Strange VxFS layout version

[Swalens Eric]

Running fstyp -v on a VxFS device (under HP-UX 11i) prints two times the error "cannot open /dev/vg00/lvol5: invalid argument" and the "version" number reported is 2^32-1. Other volumes on the system are fine and report a version 4 layout number.

Does someone know what could give such an error?

Thanks.

[Dietmar Konermann]

You should check at first if the lvol can be generally opend/read by other tools... try reading from it using dd(1) e.g. Maybe you hit a completely different, LVM-related problem...

Regards...
Dietmar.

[Swalens Eric]

The volume is mounted on /home and seems to work fine.

[Dietmar Konermann]

That does not answer the question... :)

You could e.g. mount an lvol and then garble the device special file. The next open() would fail, BUT the lvol would be still mounted and accessible.

So, does the dd work?

Sorry for insisting on this...
Dietmar.

[Swalens Eric]

I see what you mean. I dump 1Mb from the beginning of the volume without any error...

Thanks you for insisting. ;)

[Dietmar Konermann]

Hi!

Sorry, I missed some important info in your initial post... you actuall _get_ some results from fstyp, but only bogus ones.

This really looks like the problem reported as JAGad24643 which is fixed with 11.22. It usually happens after extending or upgrading the FS.

At this point in time no official 11.11 patch is avialable. You should contact your local RC if needed.

Regards...
Dietmar.

[Swalens Eric]

Thank you very much for your help.

Where can I find more information about JAGad24643? Is there a description of the bug and its consequences available online?

Eric

[Dietmar Konermann]

Hi!

Sorry, there is currently only internal documentation about this. Root cause is a missing buffer initialization before usage.

Hint: the latest fstyp patch for 11.00 should include the fix. So you could take PHCO_27567 and fetch the /sbin/fstyp binary from there. Works fine on 11.11 also... of course this would only be an unsupported workaround until an 11.11 patch is released.


Regards...
Dietmar.

[Swalens Eric]

OK.
Thanks for your help.

Eric