VG activation modes difference

[Gary L. Paveza, Jr.]

I couldn't tell if you were mounting your BCV onn your production server or a secondary server. I use a secondary server here (backup server).

To activate the volume group on the BCV, I do the following:

vgchange -c n /dev/vgXXX\
vgchange -a y /dev/vgXXX

Note that this is on the secondary server - not on the primary.

It removes the cluster lock on the BCV volume groups (which is not needed because there is no cluster).

You have to do this every time you split/mount. When you sync back, just issue a vgchange -a n /dev/vgXXX and sync. The sync will put the cluster lock back on the disk.

[Fenny_1]

I want to mount my BC volumes to another server not on the primary machine

[Gary L. Paveza, Jr. · Accepted solution]

Then you don't need vgcgid unless you already have a vg with that ID.

The way I do it:

Whenever I make a change to the volume group on the primary server I recreate it on the backup server:

On primary:

vgexport -m /var/tmp/vgXX.map -s -p -v /dev/vgXX
copy /var/tmp/vgXX.map from primary to backup server

Do BCV Split

On backup server

vgexport /dev/vgXX
mkdir /dev/vgXX
mknod /dev/vgXX/group c 640xYY0000
vgimport -m /var/tmp/vgXX.map -s -v /dev/vgXX

You have to remove the cluster mark on the volume group on the backup server

vgchange -c n /dev/vgXX

Activate it:

vgchange -a y /dev/vgXX

Now you can mount your filesystems.

To sync the BCV

umount all your filesystems
vgchange -a n /dev/vgXX

Sync your BCV.

Repeat split, vgchange -c n /dev/vgXX, vgchange -a y /dev/vgXX each time you want to split.

I've seen several other scripts where the vgimport portion is built into the script so you don't have to worry that you'll forget.