root disk partitioning for mirroring

[yash123]

Hello all,
A basic question.. requesting to please in detail..
Why in Integrity server root disks are partitioning for mirroring.

[Torsten.]

They are NOT partitioned for mirroring.


On a Integrity boot disk are 3 partitioned, 1 for EFI, 1 for HPUX, 1 for Service tools.

You need another disk for mirroring.

[shikhar_1]

Hi,

It is not like that we are partitioning root disk only for mirroring.
For integrity servers we have to keep the root disk in three partitionings like in this manner
The boot disk of IA machine got 3 partition,

s1 - EFI
s2 - OS
s3 - HP support tools

[yash123]

Ok understood...what is logic behind root disk portioning

[Torsten.]

The EFI area is FAT32 for the OS loader (common INTEL standard), the HPUX partition is under LVM/OS control.

[Torsten.]

Layout:

http://tinyurl.com/68qpars

[yash123]

Thanks
EFI is for OS loader
HPUX - lvm/os
whats the purpose HPSP

Is the partioning is because of intel platform?


thanks once again for my doubts.....get points and enjoy.......

[Torsten.]

>> Is the partioning is because of intel platform?

Yes, it's Intel specification (default).



HPSP holds several tools, e.g. offline diagnostics, offline firmware update tools, several EFI tools. etc ...

[Torsten.]

This is the link to the offline diagnostic CD image:

https://h20392.www2.hp.com/portal/swdepot/displayProductInfo.do?productNumber=IPF1103


You can install these tools in HPSP area, but normally you never need it there.

[Torsten. · Accepted solution]

And finally - if you choose hardware mirroring via the controller, the complete disk (all partitions) will be mirrored - if you use LVM mirroring, only partition 2 will be mirrored, so you need to take care about partition 1 (and maybe 3) yourself.

[yash123]

thanks a lot Torsten for sharing the knoweldge...

I believe it is better to mirror partition 1 and 3. What's your opnion?
How to mirror part 1 & 3? is it possible through lvm mirror.

[Viktor Balogh]

> How to mirror part 1 & 3? is it possible through lvm mirror.

No, these are not under LVM control. To mirror these partitions, you can use dd like this:

# dd if=/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s1 of=/dev/dsk/c1t0d0s1
# dd if=/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s3 of=/dev/dsk/c1t0d0s3

This will create a verbatim copy of these partitions to your second disk.

[P Arumugavel]

Hi,

No need to copy the EFI partion to mirror disk. You copy only the contents of the HPSP partition; that also if the diagnostics have been installed to the original system disk. To see if the diagnostics are installed on the original boot disk; use

# /usr/sbin/efi_ls -d /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s3

If present, copy them with the Viktor Balogh's command.

Note: dd command may fail to copy the HPSP partition if the sizes of both primary HPSP and alternate HPSP partitions are not the same. If dd command fails with I/O error, then the alternate way is to copy them to HPSP partition from Offline Diagnostics and Utilities CD-ROM.

Rgds...

[P Arumugavel]

Use the following commands to find the size of EFI, HPUX & HPSP partions on original disk.

EFI:
#/usr/sbin/diskinfo -b /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s1 | awk '{print $1 / (1024)}'

HPUX:
#usr/sbin/diskinfo -b /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s2 | awk '{print $1 / (1024)}'

HPSP:
#usr/sbin/diskinfo -b /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s3 | awk '{print $1 / (1024)}'

Each will give you the value in MB

Rgds...

[Torsten.]

Only a hardware mirror can mirror partition 1 and 3 - LVM cannot.


But there is not really a need to do this.

If the mirroring procedure is correctly done, both disks are bootable.

Just make sure the second disk is listed in

/stand/bootconf

because if a patch is updating the OS loader it will update both disks then.



Don't worry about partition 3 - if you ever need a **current** tool, you need the current CD anyway.