hpucacli

[Rodrigo Scheihing]

I have a DL385 2 dual amd opteron 275
Raid 5, 3 300GB drives, adding a new 300GB drive.
May I continue using (as usual) the machine (disks) while
expanding the array?

Thanks

Rodrigo

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom Rodrigo,

Yes.

You will probably need to boot the system int the ACU, build in Array Configuration Utility to add the disk to your Raid 5 group.

If you have the smart start pack and cpqacu installed you might be able to configure via he web interface and avoid the reboot.

SEP

[Rodrigo Scheihing]

Hi Steven,

Thanks for prompt answer, but I got a little confused with your answer

I have the hpucacli installed in my gentoo.
Right now, I am expanding the array using:

# hpucacli

=> ctrl slot=0 array A add drives=2:3

=> ctrl all show config

Smart Array 6i in Slot 0 ()

array A (Parallel SCSI, Unused Space: 381464 MB)

logicaldrive 1 (558.8 GB, RAID 5, Expanding 23.1% complete)

physicaldrive 2:0 (port 2:id 0 , Parallel SCSI, 300 GB, OK)
physicaldrive 2:1 (port 2:id 1 , Parallel SCSI, 300 GB, OK)
physicaldrive 2:2 (port 2:id 2 , Parallel SCSI, 300 GB, OK)
physicaldrive 2:3 (port 2:id 3 , Parallel SCSI, 300 GB, OK)

=> quit
#

It is correct the way I'm doing the expansion?
If correct, may I continue using the machine as usual? Or should it run alone?

What should I do after this process is completed?

Thanks

Rodrigo

[Matti_Kurkela · Accepted solution]

Looks correct to me.

You can keep using the system, but remember that the SmartArray controller is now doing some fairly heavy disk I/O operations, so the system's I/O performance may be less than normal. After the SmartArray expansion operation is 100% complete, the system will again have its full I/O bandwidth available to the applications.

After the SmartArray expansion is complete, the next step would be to make the new disk space useful in some way. According to your hpacucli configuration listing, this is the first/only logical drive on your first/only SmartArray controller, so it's probably your system disk. This may cause some additional challenges, depending on how your disk is partitioned.

If you're using LVM and have only the /boot filesystem as a traditional partition, the job is easy:

1.) unmount /boot to allow editing the partition table without rebooting

2.) use fdisk or some other partitioning tool to extend the area reserved for the LVM PV, or to create a new partition for another PV.
When you exit the partitioning tool, the tool should indicate whether a reboot is needed or not. (If any traditional filesystem partition on a disk is mounted when you use fdisk or any other partitioning tool on it, the kernel will accept the partition table changes only with a reboot.)

3.) Now you can mount /boot again. (If you have to reboot, mounting /boot manually might not be necessary, as it will be mounted automatically when the system comes back up.)

4.) If you extended an existing PV partition, use "pvresize" to tell the system that the PV partition has expanded. Otherwise, use pvcreate and vgextend to make the new PV partition useable and join it to your VG.

5.) Now you have some useable free space in your VG, what do you wish to do with it?
You could extend an existing LV using lvextend and ext2online (or another online extension command for other filesystems), or you could set up a new LV with lvcreate + mkfs + mount.

If your disk is partitioned in a traditional fashion with no LVM, your options are limited to creating new partitions or extending the _last_ partition on the disk.

MK

[Rodrigo Scheihing]

Matti,

My situation is the last one: I have partitioned the disk the traditional way.

Now, I want to use the new space. For this I tried to create a new logicaldrive but I got some problems:

=> ctrl slot=0 create type=ld drives=2:3

Error: The drives specified must match the drives in the targeted array
exactly.

Does it mean that I should do:

ctrl slot=0 create type=ld drives=2:0,2:1,2:2,2:3

?

I thought I should use only the last pd I just added to create the new ld.

What's wrong?

Thanks,

Rodrigo.