Does vxrootmir need a license to mirror rootdg with more than 8 volumes?

[Armin Kunaschik]

Hi there,

I'm trying to mirror a rootdg on a rx2620 (HP-UX 11.23, Base VxVM 4.1) which contains 12 volumes.
After mirroring 8 volumes vxrootmir stops and does not continue with the other 4 volmes.
In a message in this forum I read that one doesn't need an additional license to mirror a rootdg?
Is this true? Is this true for the first 8 volumes? Or is it just a bug?

Is there a list of features of Base VxVM compared to the "Full VxVM"? I could not find one...

Thanks,
Armin

[Robert-Jan Goossens_1]

Hi Armin,

No this is not a bug, base vxvm will mirror the root filesystems on HPUX.

standvol
swapvol
rootvol
tmpvol
homevol
optvol
usrvol
varvol

With the full version,

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

http://docs.hp.com/en/5991-2710/ch06s06.html

Regards,
Robert-Jan

[Armin Kunaschik]

Call me lazy... but the root filesystem is rootvol... no more no less.
All other volumes are defined in the rootdg, thus are important for booting.
I'd expect that the product mirrors the rootdg and NOT just selected volumes.
I've read the mentioned documentation too but I could not figure out the difference in terms of mirroring.
Please HP, confirm this "interesting" behavior, it's not documented elsewhere!
Are the names hardcoded or just the number of volumes?
I consider this as some kind of cheating in the feature description.

Thanks,
Armin

[Sameer_Nirmal]

Armin,

With Base VXVM, you can only mirror the 8 volumes which are called "root volumes" on rootdg. There are standvol, swapvol, rootvol, tmpvol, homevol, optvol, usrvol, varvol.

You can only be able to mirror other "non-root" volumes with full version of VXVM on rootdg.

Refer this link as well.
http://www2.itrc.hp.com/service/cki/docDisplay.do?docLocale=en_US&docId=200000079997917

[Robert-Jan Goossens_1 · Accepted solution]

More info.

http://support.veritas.com/docs/248458

Lite License Feature Set

Lite license ("VxVM Base") feature supports the following:
- concatenation
- spanning
- root disk encapsulation/rootability
- limited root volume mirroring
- new volume creation
- DMP - single path enabled
- resizing volumes
- multi-diskgroup support
- support for co-existence with other native volume managers
- task monitor
- VEA

The lite licensing requires new license checking logic to enforce the lite license scheme. The new logic applies to the following features:
- Limited root volume mirroring
- DMP single path

Root Disk Mirroring Overview
Root-disk mirroring allows mirroring of specific root volumes only.
Root-disk mirroring is enabled when:
- System contains only "VERITAS Volume Manager (VxVM) Base" license (Lite license)

Robert-Jan

[Armin Kunaschik]

Hm.. the Veritas document applies to VxVM 3.5 and Solaris. There is none for 4.1 and HP-UX...
But it sounds familiar :-(
Looks like I have to reinstall all my servers.
A notice to HP: Could you please document this somewhere? I mean it's now "documented" in the forum but this is not an official feature documentation.

Thanks,
Armin

[Armin Kunaschik]

No more to say.
VxVM lite mirrors only 8 (named!) volumes and refuses to mirror more.
These volumes are:
/dev/vx/dsk/rootdg/rootvol
/dev/vx/dsk/rootdg/standvol
/dev/vx/dsk/rootdg/swapvol
/dev/vx/dsk/rootdg/varvol
/dev/vx/dsk/rootdg/usrvol
/dev/vx/dsk/rootdg/tmpvol
/dev/vx/dsk/rootdg/optvol
/dev/vx/dsk/rootdg/homevol

An update is needed to be able to add more mirrored volumes or be able to resize volumes online.