BusLogic FlashPoint PCI SCSI Host Adapter Driver For NetWare 3.1x Version 2.53 I. Introduction =============== This README file contains compressed installation instruction and notes on configuring tunable paramenters for the BusLogic FlashPoint PCI NetWare 3.1x device driver. For more detailed installation instruction and other information, please refer to the manual included with the software package. II. Installation ================ FLASHP3X.DSK, BusLogic's Netware v3.11 and v3.12 device driver supports BusLogics' FlashPoint Family of PCI SCSI host adapters. In Addition to standard Netware disk support, the driver provides the following features: 1) Removable device support (including fixed disk, MO, and CD-ROM) 2) ASPI support 3) NetWare ready support 4) Scatter/gather support 5) ISA host adapter support in a greater-than-16MByte-memory environment 6) SCSI Tagged Queuing Support ASPI Support ------------ BusLogic ASPI Support manager - ASPITRAN.DSK - provides shared ASPI support. When FLASHP3X.DSK loads, it will attempt to autoload ASPITRAN.DSK if it is not already loaded. The loaded ASPITRAN.DSK module need not be the one supplied by BusLogic - shared ASPI support (with other host adapter vendors) is supported. New SBackup required (3.11 only) -------------------------------- To run Novells' SBackup, you must download a later version from CompuServe. The version shipped with Netware v3.11 looks specifically for Adaptec's Aspitran module and will not work with any other ASPI manager. To download the current version, type "go novlib" in CompuServe. Then browse on keyword "Sbackup" in file library 1 to find the appropriate file. Note: This applies to Netware 3.11 ONLY. Other versions of Netware (i.e. Netware 3.12) come with BusLogic-compatible versions of SBackup. III. Command Line Switches ========================== BusLogic's FlashPoint NetWare Disk Device Driver supports the following command line switches: Exclude_IDs= - If you wish to exclude one or more Disk or CDROM SCSI devices from being reported to Netware when they are found by the BusLogic driver, you may use this option to do so. These devices can then be reserved for ASPI Netware applications such as: - Disk array software which needs to present several SCSI devices as a single logical device to the operating system - 3rd party software controlling CDROM devices through an ASPI interface To specify which devices to hide on this host adapter, enter one or more SCSI target IDS separated by commas. For example: load FLASHP3X Exclude_IDs = 1,2 This would hide SCSI target 1 and target 2 from the operating system. Enable_TQ - Tagged Queuing is an advanced SCSI-II feature which allows overlapped commands to a SCSI device, thus enhancing performance. The BusLogic SCSI Host Adapters provide support for this feature. However, many SCSI devices do not, and both the host adapter and the SCSI device must support Tagged Queuing in order to take advantage of this feature. The BusLogic SCSI Disk Driver defaults to Tagged Queueing DISABLED for all devices on all BusLogic Host Adapters. Use the ENABLE_TQ switch to enable Tagged Queueing on a given BusLogic Host Adapter: load FLASHP3X Enable_TQ This will only affect those SCSI devices connected to this Host Adapter which also support Tagged Queueing. The maximum number of Tagged requests outstanding is specified by MaxActive switch described below. MaxActive= - This switch is provided for backward compatibility. BusLogic recommends using the AutoMax switch (see immediately below) instead. The MaxActive switch allows you to modify the maximum number of outstanding requests per device allowed at any one time: load FLASHP3X MaxActive=2 Modification of this parameter will allow you to tune the driver for maximum performance based on your specific configuration. Valid values are 1 through 60. If this switch is not specified, the default value is 1. If you specify the MaxActive switch in conjunction with the Enable_TQ switch, the MaxActive switch will actually control the maximum number of Tagged Queue requests outstanding: load FLASHP3X Enable_TQ MaxActive=4 If you specify the MaxActive switch without specifying the Enable_TQ switch, the MaxActive switch will actually control the maximum number of non-tagged requests outstanding (queued at the Host Adapter, rather than at the device level). For some Disk Array applications, assignment of larger values to MaxActive may result in optimal performance. In the absence of this switch, the driver will either use the default value of 1 (in many cases, best performance may be achieved by using the default) or will use a built-in auto-adjusting performance-optimizing algorithm. LongTimeout - This switch allows you to increase the amount of time the driver's watchdog timer routine will wait before attempting to abort a CCB which has not finished. The default (if this switch is not invoked) is 10 seconds. If the switch is invoked, the timeout value is increased to 60 seconds. Only special hardware applications which anticipate long periods of time during which a device may remain busy will find this switch useful. In general, it should be ignored. load FLASHP3X LongTimeout No_Rescan - This switch should be used in conjunction with ASPI applications when specifically recommended by the ASPI software vendor/supplier. Otherwise, it should be IGNORED. *** ASPI Developers *** : This switch has the effect of causing the ASPI Get Device Type SRB to return table-driven information about the devices detected during an initial scan. Using the switch will inhibit the ASPI manager from going back out on the SCSI bus to look for the specified device on behalf of this SRB type. The absence of the switch causes the ASPI manager to issue a SCSI inquiry on behalf the the specified device. load FLASHP3X No_Rescan Verbose - This switch has the effect of enabling display information about specific driver configuration options. load FLASHP3X Verbose NumLuns - This switch specifies the number of Logical Units (LUNs) the host adapter will support (try to detect). If the switch is not specified, the default is 1. Valid range is from 1 to 64. If the host adapter only has embedded SCSI targets attached (that is, all attached devices are at LUN 0), it is recommended to set this option value to 1 to turn off LUN support for LUNS other than 0. load FLASHP3X NumLuns=1 --- Version: $Id: readme.txt 1.5 1996/03/14 04:02:42 awin Exp $