lvextend -m 1 not extending the lvol

[Johns Manville]

I have an HP 11.11 server using disk from EVA1. I am moving all the file systems from EVA1 to EVA2 via mirroring. This has worked fine up to the point of extending this VG to the new 20GB disk:

# vgextend /dev/vg03 /dev/dsk/c37t0d2
vgextend: Warning: Max_PE_per_PV for the volume group (1279) too small for this PV (5119).

My Volume Group info is below:

--- Volume groups ---
VG Name /dev/vg03
VG Write Access read/write
VG Status available
Max LV 255
Cur LV 8
Open LV 8
Max PV 16
Cur PV 10
Act PV 10
Max PE per PV 1279
VGDA 20
PE Size (Mbytes) 4
Total PE 4086
Alloc PE 4086
Free PE 0
Total PVG 0
Total Spare PVs 0
Total Spare PVs in use 0

As you can see, the "Max PE per PV" is 1279. I don't think I can change the PE to 8 on the fly or other VG settings with an OS 11.11. Yes, I wish I was on 11.31, but I'm not, so that is moot.

Would it work to create a new VG with the new disk and then use 'pvmove' to move all the lvols from the old VG to the new disk/VG?

If that won't work, any ideas on the least painful way to move this data to EVA2?

Thanks.

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom,

Your volume group layout is not sufficient to fully utilize the new desk.

For 11.23 and 11.31 vgmodify can be used to change the volume group parameters.

Since there is no vgmodify for 11.11 that I can find, you will need to vgexport the volume group, re-create it with vgcreate. I suggest either -s for a bigger PE size or -p to limit the max physical volumes and get a better PE distribution at create time.

SEP

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi:

> Would it work to create a new VG with the new disk and then use 'pvmove' to move all the lvols from the old VG to the new disk/VG?

To use 'pvmove' would require that the extents to be moved reside in one or more physical volumes of a particular volume group. That is, you cannot use 'pvmove' to migrate data from one volume group to another.

Hence, you are probably forced into creating a new volume group with the appropriate geometry in which you will create new logical volumes and filesystems; and copy (by any number of means) your data from your old volume group.

Regards!

...JRF...

[Patrick Wallek]

>>Since there is no vgmodify for 11.11 that I
>>can find, you will need to vgexport the
>>volume group, re-create it with vgcreate.

And then what? vgimport? Nope, not gonna happen. All original setting would be picked back up with a vgimport since the definitions already exist on disk.

Unfortunately pvmove only works within a VG. It cannot move data between different VGs.

The only option I can see is to create a new VG with your new disk. Then create your LV as appropriate and mount it as "dir.new".

Then copy the data from the "orig dir" to the "dir.new". Once that is done and data is intact, umount the "orig dir" and the "dir.new", then mount the LV from your new VG to "orig dir".

Granted, if this is application specific data you will need some downtime.

[melvyn burnard · Accepted solution]

If you have a support contract with HP, you could place a software call and request the vgmodiy utility for HP-UX 11.11
That may help you out here

[John Guster]

you might want take this moving data opportunity to setup a new VG with larger parameters such as PE size, Max PV, Max PE per PV, then copy data over though backup tape, tar, cpio...mirroring here will adopt all the limitations, leave you no room to grow.