This guide, SGI GSN Hardware Owner's Guide, describes the hardware for the SGI Gigabyte System Network (GSN) products. The following information is covered:
panel plates for the SGI GSN boards, Chapter 1, “Panel Plates for SGI GSN Products”
cables for SGI GSN products, Chapter 2, “Cables for SGI GSN Products”
troubleshooting procedures, Chapter 3, “Verifying and Testing SGI GSN Products”
The information provided in this document is written for users and system administrators of SGI GSN products.
The SGI GSN products are hardware and software implementations of the set of ANSI standards related to Gigabyte System Network (GSN, which is also known as HIPPI-6400) and Scheduled Transfer.
The hardware portion of SGI GSN products provides a single bidirectional GSN port that supports a copper-medium connection to the GSN fabric. With appropriate installation and configuration, the bandwidth can be as high as 6.4 gigabits per second of user data in each direction simultaneously; for applications that can operate with lower maximum bandwidth, less expensive and less restrictive installations/configurations are possible.
Two products are offered: a single-board solution (XT-GSN-C-1XIO) and a two-board solution (XT-GSN-C-2XIO). To obtain full GSN bandwidth, the two–board solution is required. The hardware can be installed into any SGI Origin-family system, the SGI 2100 platform, or the Silicon Graphics Onyx2 platform (deskside or rackmount). The single-board product requires one XIO slot; the two-board product occupies two XIO slots.
The SGI GSN product ships with a compact disc (CD). The CD includes the IRIX GSN software (network layer modules and the driver for the hardware), as well as system administration utilities and product documentation (books, release notes, and man pages). After installing the software onto the system's hard disk, store this CD in a safe and convenient place so you can find it when you need to reinstall the software, or in case of a system failure.
SGI GSN products comply with the following globally accepted standards:
Gigabyte System Network (GSN)
Information Technology - High-performance Parallel Interface - 6400 Mbit/s Physical Layer (HIPPI-6400-PH), T11.1, Project 1213-D, NCITS (ANSI) standard.
Information Technology - High-performance Parallel Interface - 6400 Mbit/s Switch Control (HIPPI-6400-SC), T11.1, Project 1231-D, Rev. 2.5, January 1999, working draft for NCITS (ANSI). Only those functions that apply to GSN endpoints.
ST
Information Technology - Scheduled Transfer Protocol (ST), T11.1, Project 1245-D, Rev. 3.3, August 1999, working draft for NCITS (ANSI).
IP-over-GSN
RFC 2067, IP over HIPPI.
Other standard protocols provided with IRIX (IP versions 4 and 6, NFS versions 2 and 3, TCP, UDP, ICMP, and so on).
Address Resolution-over-GSN (HARP)
RFC Internet Draft, IP and ARP over HIPPI–6400, December 1998.
RFC Internet Draft, ARP and IP Broadcast over HIPPI–800, December 1998.
Note: To obtain copies of the GSN and ST documents, see the Web site http://www.hippi.org/cDOCS.html , or contact the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) at 11 West 42nd Street, New York, New York 10036; telephone: 212-642-4900. For RFCs, see the Web site http://info.internet.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc .
Figure 1 illustrates additional sources of information about the SGI GSN products.
The SGI GSN XIO Hardware Installation Instructions provides instructions for System Service Engineers (SSEs) who have been trained by SGI. This document is for SSEs only.
The SGI GSN Hardware Owner's Guide (this document) describes the SGI GSN hardware: the panel plates, the LED behavior, the connectors, and cable specifications. A printed copy of this guide is shipped with the product.
The IRIX GSN Administrator's Guide describes procedures for setting up, configuring, verifying, monitoring, and troubleshooting the SGI GSN connection, including suspected hardware problems. IRIX GSN is designed so that you can maintain most of the components of the system without the help of a trained technician. Hardware installation/removal is the only part of the product that requires an SSE.
The administrator's guide can be viewed by the following methods:
Use IRIS InSight. The digital format for this document (that is, the installable image) is included with the IRIX GSN software.
Use a Web browser to view the HTML version at http://techpubs.sgi.com .
Order a printed manual from http://www1.fatbrain.com/partners/sgi or from the local Silicon Graphics sales representative.
Use a Web browser to download PostScript or PDF files from the http://techpubs.sgi.com Web site.
The Networking and Mail volume of the IRIX Admin manual set is recommended as a reference for system administration tasks.
This document can be viewed by the following methods:
Use IRIS InSight. The image is included with IRIX, either preinstalled on the system disk or available on CD-ROM. You can display this book from a graphics workstation using the IRIS InSight viewer.
Use a Web browser to view the HTML version at the Silicon Graphics Technical Publications Library on the World Wide Web: http://techpubs.sgi.com .
Order a printed copy from the local SGI sales representative.
Use a Web browser to download PostScript or PDF files from http://techpubs.sgi.com/library .
The IRIX GSN software includes a set of IRIX man pages, formatted in the standard UNIX man page style. These are installed on the main system disk along with the IRIX GSN software, and are displayed using the man command. For example, to display the man page for the gsncntl command, enter the following command at a shell prompt:
man gsncntl |
IRIX GSN includes man pages for the following items: gsn (7m), gsncntl (1m), gsntest (1m), and gsnarp (1m).
Citations in the documentation to these reference pages include the name of the command and the section number in which the command is found. For example, “gsncntl(1)” refers to the gsncntl command and indicates that it is found in section 1 of the IRIX reference.
For additional information about displaying man pages using the man command, see man(1).
In addition, the apropos command locates man pages based on keywords. For example, to display a list of man pages that describe GSN, enter the following command at a shell prompt:
apropos gsn |
For information about setting up and using apropos, see apropos(1) and makewhatis(1M) .
You can view the release notes for a variety of SGI products and software subsystems using one of two utilities:
| relnotes | Text-based viewer for online release notes | |
| grelnotes | Graphical viewer for online release notes |
To view the IRIX GSN release notes, type the following at a shell prompt:
grelnotes gsn |
To see a list of available Release Notes, type the following at a shell prompt:
relnotes |
For more information, see the relnotes(1) and grelnotes(1) man pages.
InfoSearch is a unified system for retrieving and viewing online information, providing you with quick and easy access to online information about SGI products. With InfoSearch, you can search or browse through release notes, man pages, application help cards, online books, and other forms of online information.
There are two ways to use InfoSearch:
The infosearch utility, which runs on any Silicon Graphics visual workstation or SGI server with graphics.
A World Wide Web interface, infosrch.cgi, that you can access through any Web browser.
An SGI system can be configured as an InfoSearch server so that other systems on your network can use it to retrieve information. However, each system must include graphics support in order to use InfoSearch, either with the infosearch command or via a Web browser.
For basic information about getting started with InfoSearch, see the reference pages for infosearch(1) , sgindexAdmin(1) , booksAdmin(1) , and infosrch.cgi(1) .
SGI makes its manuals available via the
World Wide Web (WWW). Use your Web browser to open the following URL:
http://techpubs.sgi.com/library.
This document uses these conventions:
References to document titles are in italics.
IRIX commands and names of files appear in text as italics.
Words that are found in the glossary are in italics.
References to other chapters and sections within this guide are in quotation marks.
Anything that you type on the keyboard is in Courier bold.
Anything displayed on the screen is in Courier.
Names of IRIX man pages are in the default font and are followed by the section number of the reference page. For example “who(1)” refers to the who command, which is found in section 1 of the IRIX reference.
Steps to perform tasks are in numbered sentences. When a numbered step needs more explanation, the explanation follows the step and is preceded by a bullet.