hp-ux BDRA !

[rveri]

Hi All ,

i) What is BDRA. ?
ii) How to see the BDRA of the boot disk in hp-ux.?
iii) What is a PVlink. PVkey and VGlink. VG Key And how to see it. Any command is there.

Thanks all,
Veri.

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Veri:

BDRA = Boot Disk Reserved Area. It can be viewed with the 'lifs' command. See the manpages (1M) for more information.

The *best* guide to some of the LVM internals is now contrained in chapter-16 of the Software Recovery Handbook in the Knowledge Tree Section of the ITRC:

http://www2.itrc.hp.com/service/iv/node.do?node=prodITRC%2FWW_Start%2FN1%7C16

Regards!

...JRF...

[Leif Halvarsson_2]

BDRA=Boot Data Reserved Area
PVlink=Alternate path(s) to LUN(s).
PVkey= Physical volume number in VG (see the command pvdisplay).

Never heard about VGlink or VGkey.

[Hakan Aribas · Accepted solution]

I can answer of your BDRA question: To boot the system, the kernel activates the volume group to which the system's root logical volume belongs. The location of the root logical volume is stored in the boot data reserved area (BDRA). The boot data reserved area contains the locations and sizes of LVM disks in the root volume group and other vital information to configure the root, primary swap, and dump logical volumes, and to mount the root file system. Information about the LVM disk data structures in the BDRA is maintained by using the lvlnboot(1M) and lvrmboot(1M) commands. For example please look at attached JPEG file.

[Raj D.]

BDRA = Boot Data Reserved Area.
PVlink= Alternate link to LUNs. Physical path.
PVKey= PV Key of a disk indicates its order in the VG. The first PV has the key0, the 2nd has the key 1 etc. This does not necessarily have to be the order of appearance in lvmtab although it is usually like that , at least when a VG is initially created.

There is no VGKey and VGlink ..heard..

hth,
Raj.

[Raj D.]

You can use the -k option with lvdisplay to see the PV link numbers :

# lvdisplay -v -k /dev/vg00/lvol5 | more
--- Logical volumes ---
LV Name /dev/vg00/lvol5
VG Name /dev/vg00
LV Permission read/write
LV Status available/syncd
Mirror copies 1
Consistency Recovery MWC
Schedule parallel
LV Size (Mbytes) 2048
Current LE 256
Allocated PE 512
Stripes 0
Stripe Size (Kbytes) 0
Bad block on
Allocation strict
IO Timeout (Seconds) default

--- Distribution of logical volume ---
PV Name LE on PV PE on PV
/dev/dsk/c1t6d0 256 256
/dev/dsk/c2t6d0 256 256

--- Logical extents ---
LE PV1 PE1 Status 1 PV2 PE2 Status 2
00000 0 00367 current 1 00367 current
00001 0 00368 current 1 00368 current
00002 0 00369 current 1 00369 current
00003 0 00370 current 1 00370 current
00004 0 00371 current 1 00371 current


Cheers,
Raj.

[Raj D.]

Hi Veri,

You can use the xd command to see the PV Key because its is stored at a fixed positoin in the disk of the LVM header, and exactly 8222 bytes from the begining of the disk.

try :
# xd -j8222 -N2 /dev/rdsk/c?t?d?

When some time you see some error on syslog related to PV , like this " PV[X] is POWERFAILED , X represents the PV key .


Also you can refer the Ch:16 of the Recovery book.

Chhrs,
Raj.

[Devender Khatana]

Hi,




1. Create and view LIF and BDRA on the disk
===============================
REMARK: disk does not need to be pvcreateâ d yet.
1. Write LIF header and LIF files (ISL, AUTO, HPUX, LABEL):
# mkboot -l /dev/rdsk/c#t#d#
# lifls â l /dev/rdsk/c#t#d# (to ckeck it)
2. Write content of AUTO File (may be skipped):
# mkboot -a hpux /dev/rdsk/c#t#d#
# lifcp /dev/rdsk/c#t#d#:AUTO - (to ckeck it)
3. Install ODE files (may be skipped):
# cd /usr/sbin/diag/lif
# getconf HW_CPU_SUPP_BITS (the result is either 32, 32/64 or 64)
# mkboot -b updatediaglif -p ISL -p AUTO -p HPUX -p LABEL
/dev/rdsk/c#t#d# (if 32 or 32/64)
# mkboot -b updatediaglif2 -p ISL -p AUTO -p HPUX -p LABEL
/dev/rdsk/c#t#d# (if 64)
(the -p option preserves the specified file so that it is not overwritten)
Refer to section Offline Diagnostics (ODE) if you have problems with this.
4. Write content of LABEL file,i.e set root, boot, swap and dump device:
NOTE: This step can be omitted if you replace a failed mirror disk. Then this information has already
been restored by vgcfgrestore. To be sure to have the latest information on the disk just do the
following steps.
# lvlnboot -r /dev//lvol3 (lvol1 for <= UX 10.10)
# lvlnboot -b /dev//lvol1 (not for <= UX 10.10)
# lvlnboot -s /dev//lvol2
# lvlnboot -d /dev//lvol2
# lvlnboot â v (to ckeck it)

Check if the BDRA is correct.
# /usr/sbin/lvlnboot -R /dev/vg00

All the command with to check it remark are listed to view its various details.

2.PVLink refers to multiple links to the same physical device. The device is being accessed through one path at a time which is selected to create/add VG onto disk. When this link is not available the other one is used. You can have upto 7 PV-Links for one physical device but all work in active-standby mode i.e. only one is active at a time.

VGlink is also the same thing. VG Key or VGID refers to a unique VG number for a VG. And is also stored onto the conf file of VG created in /etc/lvmconf directory.

HTH,
Devender

[Raj D.]

I have heard VGID in AIX , and there is a command "getlvodm" that gives directly the VGID of a volume group, and in hp-ux vg00.conf file also have some details like this :

here is a sample..
$ getlvodm -v rootvg
000d48df00004c00000000fa8ca28f82
$ oslevel
5.2.0.0
------------------------

in hp-ux 11i
strings /etc/lvmconf/vg00.conf gives as follows:

# strings vg00.conf
CONFIG01
/dev/vg00
/dev/rdsk/c1t6d0
/dev/rdsk/c2t6d0
LVMREC01&
HPLVMBDRC-
LVMREC01&
HPLVMBDRC-
AOA"
AOA"
VGDA0001
VGSA0001A


Cheers,
Raj.

[rveri]

Thanks all.