new vg doesn't get activated

[Lai Nee Shyang_1]

Hi there,

I've recently added a couple of disks to my server, everything looks fine, works fine. But when I reboot the server, the new volume groups are not being activated , thus not mounted. I've to manually activated (vgchange -a y) them one by one. What could I've missed out ?


Thanks

Lai

[A. Clay Stephenson · Accepted solution]

Hi:

It's probably because AUTO_VG_ACTIVATE is set to zero in /etc/lvmrc. If so, you will need to add vgchange commands for your new VG's to the custom_vg_activation function in this same file.

[Michael Tully]

Hi,

Here is extract from one of my systems. As long as 'custom_vg_activation()' is commented out the system will look at the 'AUTO_VG_ACTIVATE' option as below. If yours is set to '1' it will activate all volume groups.

HTH
~Michael~

#
# The activation of Volume Groups may be customized by setting the
# AUTO_VG_ACTIVATE flag to 0 and customizing the function
# custom_vg_activation()
#

#
# To disable automatic volume group activation,
# set AUTO_VG_ACTIVATE to 0.
#

AUTO_VG_ACTIVATE=1

[Mladen Despic]

The default value for AUTO_VG_ACTIVATE in /etc/lvmrc is 1, but if a volume group is on a shared disk (and especially if you are running MC/ServiceGuard) then you probably want to set this value to 0. (If two servers access the same disk simultaneously, you may get file system corruptions.) As Clay suggested, you can then edit /etc/lvmrc to custom define 'vgchange -a y' for individual volume groups. If there is no reason to avoid auto-vg-activation for any of the volume groups, then it is simpler to change AUTO_VG_ACTIVATE back to 1.

[Lai Nee Shyang_1]

Hi Mr. Clay and Mr. Tully,

Yess.. the AUTO_VG_ACTIVATE in /etc/lvmrc was set to 0 and in the customize_vg_activation function, the new vgs are missing.

Just to share with you my findings:

I did a comparision of /etc/lvmrc with other machines and found their AUTO_VG_ACTIVATE=1. Now I understand why this machine is set to 0. That's because this a DR machine (peace time acting as QA machine).It is attached to 2 XP storage systems, one holding the QA volumes and one holding the DR-CA volumes. The DR-CA volumes are always in "Sync" mode with my production and at the same time "accessible"by the DR machine, only clause is that the volumes are not to be activated until a DR/DR drill. Probably that's why the HP implementor turn of the auto_vg_activate and leave it to the cusmtomize_vg_activate to activate the default volume groups meant for QA. When new volumes were added, they probably miss out this portion.

Thanks guys. I think both u guys deserve a rabbit.

Cheers..

Lai

[Lai Nee Shyang_1]

Hi Mladen Despic

Sorry, I posted my reply before noticing your response.

Yes, you are right. You brought a point I didn't thought of. I just did a check on my production machine that has MC/SG. The auto_vg_activation is set to 0 and it doesn't have the customize_vg_activation function. I guess that's because the vg activation are taken care by MC/SG when the packages are started.

You deserve a rabbit as well. Thanks, I learn something new today.

Cheers....

Lai