topic Re: vgcreate failure in Operating System - HP-UX

vgcreate failure

Pete Randall — Fri, 19 Jul 2002 15:45:41 GMT

I'm trying to re-create a volume group. Sam can't see it yet when it tries to create it, it says the physical volume is already recorded in /etc/lvmtab. I've tried re-creating lvmtab with vgscan but it complains "The Volume Group /dev/vg99 was not matched with any Physical Volumes."

I can't go forward and I can't go back - it's the proverbial Catch-22.

Pete

Re: vgcreate failure

Jeff Schussele — Fri, 19 Jul 2002 15:50:39 GMT

Pete,

Did you mv lvmtab prior to vgscan?
Also IF you know for a fact that the the vg99 is no longer used, try to vgexport it. Then also IF you know the PV is no longer unused do a pvcreate -f on it.
Then rerun your vgscan again prior to vgcreate.

HTH,
Jeff

Re: vgcreate failure

Tom Maloy — Fri, 19 Jul 2002 15:51:17 GMT

Sounds like the VG exists, but in an odd state. Can you use vgextend to add a disk to the VG, and then use vgscan? I know that you need at least one disk to remove it. That still would leave the ? of how the last disk got removed...

Tom

Re: vgcreate failure

Jeff Schussele — Fri, 19 Jul 2002 15:51:27 GMT

DOOOOOHHHHH....PV no longer used.....

Jeff

Re: vgcreate failure

Pete Randall — Fri, 19 Jul 2002 15:55:13 GMT

Jeff/Tom,

Hang on - I'm re-trying the vgscan after making absolutely sure that I moved it first. I'll get back to you in a few minutes.

Pete

P.S. Jeff, when I went back and looked at my wizard congratulatory thread yesterday I noticed that it was you and Steven at the head of the list again - he started it and you had the first response. Are you two my guardian angels, or what?

Re: vgcreate failure

James R. Ferguson — Fri, 19 Jul 2002 15:57:58 GMT

Hi Pete:

Make sure that the minor number of the volume group you are trying to create is unique. Do:

# ls -l /dev/vg*/group

Regards!

...JRF...

Re: vgcreate failure

Martin Johnson — Fri, 19 Jul 2002 15:57:59 GMT

"vgexport /dev/vg99" should work. Does /dev/vg99 and /dev/vg99/group exist?

Marty

Re: vgcreate failure

Pete Randall — Fri, 19 Jul 2002 16:02:46 GMT

OK, vgscan finished and said:
The Volume Group /dev/vg99 was not matched with any Physical Volumes.
*** LVMTAB has been created successfully.
*** If PV links are configured in the system.
*** Do the following to resync information on disk.
*** #1. vgchange -a y
*** #2. lvlnboot -R

Now, however, when SAM tries to create the vg, it says
"A volume group is already using this major and minor number"

Aarghh!

Re: vgcreate failure

Tom Maloy — Fri, 19 Jul 2002 16:07:56 GMT

Look for duplicate minor numbers in the /dev/vgXX/group file information. Perhaps one got "fat-fingered".

Tom

Re: vgcreate failure

Pete Randall — Fri, 19 Jul 2002 16:08:09 GMT

I've tried removing /dev/vg99 and still it complains that the major and minor number are in use. I tried a different vgname (vg22) and it still complains. Vgexport complains that vg99 is not listed in lvmtab. Looking at /dev/vg*/group shows that the minor number SAM is trying to use should be unique (SAM's trying to use 0x040000):
ll /dev/vg*/group
crw-r----- 1 root sys 64 0x000000 Feb 14 2000 /dev/vg00/group
crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 64 0x010000 Jul 13 09:12 /dev/vg01/group
crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 64 0x020000 Jul 13 09:12 /dev/vg02/group
crw-r--r-- 1 root sys 64 0x030000 Jun 27 2000 /dev/vgswap/group

Re: vgcreate failure

S.K. Chan — Fri, 19 Jul 2002 16:15:00 GMT

I suspect that you some "abnormality" in some of your VG configuration. The minor number (0x040000) may not appear to be used in all the /dev/vg*/group files but it may still be in the kernel. Can you try to manually creating it (with command lines) but use another minor number (say 0x080000 or what ever).

Re: vgcreate failure

Helen French — Fri, 19 Jul 2002 16:15:31 GMT

Thought to add a note:

If possible bring system to single user mode, unmount all data file systems and try:

1) vgexport
2) check lvmtab
3) do vgscan -a
4) Create new vg with unique number
5) Add disk

In either case, vgexport should work very easily. Carefully check the settings and try resolving one by one !

Re: vgcreate failure

Jeff Schussele — Fri, 19 Jul 2002 16:24:03 GMT

Hi Pete,

No I just wanted to see you squirm a little again ;~)
Steve & I just happened to post @ the same time.

Back to the issue @ hand:
1) It is possible (but unprobable) that there's a misconfigured LV minor number in a VG. Look down thru them all to make sure you don't have am 0x040002 or such.

2) Possible that something was/is linked to the old /dev/vg99/group entry or vice/versa.

2) highly possible that the kernel thinks there's an 64 0x040000 device out there.

For now manually create it with 64 0x050000 & track it down after the next reboot. May be gone after a reboot....

Rgds,
Jeff

Re: vgcreate failure

Pete Randall — Fri, 19 Jul 2002 16:48:50 GMT

I tried the manual method.
mkdir /dev/vg99
mknod /dev/vg99/group c 64 0x050000
pvcreate /dev/rdsk/c18t1d2
pvcreate /dev/rdsk/c18t1d3
vgcreate /dev/vg99 /dev/dsk/c18t1d2 /dev/dsk/c18t1d3
Increased the number of physical extents per physical volume to 17326.
vgcreate: Volume group "/dev/vg99" could not be created:
Device busy

lsof /dev/dsk/c18t1d2 shows nothing.

Unless someone comes up with something brilliant, I think I'm going to give up for now and come in this weekend when I can re-boot this server.

Re: vgcreate failure

Jeff Schussele — Fri, 19 Jul 2002 17:05:51 GMT

I'd physically check those drives.
Are they active - light on?
If you're sure of just which they are & they're hot-swappable, I'd pull them for 10-20 seconds & reseat them.
Something may have them tied up for some reason.

Also if this is a shared array, be damn sure that another system doesn't have it mitts on 'em.

Rgds,
Jeff

Re: vgcreate failure

James R. Ferguson — Fri, 19 Jul 2002 17:09:43 GMT

Hi Pete:

DOes 'diskinfo' yield good information (like a disk size > 0)?:

# diskinfo /dev/rdsk/c18t1d2

Second, can you do the 'vgcreate' without this disk?

I'm beginning to think you have a bad disk.

Regards!

...JRF...

Re: vgcreate failure

Pete Randall — Fri, 19 Jul 2002 17:16:09 GMT

Jeff/James,

It's a pair of RAID 5 luns in an FC60 array. No failure lights. Diskinfo looks good. I really don't think there's anything wrong with the disk(s). I'll run a *little* dd just to prove that they can be exercised - it would probably take hours to dd the whole 140 MB.

Pete

Re: vgcreate failure

Pete Randall — Fri, 19 Jul 2002 17:24:57 GMT

The dd was successful - I read about a gig off of each lun. I think, at this point, a re-boot is in order so I'll come in Sunday and see if that helps or makes things worse and post results on Monday.

My thanks to all.

Pete

Re: vgcreate failure

Deshpande Prashant — Fri, 19 Jul 2002 17:31:39 GMT

Hi
Can you check pvdisplay on those disks?

Thanks.
Prashant.

Re: vgcreate failure

Pete Randall — Fri, 19 Jul 2002 17:34:59 GMT

pvdisplay /dev/dsk/c18t1d2
pvdisplay: Couldn't find the volume group to which
physical volume "/dev/dsk/c18t1d2" belongs.
pvdisplay: Cannot display physical volume "/dev/dsk/c18t1d2".
Same for the other.