topic Boot Disk Mirroring in Operating System - HP-UX

Boot Disk Mirroring

Kyri Pilavakis — Wed, 16 Apr 2003 10:05:37 GMT

I mirrored my 9GB boot disk on an HP9000 running v11.00 and all looks fine.
Reading some Forum entries made me worried in that I seemed to have 'missed' a series of commands; which are :

# lvlnboot -r /dev/vg00/lvol3 /dev/vg00
# lvlnboot -b /dev/vg00/lvol1 /dev/vg00
# lvlnboot -s /dev/vg00/lvol2 /dev/vg00
# lvlnboot -d /dev/vg00/lvol2 /dev/vg00

Yet when I do my lvlnboot -v it all looks ok:

Boot Definitions for Volume Group /dev/vg03:
Physical Volumes belonging in Root Volume Group:
/dev/dsk/c0t6d0 (10/0.6.0) -- Boot Disk
/dev/dsk/c0t4d0 (10/0.4.0) -- Boot Disk
Boot: lvol1 on: /dev/dsk/c0t6d0
/dev/dsk/c0t4d0
Root: lvol3 on: /dev/dsk/c0t6d0
/dev/dsk/c0t4d0
Swap: lvol2 on: /dev/dsk/c0t6d0
/dev/dsk/c0t4d0
Dump: lvol2 on: /dev/dsk/c0t6d0, 0

Should I performed the commands I 'missed' or are they not necessary.

Re: Boot Disk Mirroring

harry d brown jr — Wed, 16 Apr 2003 10:14:25 GMT

what does

lifls -lv /dev/rdsk/c0t6d0

and

lifls -lv /dev/dsk/c0t4d0

return?

When you say you "missed" a few commands, what commands did you "miss" ??

live free or die
harry

Re: Boot Disk Mirroring

Mark Treen_1 — Wed, 16 Apr 2003 10:14:29 GMT

Hello

Have you made sure that you have HPUX Mirroring installed??

Try this script which you should customise yourself:-

pvcreate -f -B /dev/rdsk/c1t6d0
mkboot /dev/rdsk/c1t6d0
mkboot -b /usr/sbin/diag/lif/updatediaglif -p ISL -p HPUX -p LABEL /dev/rdsk/c1t6d0
mkboot -a "hpux (8/4.6.0;0)/stand/vmunix" /dev/rdsk/c1t6d0
vgextend /dev/vg00 /dev/dsk/c1t6d0
for i in 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
do
lvextend -m 1 /dev/vg00/lvol$i /dev/dsk/c1t6d0
done
lvlnboot -R

Cheers

Re: Boot Disk Mirroring

Michael Steele_2 — Wed, 16 Apr 2003 12:22:17 GMT

lvlnboot -R

You need to 'lvlnboot -R' anytime you modify the BDRA with lvlnboot -r, et al.

-R updates things like /stand/rootconf.

And as mentioned above use lifls and lifcp to verify your work:

lifls -C /dev/rdsk/cXtYdZ
(* Should see 6 or 7 files, or, ~ 15 or 16 if diagnostics are installed *)

lifcp /dev/rdsk/cXtYdZ:AUTO -
(* verify the mkboot string *)

Also check your mirror and make sure it matches the primary. For example, a lot of people forget to load diagnostics onto the boot mirror, and only 6 -7 files will be display with the 'lifls' command.

The only way is to boot off of the mirror and install diagnostics via cdrom on both mirror and primary.

Re: Boot Disk Mirroring

Kyri Pilavakis — Fri, 18 Apr 2003 08:15:56 GMT

Thanks to u all for all your comments.

I am still not sure as to whether I am ok with what I have done.
HAd 2 disk failures last month and that's why I decided to mirror my boot disk. Make recovery tape is good but slow.

Doing this job for the 1st time I am not sure whether I will face problems in the future. I rebooted ok from both of my disks.

All the procedure was carried out ok BUT the only thing I did not do was to run the following :

# lvlnboot -r /dev/vg00/lvol3 /dev/vg00
# lvlnboot -b /dev/vg00/lvol1 /dev/vg00
# lvlnboot -s /dev/vg00/lvol2 /dev/vg00
# lvlnboot -d /dev/vg00/lvol2 /dev/vg00

Will this cause me a problem ??

Harry - Did what u suggested - please see attached file..

Thanks again..

Re: Boot Disk Mirroring

twang — Fri, 18 Apr 2003 08:33:04 GMT

Verify your output from "lvlnboot -v", it seems OK. The required LV are existing on both disks.

Re: Boot Disk Mirroring

twang — Fri, 18 Apr 2003 08:33:20 GMT

Verify your output from "lvlnboot -v", it seems OK. The required LVs are existing on both disks.

Re: Boot Disk Mirroring

Patrick Wallek — Fri, 18 Apr 2003 12:58:44 GMT

You CAN do the lvlnboot commands you reference, but you typically do not HAVE to do them. Going through the basic mirroring steps (pvcreate -B, mkboot, lvextend, etc.) will usually take care of the lvlnboot changes.

If your 'lvlnboot -v' output was not correct, then you should the steps you mention to correct it.

I think everything looks fine though. I see no need for you to go back and do those lvlnboot steps.

The real test though is to try to boot from the mirrored disk and see how it behaves.

Re: Boot Disk Mirroring

Kyri Pilavakis — Mon, 21 Apr 2003 06:12:03 GMT

Thanks Tommy, Patrick...

I used the setboot command and set the mirrored disk as the alternative boot disk. I rebooted from it and machine came up ok...

Thanks all for your help