rx2660 = Hp-ux 11i v3 Unable to create volume group

[Akif_1]

Hi,

I installed HP-UX 11i v3 , but iam unable to create volume group with mount point.

HDD available is c0t0d0:

Steps are:
pvcreate /dev/vg0 .........successfully created
mkdir /dev/vg00
mknod /dev/vg0/group c 64 0x030000
vgcreate /dev/vg0 /dev/dsk/c0t0d0

Iam unable to vgcreate successfully on hp-ux 11i v3.

Any one help will be appreciated..........

[Ivan Krastev]

Can you post the output from
# diskinfo /dev/dsk/c0d0t0

Usually this is DVD rom.

Check also disk drives:
#ioscan -fnC dick

regards,
ivan

[Deepak Kr]

Agree with Ivan,

Akif,

Please post following output


ioscan -fnkC disk |grep "DVD"

lssf /dev/dsk/c0t0d0


regds
Deepak

[Torsten.]

With 11.23 on this server model the device c0t0d0 is most likely the DVD, but on 11.31 this is not possible, because the drive is USB and the device file is totally different.

What error message you get from "vgcreate"?

[Akif_1]

Hi,

Iam unable to send you the ioscan output , But the suconfig utility clear pints the logical volume is c0t0d0.

The error is #vgcreate not done use maxextents 65352 etc.

Another question is how can i make SPARE DISK available into single group ..... for example three disk up and running i wanted to add this two SPARE disks to up & running system which makes my server total of 5disks.


******************************************************************************
**** ****
**** S A U T I L S u p p o r t U t i l i t y ****
**** ****
**** for the HP SmartArray RAID Controller Family ****
**** ****
**** version A.02.12 ****
**** ****
**** (C) Copyright 2003-2007 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. ****
******************************************************************************



---- DRIVER INFORMATION ------------------------------------------------------

Driver State........................ READY

---- CONTROLLER INFORMATION --------------------------------------------------

Controller Product Number........... P400
Controller Product Name............. HP PCIe SmartArray P400
Hardware Path....................... 0/3/0/0/0/0
Serial Number....................... P61620K9SW11OG
Device File......................... /dev/ciss0
Hardware Revision................... 'D'
Boot Block Revision................. 0.02
Firmware Revision (running)......... 4.12
Firmware Revision (in ROM).......... 4.12
Firmware Revision (inactive)........ 4.12
# of Logical Drives................. 1
# of Physical Disks Configured...... 3
# of Physical Disks Detected........ 5
Logical Drive Rebuild Priority...... 0 (low)
Array Capacity Expansion Priority... 0 (low)
Auto-Fail Missing Disks at Boot..... disabled
SCSI Transfer Detection Mode........ Auto Detect


---- ARRAY ACCELERATOR (CACHE) INFORMATION -----------------------------------

Array Accelerator Board Present?.... yes
Cache Configuration Status.......... cache enabled
Cache Ratio......................... 25% Read / 75% Write
Total Cache Size (MB)............... 208
Read Cache........................ 052
Write Cache....................... 156
Transfer Buffer................... 000
Battery Pack Count.................. 1
Battery Status (pack #1)............ ok


---- LOGICAL DRIVE SUMMARY ---------------------------------------------------

# RAID Size Status

0 5 279960 MB OK


---- SAS/SATA DEVICE SUMMARY -------------------------------------------------

Location Ct Enc Bay WWID Type Capacity Status

internal 1I 1 8 0x5000c5000b339fc9 DISK 146.8 GB OK
internal 1I 1 7 0x5000c5000b347541 DISK 146.8 GB OK
internal 1I 1 6 0x5000c5000b340d59 DISK 146.8 GB OK
internal 1I 1 5 0x5000c5000ad4eca1 DISK 146.8 GB SPARE
internal 2I 1 4 0x5000c5000b336bb1 DISK 146.8 GB SPARE


---- SAS/SATA ENCLOSURE SUMMARY ----------------------------------------------

Location Ct Enc Expander_count Bay_count SEP_count

internal 1I 1 0 4 1
internal 2I 1 0 4 1


---- LOGICAL DRIVE 0 ---------------------------------------------------------

Logical Drive Device File........... c0t0d0
Fault Tolerance Mode................ RAID 5 (Distributed Data Guarding)
Logical Drive Size.................. 279960 MB
Logical Drive Status................ OK
# of Participating Physical Disks... 3

Participating Physical Disk(s)...... Ct:Enc:Bay:WWID
1I:1:8:0x5000c5000b339fc9
1I:1:7:0x5000c5000b347541
1I:1:6:0x5000c5000b340d59

Participating Spare Disk(s)......... Ct:Enc:Bay:WWID
none

Stripe Size......................... 64 KB
Logical Drive Cache Status.......... cache enabled
Configuration Signature............. 0xA86262D4
Media Exchange Detected?............ no

[Torsten.]

You probably need to increase the PE_size value in vgcreate, because the MAX_PE value is higher than allowed otherwise.

You currently have already 2 spare disks - IMHO too much, 1 would be enough.

[Akif_1]

Hi Tor...


How to increase MAX_PE value about SPARE disks IMHO too much , i didnt get you ..... please explain in brief.

Have a wonderful day:::::)

[Torsten.]

Your current design is IMHO not the best.

What do you want to do with a 280GB large logical drive? Creating vg00? This is overkill.
You have 2 spare disks, but none is assigned to the existing logical drive - maybe you used a wrong commend to configure?

[Akif_1]

Hi Tor,

This vg00 280GB configured under hardware RAID 5 which consist of 3 SAS disks.

UNASSIGNED disk changed to SPARE disks with the help of below command.

#saconfig /dev/ciss0 -A 0 -s

[Torsten.]

280 GB for vg00 is much too large.

[Akif_1]

Hi,

I need to create volume group to manipulate the huge disk space into volume groups.

But iam struck to create the volume groups , how can i MAX_.....etc

and how can i online SPARE disk into volume groups

[Rasheed Tamton]

Hi,

>mkdir /dev/vg00
>mknod /dev/vg0/group c 64 0x030000

You care creating vg00??? Is there typo!!

If you want to create a volume group which contains more than 280GB disk. Then you have to mainly consider the PE Size * Max PE calculation

280 GB = 280*1024 = 286720 MB

So, what I would do is to create a VG with 16MB or 32MB PE size and bigger value Max PE. If you use 65535*16, then you can have a vg of 1024GB.

Below is the commands to create a new VG:
pvcreate /dev/rdsk/cXtXdX
mkdir /dev/vgnew
mknod /dev/vgnew/ group c 64 0x0?0000 (replace the question mark with the next unused minor no.)
vgcreate -s 16 -e 65535 /dev/vgnew /dev/dsk/cXtXdX

Now the VG is created, then need to create the first lvol on the VG

lvcreate â L 16384 â n lvol1 /dev/vgnew (This will create a 16GB filesystem called lvol1 on the vgnew)

Create a file system on lvol1 on vgnew:
newfs -F vxfs -o largefiles /dev/vgnew/rlvol1
mkdir /newdir (a dir for mount point)
mount /dev/vgnew/lvol1 /newdir (mount the LV)

If you want to modify the existing vol group, then you have to use vgmodify command.

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01920387/c01920387.pdf (BSC link updated by admin)

[Torsten.]

I would really prefer to create a smaller logical drive, let's say around 30GB only.

see

http://docs.hp.com/en/J6369-90072/ch03s02.html#v1877293

...
saconfig /dev/ciss... -c 30

[Srimalik]

>pvcreate /dev/rdsk/cXtXdX
>mkdir /dev/vgnew
>mknod /dev/vgnew/ group c 64 0x0?0000 (replace the question mark with the next >unused minor no.)
>vgcreate -s 16 -e 65535 /dev/vgnew /dev/dsk/cXtXdX


Do you really need the second and third comand to create the directory and the nod group.

Won't they be made automatically?

I use to create a vg usign the following steps:

do a pvcreate and direct a vgcreate.

Never created the directory in dev manually.

[Torsten.]

>>Do you really need the second and third comand to create the directory and the nod group.


Yes, you need to:

http://docs.hp.com/en/B2355-60130/vgcreate.1M.html

unless you are running 11.31 0803 or later

"...
Automatic creation of the volume group directory and group file is available starting with the March 2008 release of HP-UX 11i v3. It is available for Version 1.0 and 2.0 volume groups...."

from
"LVM Version 2.0 Volume Groups in HP-UX 11i v3"

[Srimalik]

Thanks Torsten,

I was confused because I was using LVM2 on linux. Assumed that HP should behave in the same way.

On HPUX I use vxvm.

Thanks
Sri

[Michael Steele_2]

Hi Akif:

I don't think 280 GB is the max limit for a VG. This doc indicates 2 TB for a Log. Vol. is max.

http://docs.hp.com/en/6054/Limits_wp.pdf

MAX_PE is 65,000 plus some.
Max PE_SIZE is 256 MB. That over 4 TB. (* 65,000 * 256 *)

Try a PE_SIZE of 128. Note: PE_SIZE must be a factor of 2. Next one below 128 is 64 MB. I read of systems using 64 MB PE_SIZE but I don't and rarely to I read of one.

But really, you're really pushing the evelope here. Can't you split your disk array into multiple luns instead of one big fat raid 5 disk group?

Read up on the 'vgcreate' man page.

[Akif_1]

Hi,

Thanks for your valuable support to make my world tense free....... When ever i finished i will let u know sooon.....

Have a wonderful day to all :)

[Akif_1]

Hi,

I have have a default file system as follows :

# bdf
Filesystem kbytes used avail %used Mounted on
/dev/vg00/lvol3 1048576 308728 734104 30% /
/dev/vg00/lvol1 1835008 157656 1664344 9% /stand
/dev/vg00/lvol8 8912896 415736 8430960 5% /var
/dev/vg00/lvol7 4128768 2866128 1252864 70% /usr
/dev/vg00/lvol4 524288 21152 499216 4% /tmp
/dev/vg00/lvol6 7274496 4180840 3069520 58% /opt
/dev/vg00/lvol5 131072 5792 124312 4% /home


I would like to increase the /tmp to 2GB . Please help to solve this issue at the earliest.


Thanks a lot for your valuable suggestions as always. .....Have a good day

[Nyck_1]

Bring the server up into single user mode

lvextend -L 2000 /dev/vg00/lvol4
extendfs /dev/vg00/rlvol4