AdvanSys Universal NetWare Driver --------------------------------- This file contains important information and last-minute changes regarding the AdvanSCSI NetWare driver. How to reach AdvanSys --------------------- By mail: AdvanSys 1150 Ringwood Court San Jose, CA 95131 Phone: 408-383-9400 FAX: 408-383-9612 Tech Support: 800-525-7440 BBS: 408-383-9540 (9600 baud, 8 bits, 1 stop, no parity) Interactive FAX: 408-383-9753 Introduction ------------ asc26.DSK is the AdvanSys Universal NetWare driver. It is designed to work with all AdvanSys host adapter cards (ISA, VL, EISA, PCI, and ISA PnP) and all major versions of NetWare (3.11, 3.12, 4.x). asc26.DSK is a combination of disk driver and ASPI Manager. The file should be loaded in the server's STARTUP.NCF file. For a default installation, simply add this line: LOAD asc26 AdvanSys NetWare Driver naming scheme ------------------------------------- The AdvanSys NetWare Driver is now named according to it's version number to allow for easier differentiation of drivers. However, when upgrading drivers, it is important to modify the server STARTUP.NCF or AUTOEXEC.NCF to reflect the new driver name. AdvanSys ASPI Translation Layer ------------------------------- The asc26 driver now relies on an ASPI Translation Layer to provide ASPI services to other modules. This change was made to allow for side-by-side functionality with other SCSI host adapter drivers. asc26 will now automatically load ASCASPI.DSK when itself is loaded. If the module cannot be found, the driver will be unloaded from memory. It is therefore important to install both the asc26.DSK and ASCASPI.DSK driver in the server boot directory. Command-line options -------------------- There are several command-line options that can be used with the asc26.DSK driver. Most installations will not require any of these, but there are circumstances where one or more may be necessary. Command-line options are specified as part of the LOAD command. For example: LOAD asc26 VERBOSE=Y ABOVE16=Y The various command-line options are described below. PORT=n This specifies that the asc26.DSK driver should only control the AdvanSys host adapter located at I/O port 'n'. This is normally not needed, as asc26.DSK will locate and initialize all installed host adapters. This option can be specified as many times as needed. ABOVE16=[Y | N] See the note below on using the asc26.DSK driver on a server with greater than 16 megabytes of memory. SCAN=[I | V | E | P] By default, the driver will scan for all types of cards (ISA, VESA , EISA, PCI and ISA PnP) at initialization time. However, scanning for VESA or ISA cards may cause conflicts with other adapter cards, especially network adapters. The SCAN option can limit the search and prevent these problems. The option can be used with more than one bus type. For example, to search for PCI and EISA adapters, add to the command-line: LOAD asc26 SCAN=EP Any combination can be used. IGNORE=n This is the opposite of the PORT option. All host adapters will be initialized except for the adapter at I/O port 'n'. This option can be specified as many times as needed. EXCLUDE=h/t[,h/t...] By default, asc26.DSK will control all fixed, removable, CD-ROM, WORM, and optical devices. If you will be using an ASPI module to control any of these devices (such as RAID software) you need to exclude the drive(s) that will be under the modules control. Specify the host ('h') and target ID ('t') on the command-line with the EXCLUDE option. A comma can be used to specify more than one device. No spaces should be present between commas. EXCLUDEALL This is a short way of excluding all devices from asc26.DSK control. FIXED_DISK=[Y | N] REMOVABLE=[Y | N] CDROM=[Y | N] These options allow for broader control of what types of devices are controlled by asc26 without having to specify host numbers and SCSI IDs. These options are all 'Y' by default. INCLUDE=h/t[,h/t...] This option is the reverse of EXCLUDE. This option should be used in conjunction with the EXCLUDEALL or FIXED_DISK/REMOVABLE/CDROM options. Include will specifically designate a device to be included, even it normally would have been excluded by the exclude options. CHECKWP=[Y | N] asc26.DSK will check the write-protect flag on all devices and report them as read-only to NetWare if set. Some devices improperly report the write-protect flag, and are therefore set as read-only when they are read-write. Set this option to 'N' to disable write-protect checking. LUN=[Y | N] Logical unit (LUN) support is enabled by default. Set to 'N' to disable. VERBOSE=[Y | N] When set to 'Y', host adapter configuration information is displayed at initialization. ORDERED=[Y | N] When using command (tagged) queuing, the asc26.DSK driver will use simple tags for all requests. Some devices do not work well with simple tags, and may cause timeout problems. Set this option to 'Y' to use ordered tags instead. IMPORTANT: Using the asc26.DSK driver with the AdvanSys ISA adapter on a server with greater than 16 megabytes present --------------------------------------------------------------------- If you will be using asc26.DSK driver with an AdvanSys ISA host adapter on a file server with greater than 16 megabytes of memory, it is vitally important to follow these instructions. The server can report the total amount of memory by typing the MEMORY command at the file server prompt. If the file server reports memory less than what is actually installed, follow the instructions in B, below. Otherwise, follow A. In either case, whether asc26.DSK is loaded in the STARTUP.NCF or AUTOEXEC.NCF, add the "ABOVE16=Y" option to it's command-line, i.e.: LOAD asc26 ABOVE16=Y A. In your STARTUP.NCF file, include the following commands (if they are not present): SET AUTO REGISTER MEMORY ABOVE 16 MEGABYTES = ON SET RESERVED BUFFERS BELOW 16 MEG = n The number of buffers to reserve ("n") is equal to (4 x number of ISA host adapters) + (6 x number of attached SCSI devices). So, if you had 5 SCSI devices on 2 ISA hosts, you would allocate ((4 x 2) + (6 x 5)) = 38. If you have already declared this statement for another driver or NLM, add this value to the one already specified. The default setting is 20 buffers. There is no reason to set this value lower than that, even if you require fewer than 20 buffers. B. In your STARTUP.NCF file, include the following commands (if they are not present): SET AUTO REGISTER MEMORY ABOVE 16 MEGABYTES = OFF SET RESERVED BUFFERS BELOW 16 MEG = n (Follow the instructions in A for deciding the number of buffers to allocate.) In your AUTOEXEC.NCF file, add this command: REGISTER MEMORY 1000000 n Where "n" is equal to the amount of memory above 16 megabytes available (in hexadecimal). For example, use the command that corresponds to the amount of memory installed: 24MB REGISTER MEMORY 1000000 800000 32MB REGISTER MEMORY 1000000 1000000 64MB REGISTER MEMORY 1000000 3000000 Accessing DOS drives after loading asc26.DSK --------------------------------------------- asc26.DSK can, in some cases, cause problems accessing the server's local DOS directory after being loaded. Symptoms include the system hanging after exiting the server, or being unable to load local files, like INSTALL.NLM or STARTUP.NCF. The server has not crashed, but the ROM BIOS is not able to access the disk, and is timing out the request. As of this time, the only solution is to load the AdvanSys DOS ASPI Manager in the server's CONFIG.SYS file before loading the server software. As long as the ASPI Manager is the same version as the asc26 NetWare driver, there should be no problem exiting back to DOS. In no case is data integrity being compromised. If the server appears to hang when trying to load a file from the local DOS directory, wait for the command to timeout. When appropriate, down the server, add the ASPI Manager to the CONFIG.SYS file, and restart. If the server hangs when exiting to DOS, the server's file cache has already been flushed to disk and data is safe. asc26.DDI and ASCASPI.DDI Installation Information File -------------------------------------------------------- Both DDI files that accompany the DSK drivers use for the purpose of automatic hardware detection during the installation process of next NetWare 4.1x release. Each DDI file contains driver descriptions that specify configurable driver parameters, the input required from the user, and the format of the required output. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright (c) 1994-1996 Advanced System Products, Inc. All rights reserved.