alone utilities
• DOSLpCfg
• WinLpCfg
• LinLpCfg
Note: For best results, never change the driver configuration parameters from their
default values or the values specified by the storage and systems providers.
Doing so can alter performance of the SAN and place the SAN in a
configuration that is not supported, or cause it to operate improperly.