vgimport failing

[KPS]

Hoping someone can help on this problem that we're having.

We're trying to vgimport a mapfile from a source Volume Group to another server. The VG is made up of 60 devices. We're getting the following message when doing so:

"vgimport: The Physical Volumes specified on the command line do not belong to the same Volume Group."

We have checked all c#t#d#'s and they seem to be accurate on the target host. Can anyone shed any additional light on why we might be getting this error because I'm out of ideas on what else to check???

Thanks in advance,

KPS

[Rita C Workman]

Do mean the c-t-d- #'s are the same as the source host?
>>> I ask this because they may be different on the target host.

Are you using the -f option as part of the vgimport process, thus including the /dev/dsk/c-t-d- info?
>> Generally on vgimports you do NOT include the c-t-d- numbers, UNLESS you are setting up for BCV (extra split off mirror disk) disks to a separate host.

Are you absolutely positively sure these disks (all of them) are mapped and masked to the target host?

Just a thought,
Rita

[Ramesh S · Accepted solution]

Hi KPS

Since you have map file for the exported VG, you could try the following command:

# vgimport -v -m

[Tim Nelson]

"vgimport: The Physical Volumes specified on the command line do not belong to the same Volume Group."

The error is stating that the devices you supplied with the command are from different volume groups.

i.e.
/dev/dsk/c1t0d0 vg01
/dev/dsk/c2t0d0 vg02

If you are unsure of what disk belongs to what you can do a vgscan in preview mode to help isolate.

Otherwise you re-confirm that the disks you are specifying are the right ones.

I believe that you MUST provide the disk list to the vgimport command, else how is it going to know which ones to take action on ?

[Rita C Workman]

By the vgid that becomes associated to the disk when you run vgcreate or vgextend.

That is how you can run vgimport without providing a full list of all the c-t-d-, except as I mentioned, in the case of a split mirror.

Take a look:

echo "0x2008?4D" | adb /dev/dsk/c-t-d-

Do this to a disk that you know is part of that volume group and look at the last column on the right - that's the VGID.

KPS, you can check one of the disks that is having a problem, and see if there is a difference in the VGID. That might help you.

Rgrds,
Rita

[KPS]

Hi folks,

Thanks for all the information. We were not vgexporting and vgimporting with the -s option. Once we added that flag all worked great. It seems that it was an order or sequence situation that was causing the issue and that the -s discards that and takes care of it for you...

Thanks very much...

/KPS