File System Question

[Prasad Karpur]

On my workstation, when I do a df -n or df -F vxfs or fstyp it shows the file system is vxfs, which is veritas. We are using LVM and no VVM. When I do a swlist -l product VRTSvxfs or grep vx /stand/system it shows that no veritas file system package is installed. So how come it says the file system is vxfs. Is it possible to create a file systme of type vxfs using the newfs or mkfs without the veritas file system software being installed.

[Sridhar Bhaskarla · Accepted solution]

Hi,

VVM - Veritas volume manager
LVM - Logical Volume manager

Your filesystem is of type veritas. VVM is not required to create a veritas filesystem. LVM is the default volume manager provided by HP.

VVM is provided by Veritas as a seperate tool to manage the filesystems just like LVM. Base VVM is included in 11i OS.

-Sri

[Kevin Wright]

JFS is basically vxfs.

man newfs_vxfs

newfs -F vxfs /dev/vgXX/rlvol

[Prasad Karpur]

Sri & Kevin,

Thanks for the prompt reply. What you are saying is JFS is basically VxFS and it is part of the operating system. No additional software is required. I always thought you have to install the Veritas File System software to creata a vxfs like in other flavors of Unix. So you can create a vxfs using newfs -F vxfs without having to purchase the software from Veritas. How do I know if the Veritas File System is installed as swlist is not showing it is installed.

[Sridhar Bhaskarla]

Hi,

The product is called JournalFS. You can see it in swlist using the command

swlist -l product JournalFS

It will print out the product.

If you want the advanced features of it like resizing the filesystem online etc., you will need to purchase OnlineJFS.

-Sri

[Patrick Wallek]

VxFS filesystems are included as a part of the HP-UX operating and have been since HP-UX 10.20. This version of VxFS is one that HP licensed from Veritas. It is *NOT* have all the capabilities of the Veritas Volume Manager software from Veritas.

If you were to purchase the Veritas Volume Manager software from Veritas, you would not see Volume Groups, you would see Disk Groups and your administration commands would be different. Things would be very different for you if you actually had Veritas Volume Manager installed and configured.

[Bill Hassell]

Veritas markets a filesystem (VxFS) and a volume manager (VVM) separately. They are not bundled together as they are really separate functions. VVM defines disks and groups of disks for partitioning, but has nothing to do with filesystems. Indeed, VVM (or the volume manager LVM which is part of HP-UX) can create volumes with no filesystems such as swap a raw database partitions. VxFS is like HFS: it is a filesystem manager. Only newfs and mkfs can create a filesystem and you specify which type you want (HFS or VxFS) with the command line, or the /etc/default/fs file.

HP started with LVM for a number of reasons and it still remains the volume manager of choice due to reliability and stability as well as ease of use. VxFS was added as an alternative filesystem and not until 11i was the Veritas Volume Manager added. The basic VVM (ver 3.3 if I remember right) is part of 11i while version 3.0 is available for 11.0 but only as a purchased product from Veritas. Other Unix flavors have different licensing agreements.