SFHA Solutions 6.0.1: Use cases for importing disk groups using the vxdg utility on UNIX/Linux

[Liz_Semmelmeyer]

The vxdg utility performs administrative operations on Veritas Volume Manager (VxVM) disk groups. There are two types of disk groups, private and shared. For information about the differences between private and shared disk groups, see:

About private and shared disk groups

The vxdg import operation makes the specified disk group available on the local system. Any data stored on the disk group is accessible, including all configuration information such as disk and volume configurations. The vxdg deport operation disables access to the specified disk group. A disk group cannot be deported if any volumes in the disk group are currently open.

The following links provide information on using the vxdg utility for importing and deporting disk groups, clearing import locks, creating shared disk groups, and displaying free space in disk groups:

• Importing a disk group
• Importing a disk group containing cloned disks
• Disabling a disk group
• Converting a disk group from shared to private
• Corruption of disk group configuration
• Handling errors when importing disks
• Creating a shared disk group
• Importing disk groups as shared
• Handling cloned disks in a shared disk group
• Displaying free space in a disk group

vxdg (1M) 6.0.1 manual pages:

• AIX
• HP-UX
• Linux
• Solaris

vxdg (1M) manual pages for other releases can be found on the SORT website.

For more information on using the vxdg utility, see:

Veritas Storage Foundation Cluster File System High Availability 6.0.1 Administrator's Guide

For more use cases for administering VxVM disk groups using the vxdg utility, see the following Symantec Connect article.

[mikebounds]

Diskgroup types can be confusing if you use Windows and UNIX as in particular if you use the "-s" flag of "vxdg import" command in UNIX, then this imports diskgroup as shared, meaning it can be simultaneously imported on several nodes so that volumes in the disk group can be written to simultaneously from different nodes.  However if you use the "-s"  flag of "vxdg import" command in Windows, then this makes the diskgroup a "Cluster dynamic disk group" meaning you can use it in a cluster to fail between nodes, but NOT use simultaneously and many people would refered to this "shared" between the 2 nodes and so may call it a "shared diskgroup"

See article https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/diskgroup-types-unix-and-windows for more information.

Mike