topic Re: Mirror disk-UX in Operating System - HP-UX

Mirror disk-UX

Jarheadatheart — Tue, 25 May 2010 12:10:00 GMT

Guru's,
I have a 11.31 based BL870 blade, with Mirror Disk UX installed.

Maybe I am overthinking this, or maybe the new device names have me confused, but I am trying to mirror my root drive to the alt, and it doesn't seem to be working. I have read the mirror-ux 11.31 guide....

But when I run mkboot -l /dev/disk/disk4

it returns as normal, then when I try;
mkboot -a "hpux -lq (;0)/stand/vmunix" /dev/disk/disk4

it tells me there is no current boot area on the disk...

Any idea's?

Re: Mirror disk-UX

Patrick Wallek — Tue, 25 May 2010 12:12:08 GMT

When you ran prcreate against that disk did you use the '-B' option to create the boot area on the disk?

If not, then you will need to start over with the mirror operation. Make sure you 'pvcreate -B' the device and then proceed.

Re: Mirror disk-UX

Torsten. — Tue, 25 May 2010 12:14:55 GMT

IMHO the very best would be to use the hardware mirror on that machine ...

Please post

# ioscan -fn

# lvlnboot -v

Re: Mirror disk-UX

James R. Ferguson — Tue, 25 May 2010 12:17:15 GMT

Hi:

You could also use 'vgmodify -B y' to change from non-bootable to bootable. All physical extents on the physical volume must be un-used to do so, though.

Regards!

...JRF...

Re: Mirror disk-UX

Steven E. Protter — Tue, 25 May 2010 12:24:09 GMT

Shalom,

I recommend hardware mirror if available.

Check this document as a reference. It is Integrity specific.
http://www.hpux.ws/?p=112

SEP

Re: Mirror disk-UX

Jarheadatheart — Tue, 25 May 2010 12:27:29 GMT

yes on the pvcreate I did run it with the -B option.

Re: Mirror disk-UX

Torsten. — Tue, 25 May 2010 12:28:33 GMT

Please list the steps you did so far!

Re: Mirror disk-UX

Jarheadatheart — Tue, 25 May 2010 12:29:26 GMT

Also, I did add the PV to vg00.

Re: Mirror disk-UX

Torsten. — Tue, 25 May 2010 12:31:31 GMT

Exact commands in order, please!

Or refer to http://docs.hp.com/en/5991-1236/When_Good_Disks_Go_Bad_WP.pdf
and follow the steps (Appendix, Integrity mirrors)

Re: Mirror disk-UX

Jarheadatheart — Tue, 25 May 2010 12:33:19 GMT

ok, I ran pvdisplay -v to make sure I had the right disk; then
pvcreate -B /dev/rdisk/disk4

then

vgextend /dev/vg00 /dev/disk/disk4

then

mkboot -l /dev/rdisk/disk4

then

mkboot -a "hpux -lq (;0)/stand/vmunix" /dev/rdisk/disk4

this is where I get the error saying there is no boot area ont he disk

Re: Mirror disk-UX

Torsten. — Tue, 25 May 2010 12:33:21 GMT

... but I promise you, you will regret the day when you choose LVM mirrors instead of hardware mirror!

;-)

Good luck!

Re: Mirror disk-UX

Jarheadatheart — Tue, 25 May 2010 12:33:51 GMT

Torsten, what do you mena hardware mirrors? you mean DRD?

Re: Mirror disk-UX

Torsten. — Tue, 25 May 2010 12:34:25 GMT

Well, you followed the WRONG procedure.

It's an INTEGRITY (needs EFI partition)!

See the link.

Re: Mirror disk-UX

Torsten. — Tue, 25 May 2010 12:36:45 GMT

cross postings. Sorry.

Regarding the hardware mirror:

Your server has an SAS controller that can do mirroring on its own. Problem is, you loose the data on the disks while creating.

So you need to restore the backup.

But, if a disk fails one day, you only need to swap the disk - finished.

In case of LVM mirror you need to follow a loooong and a bit complicated procedure to bring the new disk in place.

Re: Mirror disk-UX

S. Ney — Tue, 25 May 2010 13:44:14 GMT

What torsten said,

You were following procedure for pa-risc mirror.
mkboot -a "hpux -lq (;0)/stand/vmunix" /dev/rdisk/disk4

also before doing pvcreates you need to create EFI area:
# vi /tmp/idf # create a "partitioning file" with the following contents 3 EFI 500MB HPUX 100% HPSP 400MB

Re: Mirror disk-UX

Steven E. Protter — Tue, 25 May 2010 13:48:33 GMT

Shalom,

Hardware mirror is independent of the OS. It is done by booting the machine at console, interrupting the boot process and using the P400(Or other model) smart array nvram based menu to set up mirror.

It is far superior to OS software based mirror. The hardware mirror has a controller card, its own CPU and automated recovery procedures that just work.

SEP

Re: Mirror disk-UX

Jarheadatheart — Tue, 25 May 2010 15:05:04 GMT

Steven/Torsten,

Thank you for correcting me. I was in fact using out of date procedures.

As usual, you both were spot on! Thanks again!