vxdisk list showing devices no longer present

[N Ward]

Server was moved and I believe this caused the problem.

When recabled to an EVA, the device names have changed. The volume groups have started fine though, including the LVM ones.

However vxdisk list shows disknames that no longer exist, although the device path is there.

diskinfo shows no such disk exists. If I do vxdisk list it shows the correct Volume Group and shows 2 alternate paths which are both valid, but the disk itself is not valid. How do I correct this?

[Torsten.]

It's not really clear to me what was done.


Different cabling = different device files, no doubt.



Are all the disks used by LVM?

Did you vgexport/vgimport?



And BTW, 1 disk and 2 alternate paths sounds like 1 path is missing ...

[Terry.giblin]

Dear Ward,

The final part of any successful migration.

Is the house keeping.

"However vxdisk list shows disknames that no longer exist, although the device path is there."

You should know what to do now.

Remove the special files and directors.

Kind Regards,

Terry Giblin

[N Ward]

The server was only moved, there are no new cables, just the same ones replugged into the same ports. Nothing has changed in that regard. On that basis I don't think a vgexport import is required. It was just shutdown, moved powered up. There is a mix of LVM and VxVM.

Terry, the missing disks are the ones that are displayed with vxdisk list. So, can I just remove the special files and directories relating to these without affecting VxVM? The correct disks only show when you issue vxdisk list and they show then as the alternate paths.

[Alzhy]

vxdisk means you are using VxVM.

VxVM is agnostic to device name changes - which means as long as all the component disks of each disk is present, then VxVM will discover them.

If vxdisk lists show "devices" that are no longer present and ALL your LVM and VXVM VGs and DGs are present -- then you can just ignore them or if they annoy you - you can remove them...

Can you quickly shoot us a "vxprint -Aht" and "vxdisk list"?

[N Ward]

Thanks for your response, given the nature of the system, getting data off is not very easy and requires alot of authorisation. However, the vxdisk list you can take for granted displays the missing devices and only when querying these do you see the correct devices in the alternate paths.

I am concerned that this is a cluster and that not resolving the problem could result in an issue during failover.

Also, if I'm able to just remove the erroneous file references in /dev as has been suggested, will this affect a running environment especially as vxdisk list shows these as the primary (if you like) devices.

[Alzhy]

If you are NOT VxVM Literate, then do NOTHING and engage a Literate VxVM person.

If you think we can HELP...

Shoot as the output requested above.


Cluster or No CLuster, VxVM t'shooting scripts are practically the same -- specially when addressing "dm" disks.