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ri(7)									 ri(7)

NAME
       ri - I2O RAID disk interface

SYNOPSIS
       bus	       i2o0	  at pci2001   slot  4

       controller      i2o_bs0	  at i2o0      slot  18

DESCRIPTION
       The ri driver supports 32-bit and 64-bit PCI backplane RAID controllers
       with Intelligent I/O (I2O) host interface supporting backend SCSI chan‐
       nels.   I2O  is an open architecture for developing device drivers that
       is independent of the operating system, processor platform, and	system
       I/O  bus.  The communication model is based on a message-passing proto‐
       col reducing the number of driver interfaces needed.  A	single	driver
       called an Operating System Module(OSM) is provided to support all Block
       Storage class devices.  Any RAID system that supports the I2O interface
       functions with this driver.  These devices are designated as ri to dis‐
       tinguish them from ra, re, and rz (SCSI) devices.

       The StorageWorks Command Console Utility (SWCC) is supported for online
       configuration and monitoring of I2O raid devices.

       The  following  rules are used to determine the major and minor numbers
       that are associated with an ri type disk.  A dynamic  major  number  is
       used to represent ri block devices, and is assigned during initial con‐
       figuration. The current major number can be determined using  the  fol‐
       lowing command:

       # /sbin/devswmgr -getnum i2o_bs

       The  preceding  command	displays  the  driver switch reservation list,
       showing the device instance and major number for the i2o_bs driver.  An
       alternative method is:

       # /sbin/sysconfig -q i2o_bs

       The  highest 14 bits of the 20-bit minor number represents a particular
       Block Storage device, while lowest six bits of the minor number specify
       disk  partitions	 (identified  by  the  letters,	 a  through h) on that
       device.

       The device special file names associated with ri	 disks	are  based  on
       conventions  that are closely associated with the minor number assigned
       to the disk.  The standard device names begin with ri for block special
       files  and  rri	for character (raw) special files. Following the ri is
       the unit number and then a letter, a through  h,	 that  represents  the
       partition.  Throughout this reference page, the question mark (?) char‐
       acter represents the unit number in the	name  of  the  device  special
       file.  For example, ri?b could represent ri0b, ri1b, and so on.

       A  disk	can  be	 accessed through either the block special file or the
       character special file.	The block special file accesses the disk using
       the  file system's normal buffering mechanism.  Reads and writes to the
       block special file can specify any size.	 This  capability  avoids  the
       need  to	 limit data transfers to the size of physical disk records and
       to calculate offsets within disk records.  The file system can break up
       large  read and write requests into smaller fixed size transfers to the
       disk.

       The character special file provides a raw  interface  that  allows  for
       direct  transmission between the disk and the user's read or write buf‐
       fer.  A single read/write operation to the  raw	interface  results  in
       exactly	one  I/O operation.  Consequently, raw I/O may be considerably
       more efficient for large transfers.

       For systems with ri disks, the first software boot after the system  is
       powered	on may take longer than expected.  This delay is normal and is
       caused by the software spinning up the ri disks.

   Disk Support
       The ri driver handles all disk drives that can be connected to the  I2O
       RAID  controller.  To determine which drives are supported for specific
       CPU types and hardware configurations, see  the	hardware  installation
       and configuration information for your I2O system.

       I2O  RAID  Controllers  are viewed in all cases as RI type disks. There
       are some notable differences that should be  taken  into	 consideration
       when  configuring  a  RAID  device:  Currently only sector sizes of 512
       bytes are supported.  Logical Volume sizes are not fixed sizes as  com‐
       pared to other disk devices.  The size of the Logical Volume is config‐
       urable based on needs.  The dynamic nature of Logical Volume  sizes  is
       dealt  with by defining RAID devices as DYNAMIC.	 Only partitions a, b,
       c, and g are defined.  If necessary, the disklabel(8)  command  can  be
       run to change and define partitions for RAID devices

       Usually,	 the  ri?a  partition is used for the root file system and the
       ri?b partition as a paging area.	 The ri?c partition can	 be  used  for
       disk-to-disk copying because it maps the entire disk.

       The starting location and length (in 512 byte sectors) of the disk par‐
       titions of each drive are shown in the following table. Partition sizes
       can be changed by using the disklabel(8) command.

       I2O RAID partitions for systems based on the Alpha AXP architecture

	    disk start	   length			      ri?a 0	131072
	    ri?b 131072	   262144      ri?c 0	 end of media	   ri?d 0    0
	    ri?e 0    0	       ri?f 0	 0	  ri?g 393216	end  of	 media
	    ri?h 0    0

FILES
       /dev/disk/ri???

       /dev/disk/rri???

SEE ALSO
       RAID(7), SCSI(7), tz(7), rz(7), disklabel(8), MAKEDEV(8), uerf(8)

									 ri(7)
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