Adding a mirror onto an existing mirrored disk (rootdg)

[jamesps]

I am running B.11.11 and Base VxFS 3.5. I recently added a second disk to the system and vxmirror-ed it. All the volumes were mirrored and everything was great.

Then in the available space on disk 1 I created another volume (in rootdg), a subdisk, plex, file system and mounted it successfully.

Obviously I would like this to be mirrored on disk 2 as well. Here it is what I did (on disk 2) to accomplish this:

1. I created a subdisk (identical offset and size as the one disk 1)
2. I created a plex in this subdisk
3. I attached the plex to my new volume

Now, vxvm complains about the license:

vxvm:vxplex: ERROR: associating plex storvol-02 with storvol:
License has expired or is not available for operation

I know I don't have a license to benefit from the full VxFS but all I need is mirroring of the rootdg which did initially work for me.

I wonder what am I doing wrong and/or this should be done again with vxmirror somehow?

Thanks!
james

[jamesps]

There is no license required for mirroring a rootdg as far as the documentation says...

[Chauhan Amit]

Hi James,

Mirroring features are available with an additional license.

Following features need License:

Load-balancing -- DMP (active/active)
Hot-Relocation/unrelocation
Mirroring (RAID-1)
Up to 32 mirrors
Mirrored Stripes (RAID 1+0)
Striped Mirrors (RAID 0+1)
RAID-5
Online data migration
Online relayout

I believe "vxrootmir" will help you in this scenario.

-Amit

[Senthil Kumar .A_1]

Hi James,

Just wondering why you have created another new volume with undelaying basic commands.

Your problem should have been sorted out if you had used "vxassist command" instead. By this you do not come the intricasies you encountered while you are associating a plex. Becuase this will be done appropiately by "vxassist" command for you.

I suggest you back up the data on the new existing volume. remove it and issue the following command.

To create the mirrored volume, appvol22 of 100mb.
#vxassist -g rootdg make appvol22 100m layout=mirror


As an info you can't use vxrootmir command as suggested in the previous response because, this command is a part of VXVM rootability which can't be applied for HPUX vesion 11.11. This is valid only for the version's above 11.23 which supports vxvm rootability and also the command vxrootmir is exclusively used only for mirroring the root/boot disk in ROOTDG perview and not for normal volumes.

Hope my suggestions helped you.

[jamesps]

Hi all,

Yes I know the mirroring requires a license for most of the operations but mirroring a rootdg is included in the base JFS. As proof, I was able to successfully mirror my disk#1 while I had only the original volumes created by the OS installation. All of them were mirrored successfully at that time. Now I have my own volume I'd like to mirror and probably that's a limitation.
I will try with vxassist and see how it goes. The other option I have would be "formatting" my disk#2 and vxmirror disk#1 again. Hopefully this time my new volume will be mirrored together with the HPUX's standard ones.
Thanks for your replies!
james

[jamesps]

It seems that it is a license limitation after all: vxrootmir will mirror only the volumes necessary to successfully boot the system. It's the equivalent of the -R switch if you have a full license.

#./vxrootmir -v c3t15d0
vxrootmir: 08:08: Gathering information on the current VxVM root configuration
vxrootmir: 08:08: Checking specified disk(s) for usability
vxrootmir: ERROR: Disk c3t15d0 not found in configuration

I wish these errors would be more explicit.

james

[Mridul Shrivastava]

U can create as many mirror as u want in base Vxvm itself. No additional license is required. License is required if u want to implement RAID5 etc. So using vxassist u won't face any issue and it should create mirrored volume.

[Mridul Shrivastava]

VxVM allows rootdg to be mirrored without the full VxVM product B9116AA. If you
would like to get the full mirroring option for VxVM then you would have to purchase the mirroring license.