A client writes: 

Every time I run cfgmgr I get the following error message:
 
 Method error (/usr/lib/methods/cfgefscsi -l fscsi1 ):
         0514-061 Cannot find a child device.
 Method error (/usr/lib/methods/cfgefscsi -l fscsi3 ):
         0514-061 Cannot find a child device.

SHORT ANSWER

The fibre channel adapter ports reporting errors are not cabled up to the SAN switch. Nothing to worry about. Enjoy your day. Skip down to the free Coffee Time Quiz at the end of this post if you've got nothing else * to do.

LONG ANSWER (verbose mode is on)

The cfgmgr command configures new devices into the operating system. It is run during the system boot, but it's also something you can run when you add a new device to an LPAR and want it recognised without rebooting. A new device doesn't have to be physically dedicated to the LPAR as a dedicated adapter might be. It may be a new LUN or virtual scsi disk or even a virtual optical device from our old friend the VIO server Virtual Media Library.

No news is good news ... usually

By default, the cfgmgr command will not display standard output - just the errors get reported. So in typically succinct Unix mode, if there is no output, everything works fine. (That might happen if you get a nice clean system by running rm -r). If you want to run cfgmgr and see the details scroll off the screen at high speed, use cfgmgr -v (verbose mode). You could also limit your cfgmgr to a single adapter (e.g. cfgmgr -l vscsi0), although that won't save you much time if you don't have physical adapters assigned to the operating system you're running it on. In the olden days, the config manager command (cfgmgr) would take maybe 3 minutes each time you ran it as it had to scan through all the adapters and devices. These days on a virtualised LPAR, it may return within a second or two.

Some news?

So to my client's question. The cfgmgr command returns some errors. Good news or bad?

First we can see that the command called by cfgmgr is cfgefscsi. That has to be something to do with Fibre Channel devices. We also notice that the two adapters are odd numbers: fscsi1 and fscsi3. Knowing (as we do), that fibre channel adapter port numbers would start with 0, what we would see if we had verbose output is something like this:

/usr/lib/methods/cfgefscsi -l fscsi0 (return code 0 - no error)
/usr/lib/methods/cfgefscsi -l fscsi1 (error)
/usr/lib/methods/cfgefscsi -l fscsi2 (return code 0 - no error)
/usr/lib/methods/cfgefscsi -l fscsi3  ( error)

If we looked at the details of those adapter ports using lscfg -vpl fscsi* , we'd probably see that two of the ports are on one two-port adapter, the other two on another two-port adapter. Just from what we have seen, we could probably guess that the first port on each adapter is cabled to a SAN switch, and the second one is not.  cfgmgr (without using verbose mode) reports no errors on the two cabled ports, but gives a warning on the two that are not cabled up - fscsi1 and fscsi3.

Discussion points for coffee time

How do you pronounce the command cfgmgr?

A.   spell it out aloud each time you say it "c" "f" "g" "m" "g" "r"
B.   config manager
C.   kafagumuggerrrrr

Correct answer: B (1 point). If you answered "A" you get half a point for using verbose mode. If you answered C, you get two points for making everyone laugh. Have an extra spoonful of sugar in your coffee.

** Nothing else, that is, apart from adding a star to this post, if you liked it. If you didn't like it, not even the colour coding, you lose all the points from the quiz.


Tags:  config channel 0514-061 manager fibre coffee cfgefscsi aix cfgmgr