New to 3par, have a 7200 and more, need help

[MTXRooster]

Hey all, brand new to 3par..
So my neighbor and I are both in IT, both have homelabs and both love fun and challenges.. Recently his company let go (to him) some 3par equipment. He passed it on to me as he already has a dell vault and has no need for it.. He never worked with it and really knows nothing about it other than what I know, it's a storage array! (doh).
I have a 1U unit labeled SP.
I have a 7200 unit (exact model unsure, it's got 2.5" vertical bays, 24 in total.
(He still has 2 3.5" units, but I happen to have some SAS drives that are 2.5 so that there was the match)
I have an hp 2U unit labeled part of 3par, he was told it was the esxi server that accessed the data, and this is confirmed by the last bit:
I have 6 HBA adapaters, Only think I need 2 (for the 2 sides of the 3par I have, assuming I utilize both (I won't be at first lol)...

So I did some research and it has been a rough go, even on here (though that might be the search features limitations and not liking common words).. I know that the SP box is part of the 3par, but not sure whats it's role is, for instance.

What I'm wondering is, at it's simplist to start out, how does this thing get set up, like physically plugged in.. I'm sure the HBA cables are a no brainer, from 3par to the 2U. But does everything else just get plugged into a switch? Does the 3par array plug into the 1U in one of it's 3 ports?

With no idea of actual setup I tried powering on the "SP", it is running Debian. (he had a root pw that worked, and changed it for me, not that this matters, but it is a concern as we aren't sure about any other passwords). The two IP's have completely different subdomains (why I am wondering if the 3par plugs into the SP, or just how their network infrastructure is set up), neither port seem to pull up a webpage like a starting manual I found states (https://docs.directechservices.com/inde ... -of-sp-vsp)

So yeah, any super basic help and assistance I can get would be greatly appreciated. Lots of posts talk about not wiping anything until you get the license key for instance, but where is this license key?

I'm not expecting anything to work, mind you, I mean the original drives are gone - But without knowing what to do to get to setup, there no point in populating any drives, or even powering this thing up (the 3par).

Thanks in advance for any assistance you can offer, greatly appreciated!
- Rooster

[MammaGutt]

1U device is service processor. Talks to the 3PAR via IP/Network, used primarily for log collections, alert notifications, call home to HP and software updates.

Did you get the device with drives or did you have spare SAS drives? The 3PAR requires drives formatted with 520byte sectors and it requires them to run 3PAR disk firmware (so you need some of the few HDDs that have these).

Also, the system requires a license, so if it was completely wiped and put "back-in-the-box", you need the original license key to get it working as well.

[MTXRooster]

I have some spare HP drives (from the neighbor), entirely possible they are some from the companies usage, but tbh not sure at all. Good info on the requirements, he has a sas controller card in one of his desktops, I will try and hook them up (have 6) and see what I can see on that aspect. (Is this necessary or will the 3par format them itself, guessing it won't based on your comment about how they need to be set up format-wise?)

So I throw a network switch down, connect the 1U and the 3par to it then I assume, 3par does not direct connect via ethernet to the 1U/SP? Once I do this and ensure I have a couple drives formatted properly, how do I see about whether it's still licensed or not, and what do I do from there? Do I access the configuration/setup through the SP via terminal/ssh or iLo, or am I connecting with the 3par itself?
- Rooster

[MTXRooster]

So I have been unable to pull up the SPOCC on port 8443 or 80, but I have been able to, using root, then su into the admin account pull up the terminal menu and found out the SP version is 5.0.7.0-28213.
The commands to showlicense -raw (as well as setlicense) however do nothing, so I am still unable to the license to save it for potentially wiping this hot mess.
I can get logged in through the iLo remote console as root, and I can su admin which brings up the HPE 3PAR Service Processor Service Console. Elsewhere recommended getting into #7, the interactive CLI, but it prompts me again, for another user/password and the root doesn't work there.
Is there a specific account that would be used here if not root?
It DOES show a device name when I select the interactive CLI, like 1 == <anamebluredout>-3par HP+3AR 7200
Not sure if that means it is actually SEEING the drive array or whether that name is just stored in a file somewhere?

I also tried serial cable to the 7200 through the mfg port, got it to work, looks saw a ton of data/info, which ends in a logon: Not able to type anything though, like it's dead, though I'm sure it's not).

Anyone have any ideas? Specifically about why the <SP IP address as listed at the top of the admin menu> isn't bringing up the web page, not with default port 80 or (as mentioned elsewhere) not 8443, assuming this is just x.x.x.x:8443 and not pointing to a specific place?

Any assistance greatly appreciated!
- MTXRooster

[MTXRooster]

Minor update, nothing great;;
I was finally able to pull up the website <SP_IP>:8443 after using firefox with TLS set to min 1,. problem now is for some reason, it's gawdaful slow and ends up timing out before a sign-in attempt can be completed.. Getting a sessiontimeout after 30 seconds error on the logon panel.. Can confirm little wheel on the logon page is spinning. There a way to extend that timeout or a workaround? I'm on an isolated network with only a test pc (for ssh / web), an isolated server (dchp/dns just in case), the SP, the 3par7200 all hooked to a switch, plain ol' switch not a fancy managed one)...


Also pulled the trigger on passwd'ing the admin account, so at least now I can ssh in as the admin and get the admin panel to show (numbers 1-9) not that I can really do anything, because I *THINK* what I want is the interactive CLI where the admin (and root) passwords are not working..
Help? (the goal here it to 1. extract the license, 2. get the http 'working' so I can use SPOCC to configure this hew drive array of disks and make it usable..)