Question on volume state

[tanislavm]

hi,

a last thing.

if i enable an volume vxvol init enable,then could i mount it?what is the difference between an enabled and active volume?

thanks so much.

[Gaurav_S · Accepted solution]

Command is incorrect ... to start a volume , you need to use

# vxvol -g <diskgroup> start <vol>

With above command, volume should come in "Enabled Active" state. This is the working state of a volume, if you have filesystem already on volume, you should be able to mount it using mount command.

There are 2 states of any virtual object, state & kstate (kernel state), that is why you see two states i.e Enabled & Active.

Basis on some of your past queries. may be this is worth reading

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH18795

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH194469

[Gaurav_S · Accepted solution]

Also, there is lot to read in vxvol man page

https://sort.symantec.com/public/documents/sfha/6.1/solaris/manualpages/html/man/volume_manager/html/man1m/vxvol.1m.html

G

[tanislavm]

i red the vxvol man but is not clear the difference betwen enable or active.anyway active is the working status.

[Gaurav_S]

Don't look for difference between Enabled & Active as Enabled is Kernel state of volume while "Active" is non kernel state.

Both status are mandatory for a functional volume

G

[tanislavm]

hi,

please see http://www.filibeto.org/unix/hp-ux/lib/cluster/veritas-sf-ha-docs/docsets/vxvm/html/vol_create_vxvm1...

Initializing and Starting a Volume Created Using vxmake

A volume may be initialized by running the vxvol command if the volume was created by the vxmake command and has not yet been initialized, or if the volume has been set to an uninitialized state.

To initialize and start a volume, use the following command:

# vxvol [-g diskgroup] start volume

The following command can be used to enable a volume without initializing it:

# vxvol [-g diskgroup] init enable volume

This allows you to restore data on the volume from a backup before using the following command to make the volume fully active:

# vxvol [-g diskgroup] init active volume

If you want to zero out the contents of an entire volume, use this command to initialize it:

# vxvol [-g diskgroup] init zero volume

So vxvol init enable or active was my question about the difference.

[Marianne · Accepted solution]

Please go back to the top of the page you are quoting from:

A volume may be initialized by running the vxvol command if the volume was created by the vxmake command and has not yet been initialized, or if the volume has been set to an uninitialized state.

Fact is this comand is still there for the old style 'bottom-up' creation of volumes.
In all honesty, I have only used the vxmake command when I was first introduced to VxVM more than 15 years ago.
Another use for vxmake is to rebuild volumes from 'vxprint' output. (This is how we did it before we had vxconfigbackup and vxconfigrestore)

BUT ... there is honestly no longer a need for volume creation using 'bottom-up' method.

Use vxassist - it will create a volume with a single command. No need for these vxvol commands.
And use vxconfigbackup and -restore to rebuild/recreate volumes.

PS: 
Have you looked yet for Storage Foundation and Cluster training in your area?

[Gaurav_S · Accepted solution]

In addition to Marianne's clean explanation, if you were concerned about below command

# vxvol [-g diskgroup] init enable volume

you are referring to a external website & that too for 4.1 versio however if you look at same command from the latest man page

vxvol init enable volume

Enables the volume and its plexes but leaves the volume uninitialized. This operation can be used only for non-enabled volumes. It is used to temporarily enable a volume so that data can be loaded onto it to make it consistent. Once the data has been loaded, init active should be used to fully enable the volume. init active could be used, for example, if a complete image of the volume is to be loaded from a tape.

This would explain what you are looking for.

G

[Marianne]

Please only use current manuals on Symantec's SORT site: https://sort.symantec.com/documents 

If you want to Google commands/options/concepts, start your Google search with the following in the search bar:

site:symantec.com  <search criteria....>
e.g.
site:symantec.com vxvol command usage

[tanislavm]

Hi Marianne,

thanks so much.