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тАО04-19-2004 07:32 AM
тАО04-19-2004 07:32 AM
OS: OpenVMS 7-3.1
Hi<
Short question is:
How does my OpenVMS system know how to correctly configure and mount the volume shadowed system disk on boot up?
I'm clear on the command used to create the volume set:
MOUNT DSA23:(1) /SHADOW(2) =$4$DUA9:(3) volume-label(4) logical-name(5)
but.....
I'd just like to know the process the OS uses at boot up.
Here is my current config:
OSIJX1> show dev dsa100
OSIJX1> show dev dsa100
Device Device Error Volume Free Trans Mnt
Name Status Count Label Blocks Count Cnt
DSA100: Mounted 0 ALPHASYS 27501915 751 2
$1$DGA351: (OSIJX1) ShadowSetMember 0 (member of DSA100:)
OSIJX1>
I'm also aware of the following two configs in my common_modparms.dat file:
shadow_sys_unit = 100 ! system volshad disk=dsa100
shadow_sys_disk = 1 ! system disk volshad enabled
Both these settings make sense to me.
Where/how does the OS do the mount/shadow creation??
Thanks for the responses.
Kirk
Solved! Go to Solution.
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тАО04-19-2004 08:05 AM
тАО04-19-2004 08:05 AM
SolutionAfter a shadow set is formed, all the current members of the set is stored in the volume header. So in the case of the system disk, VMS at boot time will do the following:
1. boot VMS from the disk specified in BOOT_DEFDEV
2. load the sysgen parameters and checks the SHADOW_SYS_* parameters.
3. if shadow_sys_disk is set to "1" VMS reads the volume header to determine all the shadow members mounted at the time VMS was shutdown (that is important as I will describe later)
4. VMS then mounts the system disk as a shadow disk, giving it the sysgen unit number.
5. boot resumes
To me, it is very important that you NEVER put a MOUNT statement for the system disk anywhere in your boot procedures. VMS will always mount the system disk with all the members that were there at time of shutdown. So if you purposely dismount a system disk member prior to shutdown, that member will still be dismounted when VMS is rebooted. If you had a system disk mount statement in your boot procedures, then that would negate the attempt to keep a member offline.
Hope that helps.
Neil
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тАО04-19-2004 08:40 AM
тАО04-19-2004 08:40 AM
Re: general question on volume shadowing
the behavious Neil described e.g. comes in handy if you split a shadowset to do an upgrade (i.e. keeping one half with the old version to do a rollback in case of problems). If the system would just mount the shadow set members regardless you backup copy would be overwritten.
Greetigns, Martin
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тАО04-19-2004 09:23 AM
тАО04-19-2004 09:23 AM
Re: general question on volume shadowing
By default, the crash dump file sysdump.dmp resides on the system disk (sys$system). This file is written to by the primitive driver not the shadowing driver. This driver only writes to one member of the shadow set. This causes a problem when reading from the dump from the shadowed system disk.
You have two choices in this situation. 1) Permanently move the dump file off the system disk to a non-shadowed disk. 2) Capture the console output of the crash via some logging mechanisism (i.e., paper, PC, Console Works, PCM, etc.) and when a dump file is written, look for the physical disk the dump was written to (it will be one and only one member of DSA100 for example). Use the set device command to lower the read cost of that physical disk to 1. Use SDA and copy the crash dump file. Finally, use the set device command to change the readcost back to the default (or your specified value).
Without knowing that the primitive driver writes to the dump, you'll have unpredictable read behavior in SDA.
john
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тАО04-19-2004 09:20 PM
тАО04-19-2004 09:20 PM
Re: general question on volume shadowing
The algorithm is a bit more complex, because it has too deal with a situation when you set back the system time, but there are provisions for this.
During system boot all disks are scanned and their volume labels and generation numbers are compared. If they match with the boot member, that disk is automatically added to the shadow set.
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тАО04-20-2004 06:11 AM
тАО04-20-2004 06:11 AM
Re: general question on volume shadowing
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тАО04-20-2004 06:03 PM
тАО04-20-2004 06:03 PM
Re: general question on volume shadowing
does that really work these days? I recall in earlier versions that one had to boot all systems from the same physical memeber, but I haven't checked this on recent versions.
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тАО04-21-2004 03:41 AM
тАО04-21-2004 03:41 AM
Re: general question on volume shadowing
With regard to a search list of devices/paths in BOOTDEF_DEV, it says "On some systems, you can stipulate that multiple devices be members of the same system disk shadow set. Please refer to the system-specific manual for further details."
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тАО04-21-2004 04:19 AM
тАО04-21-2004 04:19 AM
Re: general question on volume shadowing
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тАО04-21-2004 06:48 AM
тАО04-21-2004 06:48 AM
Re: general question on volume shadowing
define EACH clustermember as a bootserver for ALL others.
Then specify the default boot device for ALL members to be a (searchlist of) network device(s). Whatever the status of the shadow set members during a boot, you are now NOT booting from a physical device, but from the shadow set!
And as soon as the newly booted node finds out there is a more direct path to the disk than the MSCP-served primary path, current path fails over to the more direct path.
If multi-site, especially with also multi-site SAN, be sure to study & implement the SITE parameter issues in the shadowing manual!
fwiw,
Jan