Getting ready to run applications

To run an application, you must install the zFCP HBA API library that is provided by the libzfcphbaapi0 RPM. You can set environment variables to log any errors in the library, and use tools to investigate the SAN configuration.

Before you begin

To use the HBA API support, you need the following packages:
  • The zFCP HBA API library RPM, libzfcphbaapi0
  • The SNIA HBA API library RPM, libHBAAPI2
Installing libzfcphbaapi0 automatically installs libHBAAPI2 as a dependency.

The application must be developed to use the SNIA HBA API library, see Developing applications.

Procedure

Follow these steps to access the library from a client application:

  1. Install the libzfcphbaapi0 RPM with zypper. Zypper automatically installs all dependent packages.
    For example:
    # zypper install libzfcphbaapi0
  2. Ensure that the /etc/hba.conf file exists and contains a line of the form:
    <library name>  <library pathname>
    For example:
    com.ibm.libzfcphbaapi /usr/lib64/libzfcphbaapi.so.0
    The SNIA library requires a configuration file called /etc/hba.conf that contains the path to the vendor-specific library libzfcphbaapi.so.
  3. Optional: Set the environment variables for logging errors.
    The zfcp HBA API support uses the following environment variables to log errors in the zfcp HBA API library:
    LIB_ZFCP_HBAAPI_LOG_LEVEL
    specifies the log level. If not set or set to zero, there is no logging (default). If set to an integer value greater than 1, logging is enabled.
    LIB_ZFCP_HBAAPI_LOG_FILE
    specifies a file for the logging output. If not specified, stderr is used.

What to do next

You can use the zfcp_ping and zfcp_show commands to investigate your SAN configuration.