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Storage Foundation 7.4.1 Administrator's Guide - Linux

Last Published: 2019-09-25

Product(s): InfoScale & Storage Foundation (7.4.1)

Platform: Linux

Adding a disk to VxVM

Note:

Root Disk Encapsulation (RDE) is not supported on Linux from 7.3.1 onwards.

Formatted disks being placed under Veritas Volume Manager (VxVM) control may be new or previously used outside VxVM.

The set of disks can consist of all disks on a controller, selected disks, or a combination of these.

Depending on the circumstances, all of the disks may not be processed in the same way.

For example, some disks may be initialized, while others may be encapsulated to preserve existing data on the disks.

When initializing multiple disks at one time, it is possible to exclude certain disks or certain controllers.

You can also exclude certain disks or certain controllers when encapsulating multiple disks at one time.

To exclude a device from the view of VxVM, select Prevent multipathing/Suppress devices from VxVM's view from the vxdiskadm main menu.

Warning:

Initialization does not preserve the existing data on the disks.

A disk cannot be initialized if it does not have a valid useable partition table. You can use the fdisk command to create an empty partition table on a disk as shown here:

# fdisk /dev/sdX

   Command (m for help): o
   Command (m for help): w

where /dev/sdX is the name of the disk device, for example, /dev/sdi.

Warning:

The fdisk command can destroy data on the disk. Do not use this command if the disk contains data that you want to preserve.

To initialize disks for VxVM use

Select Add or initialize one or more disks from the vxdiskadm main menu.
At the following prompt, enter the disk device name of the disk to be added to VxVM control (or enter list for a list of disks):
```
Select disk devices to add:
[<pattern-list>,all,list,q,?]
```
The pattern-list can be a single disk, or a series of disks. If pattern-list consists of multiple items, separate them using white space. For example, specify four disks as follows:
```
sde sdf sdg sdh
```
If you enter list at the prompt, the vxdiskadm program displays a list of the disks available to the system:
```
DEVICE       DISK         GROUP        STATUS
sdb          mydg01       mydg         online
sdc          mydg02       mydg         online
sdd          mydg03       mydg         online
sde          -            -            online
sdf          mydg04       mydg         online
sdg          -            -            online invalid
```
The phrase online invalid in the STATUS line indicates that a disk has yet to be added or initialized for VxVM control. Disks that are listed as online with a disk name and disk group are already under VxVM control.
Enter the device name or pattern of the disks that you want to initialize at the prompt and press Return.

To continue with the operation, enter y (or press Return) at the following prompt:

Here are the disks selected. Output format: [Device]
list of device names

Continue operation? [y,n,q,?] (default: y) y

At the following prompt, specify the disk group to which the disk should be added, or none to reserve the disks for future use:

You can choose to add these disks to an existing disk group, 
a new disk group, or you can leave these disks available for use 
by future add or replacement operations. To create a new disk 
group, select a disk group name that does not yet exist. To
leave the disks available for future use, specify a disk group
name of none.
  
Which disk group [<group>,none,list,q,?]

If you specified the name of a disk group that does not already exist, vxdiskadm prompts for confirmation that you really want to create this new disk group:
```
There is no active disk group named disk group name.

Create a new group named disk group name? [y,n,q,?]
(default: y)y
```
You are then prompted to confirm whether the disk group should support the Cross-platform Data Sharing (CDS) feature:
```
Create the disk group as a CDS disk group? [y,n,q,?]
(default: y)
```
If the new disk group may be moved between different operating system platforms, enter y. Otherwise, enter n.
At the following prompt, either press Return to accept the default disk name or enter n to allow you to define your own disk names:
```
Use default disk names for the disks? [y,n,q,?] (default: y) n
```
When prompted whether the disks should become hot-relocation spares, enter n (or press Return):
```
Add disks as spare disks for disk group name? [y,n,q,?]
(default: n) n
```
When prompted whether to exclude the disks from hot-relocation use, enter n (or press Return).
```
Exclude disks from hot-relocation use? [y,n,q,?}
(default: n) n
```
You are next prompted to choose whether you want to add a site tag to the disks:
```
Add site tag to disks? [y,n,q,?] (default: n)
```
A site tag is usually applied to disk arrays or enclosures, and is not required unless you want to use the Remote Mirror feature.
If you enter y to choose to add a site tag, you are prompted to the site name at step 11.

To continue with the operation, enter y (or press Return) at the following prompt:

The selected disks will be added to the disk group
disk group name with default disk names.
list of device names
Continue with operation? [y,n,q,?] (default: y) y

If you chose to tag the disks with a site in step 9, you are now prompted to enter the site name that should be applied to the disks in each enclosure:

The following disk(s): 
list of device names

belong to enclosure(s):
list of enclosure names 

Enter site tag for disks on enclosure enclosure name
[<name>,q,?] site_name

If you see the following prompt, it lists any disks that have already been initialized for use by VxVM:

The following disk devices appear to have been initialized 
already.
The disks are currently available as replacement disks.
Output format: [Device]
 
list of device names
 
Use these devices? [Y,N,S(elect),q,?] (default: Y) Y

This prompt allows you to indicate "yes" or "no" for all of these disks (Y or N) or to select how to process each of these disks on an individual basis (S).

If you are sure that you want to reinitialize all of these disks, enter Y at the following prompt:

VxVM NOTICE V-5-2-366 The following disks you selected for use 
appear to already have been initialized for the Volume 
Manager. If you are certain the disks already have been 
initialized for the Volume Manager, then you do not need to 
reinitialize these disk devices.
Output format: [Device]
 
list of device names
 
Reinitialize these devices? [Y,N,S(elect),q,?] (default: Y) Y

vxdiskadm may now indicate that one or more disks is a candidate for encapsulation. Encapsulation allows you to add an active disk to VxVM control and preserve the data on that disk.If you want to preserve the data on the disk, enter y. If you are sure that there is no data on the disk that you want to preserve, enter n to avoid encapsulation.

VxVM NOTICE V-5-2-355 The following disk device has a valid 
partition table, but does not appear to have been initialized
for the Volume Manager. If there is data on the disk that 
should NOT be destroyed you should encapsulate the existing 
disk partitions as volumes instead of adding the disk as a new 
disk. 
Output format: [Device]

device name
 
Encapsulate this device? [y,n,q,?] (default: y)

If you choose to encapsulate the disk, vxdiskadm confirms its device name and prompts you for permission to proceed. Enter y (or press Return) to continue encapsulation:
```
VxVM NOTICE V-5-2-311 The following disk device has been
selected for encapsulation.
Output format: [Device]

device name

Continue with encapsulation? [y,n,q,?] (default: y) y
vxdiskadm now displays an encapsulation status and informs you 
that you must perform a shutdown and reboot as soon as 
possible:
VxVM INFO V-5-2-333 The disk device device name will be
encapsulated and added to the disk group disk group name with the 
disk name disk name.
```
You can now choose whether the disk is to be formatted as a CDS disk that is portable between different operating systems, or as a non-portable sliced or simple disk:
```
Enter the desired format [cdsdisk,sliced,simple,q,?]
(default: cdsdisk)
```
Enter the format that is appropriate for your needs. In most cases, this is the default format, cdsdisk.
At the following prompt, vxdiskadm asks if you want to use the default private region size of 65536 blocks (32MB). Press Return to confirm that you want to use the default value, or enter a different value. (The maximum value that you can specify is 524288 blocks.)
```
Enter desired private region length [<privlen>,q,?] 
(default: 65536)
```
If you entered cdsdisk as the format, you are prompted for the action to be taken if the disk cannot be converted to this format:
```
 Do you want to use sliced as the format should cdsdisk fail?
[y,n,q,?] (default: y)
```
If you enter y, and it is not possible to encapsulate the disk as a CDS disk, it is encapsulated as a sliced disk. Otherwise, the encapsulation fails.
vxdiskadm then proceeds to encapsulate the disks. You should now reboot your system at the earliest possible opportunity, for example by running this command:
```
# shutdown -r now
```
The /etc/fstab file is updated to include the volume devices that are used to mount any encapsulated file systems. You may need to update any other references in backup scripts, databases, or manually created swap devices. The original /etc/fstab file is saved as /etc/fstab.b4vxvm.
If you choose not to encapsulate the disk, vxdiskadm asks if you want to initialize the disk instead. Enter y to confirm this:
Instead of encapsulating, initialize? [y,n,q,?] (default: n) yvxdiskadm now confirms those disks that are being initialized and added to VxVM control with messages similar to the following. In addition, you may be prompted to perform surface analysis.
```
VxVM INFO V-5-2-205 Initializing device device name.
```
You can now choose whether the disk is to be formatted as a CDS disk that is portable between different operating systems, or as a non-portable sliced or simple disk:
```
Enter the desired format [cdsdisk,sliced,simple,q,?]
(default: cdsdisk)
```
Enter the format that is appropriate for your needs. In most cases, this is the default format, cdsdisk.
At the following prompt, vxdiskadm asks if you want to use the default private region size of 65536 blocks (32MB). Press Return to confirm that you want to use the default value, or enter a different value. (The maximum value that you can specify is 524288 blocks.)
```
Enter desired private region length [<privlen>,q,?]
(default: 65536)
```
vxdiskadm then proceeds to add the disks.
```
VxVM INFO V-5-2-88 Adding disk device device name to disk group
disk group name with disk name disk name.
 .
 .
 .
```
If you choose not to use the default disk names, vxdiskadm prompts you to enter the disk name.
At the following prompt, indicate whether you want to continue to initialize more disks (y) or return to the vxdiskadm main menu (n):
```
Add or initialize other disks? [y,n,q,?] (default: n)
```

You can change the default layout for disks using the vxdisk command or the vxdiskadm utility.

See the vxdisk(1M) manual page.

See the vxdiskadm(1M) manual page.

More Information

Making devices invisible to VxVM