vgdisplay:/etc/lvmtab: No such file or directory

[Omar Alvi_1]

Hi,

Actually I was preparing for the HP-UX certification .... and I cam e across the following case

vgdisplay:/etc/lvmtab: No such file or directory
vgdisplay:No volume group could be read from /etc/lvmtab

Now what would cause such a problem to occur?

I was thinking it would be due to a corrupt or missing /etc/lvmtab. However, it is suggested that this occurs due to the system not having VxFS. The error comes because no vxfs means no volume groups.

I would really appreciate if someone could clarify this concept. Doesn't a system with only HFS also have volume groups and /etc/lvmtab ... what did the author intend?

thanks and regards,

-Alvi

[Robert-Jan Goossens]

No idear at all,

even with HFS you have to have a lvmtab, maybe he is talking about a complete Veritas volume manager instead of LVM.

Regards,
Robert-Jan

[Omar Alvi_1]

Thanks Robert,

So the real reason behind this error message is that the /etc/lvmtab is either corrupt or missing, right?

and I would restore sanity by executing vgchange -a?

Regards,

-Alvi

[Massimo Bianchi]

Hi,
depends from the supposed corruption.

Usually you have to recreate the lvmtab with the command vgscan, and after that re-activate the single vg to sync the data on the lvmtab with the data in the kernel structures.

Massimo
+

[Sunil Sharma_1]

Hi


This message directing towards missing or corrupt /etc/lvmtab.

If VxVm is fully implimented then you may be right. in general root disk i always keep under lVM contrl.

Sunil

[Kurt Beyers.]

Omar,

run a 'vgscan'. This will recreate the /etc/lvmtab file with the correct info.

# ll /etc/lvmtab
-r-------- 1 root sys 4176 Dec 12 07:43 /etc/lvmtab

Kurt

[Robert-Jan Goossens]

Hi Alvi,

Hard to give you an answer, most of the times the lvmtab gets corrupted because of disk problems or misused lvm commands(replace a disk without letting LVM know)

You will get all kind of errors when you use vgdisplay or lvdisplay commands.

The normal procedure for recreating the lvmtab is below.

# mv /etc/lvmtab /etc/lvmtab.old
# vgscan -av
# vgchange -a y /dev/vgXX

Regards,
Robert-Jan

[Kurt Beyers.]

Just recreated the lvmtab once at a server and the user rights are:

# ll /etc/lvmtab
-rw------- 1 root sys 4176 Dec 12 07:43 /etc/lvmtab

Kurt

[Elmar P. Kolkman]

You could also look at the bdf output to see what is mounted. If / and /stand are filesystems on /dev/vg00/... then you should have a lvmtab file and it is gone for some unknown reason. Re-create it with vgscan because you won't be able to do any LVM command untill the file exists again.

If / and /stand are not LVM lvols, but vxvm, you should not use the LVM commands but Veritas Volume Management commands to look at you logical volumes. Or use the GUI.

[Kevin Nikiforuk]

Hi

You cannot do vgdisplay on /etc/lvmtab, because lvmtab is not a Volume group.
you do strings -v /etc/lvmtab to see the
content of the file.

[Kent Ostby]

I wonder if you would get that error if you had a full vxfs file system but didn't have the driver in the current kernel ?

Looking at some internal databases, I see a few hits that basically say to rebuild /etc/lvmtab.

Best regards,

Kent M. Ostby

[MANOJ SRIVASTAVA]

Omar

LVM checks for the /etc/lvmtab file which has the volume group and physical disk inof where as veritas doesnt use this structe for the diskgroup management.


Manoj Srivastava