Forum Discussion

tanislavm's avatar
tanislavm
Level 6
12 years ago
Solved

vxvm encapsulation

hi, i wish to verify things. When i need to encapsulate the root disk,is it compulsory that on this disk root not to be I/O traffic? I mean i need to boot off from dvd or network then i encapsulate the root disk?or also is possible to boot in single user and encapsulate the root disk? By encapsulated the root disk the initial file system and logical volume of this disk will change under vxfs and vxvm control.right?i.e ufs and svm will change under vxfs and vxvm control.ext4 and lvm changes under vxvm and vxfs control.right? When upgrade the vxvm root volume then before upgrade we create install-db file in order OS will not load the vxvm modules.Then from dvd will do the upgrade of vxvm.right? tnx so much, marius
business continuity
Solaris
Storage Foundation
  • Gaurav_S's avatar
    Gaurav_S
    12 years ago

    Hi,

    When i need to encapsulate the root disk,is it compulsory that on this disk root not to be I/O traffic?

    --> There is no such compulsion ... a standard IO traffic will anyways happen on root disk


    I mean i need to boot off from dvd or network then i encapsulate the root disk?or also is possible to boot in single user and encapsulate the root disk?

    --> You don't need to boot from DVD or network. You can very well boot the system in multiuser mode & start encapsulation process using "vxdiskadm" menu. System will need multiple reboots for encapsulation to complete.


    By encapsulated the root disk the initial file system and logical volume of this disk will change under vxfs and vxvm control.right?i.e ufs and svm will change under vxfs and vxvm control.ext4 and lvm changes under vxvm and vxfs control.right?

    --> partially correct, root slice will change to root volume however filesystem will still be UFS & not vxfs. There is no change to filesystem only the block device will change


    When upgrade the vxvm root volume then before upgrade we create install-db file in order OS will not load the vxvm modules.Then from dvd will do the upgrade of vxvm.right?

    --> well, there are procedures in both the ways, though it is recommended to unencapsulate the disk, break the mirrors (so that you have a good copy of root disk) & perform the upgrade on other disk

    for more details, refer to SF admin guide,  page 635 onwards

    https://sort.symantec.com/documents

     

    G

  • Gaurav_S's avatar
    Gaurav_S
    Moderator
    12 years ago

    Hi,

    When i need to encapsulate the root disk,is it compulsory that on this disk root not to be I/O traffic?

    --> There is no such compulsion ... a standard IO traffic will anyways happen on root disk


    I mean i need to boot off from dvd or network then i encapsulate the root disk?or also is possible to boot in single user and encapsulate the root disk?

    --> You don't need to boot from DVD or network. You can very well boot the system in multiuser mode & start encapsulation process using "vxdiskadm" menu. System will need multiple reboots for encapsulation to complete.


    By encapsulated the root disk the initial file system and logical volume of this disk will change under vxfs and vxvm control.right?i.e ufs and svm will change under vxfs and vxvm control.ext4 and lvm changes under vxvm and vxfs control.right?

    --> partially correct, root slice will change to root volume however filesystem will still be UFS & not vxfs. There is no change to filesystem only the block device will change


    When upgrade the vxvm root volume then before upgrade we create install-db file in order OS will not load the vxvm modules.Then from dvd will do the upgrade of vxvm.right?

    --> well, there are procedures in both the ways, though it is recommended to unencapsulate the disk, break the mirrors (so that you have a good copy of root disk) & perform the upgrade on other disk

    for more details, refer to SF admin guide,  page 635 onwards

    https://sort.symantec.com/documents

     

    G

  • tanislavm's avatar
    tanislavm
    Level 6
    12 years ago
    Hi, Anyway if the vxvm modules are not loaded the I could not import the disk group with veritas volumes.right? tnx so much, marius
  • Gaurav_S's avatar
    Gaurav_S
    Moderator
    12 years ago

    Hi

    correct, if vxvm modules are not loaded that you can't import diskgroup.

    So if you have encapsulation enabled & if vxvm modules are not loaded, server won't boot because it won't be able to start rootdg. Hence whenever you put a "install-db" flag in an encapsulated setup, make sure you modify /etc/vfstab & /etc/system file in server to ensure server boots from slice rather than that of volumes.

     

    G

  • tanislavm's avatar
    tanislavm
    Level 6
    12 years ago
    hi, last thing is that ufs offer support to work with vxvm.right? so we have storage foundation for solaris,then for Linux,and so on.right? tnx so much, marius
  • Gaurav_S's avatar
    Gaurav_S
    Moderator
    12 years ago

    Hi,

    UFS is very much supported with vxvm, as explained before, in encapsulated setup, vxvm root volumes will run with UFS filesystem only. Data volumes can also run with UFS filesystem however you will get better features & performance on data volumes with vxfs.

    Storage Foundation is available for all the operating systems like Solaris, AIX, Linux, HP-UX,  etc .. SF provides vxfs on all these flavors however native OS volumes will run native filesystems like ext3, ufs etc.

  • tanislavm's avatar
    tanislavm
    Level 6
    12 years ago
    hi, just to conclude. in order to upgrade vxvm with encapsulated root disk: - unencapsulate root disk volume - create intstall-db file - modify /etc/vfstab and /etc/system -reboot -upgrade tnx so much, marius
  • Gaurav_S's avatar
    Gaurav_S
    Moderator
    12 years ago

    Hi,

    partially correct

    1. break the mirrors & keep a safe copy of data

    2. Unencapsulate, unencapsulation step will already cover modifying the vfstab & system file.

    3. create install-db

    4. reboot

    5. upgrade on single slice or single disk

     

    G