what does "@[D?s5" means in /etc/lvmtab ?

[praveen..]

Hi,
can anybody tell me what does it "@[D?s5
" means in /etc/lavtab?

#strings /etc/lvmtab
:::
:::
/dev/vg04
@[D?s5
/dev/dsk/c30t1d1
/dev/dsk/c31t1d1
/dev/dsk/c32t1d1
/dev/dsk/c33t1d1
/dev/dsk/c30t1d2
/dev/dsk/c31t1d2
/dev/dsk/c32t1d2
/dev/dsk/c33t1d2
/dev/vg05
@[D?
/dev/dsk/c30t2d0
/dev/dsk/c31t2d0
/dev/dsk/c32t2d0
/dev/dsk/c33t2d0
/dev/dsk/c30t2d1
/dev/dsk/c31t2d1
/dev/dsk/c32t2d1
/dev/dsk/c33t2d1

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Praven:

Characters like this are reported by 'strings' as it attempts to compose graphic characters from groups of bits.

The '/etc/lvmtab' file is actually a binary file. Along with the device files associated with each volume group are the VGID (volume group ID) of the volume group.

There is nothing wrong here. The most information that you can get from listing '/etc/lvmtab' with 'strnigs' is the name of each volume group followed by the physical disk device files associated with it, just as you have posted

Regards!

...JRF...

[Kent Ostby]

It is "strings" best guess at some binary data in /etc/lvmtab and is completely meaningless (as far as you worrying about it).

[Bill Hassell]

The lvmtab file is not an ASCII file. It is a binary table with special numbers corresponding to LVM structures. However, it does have the pathname of each physical disk currently activated for LVM use and the pathname is terminated with a NUL which makes it look like an ASCII string. If you list the file using xd as in:

xd -xc /etc/lvmtab

you'll all the complex data structures along with the pathnames. So by using the strings command (which searches for characters that look like a string), you can quickly scan the lvmtab file ofor physcial volumes.

The lvmtab was not designed to be scanned like this, it is just a simple workaround to look inside a binary table. This is exactly the same technique used to scan an executable file to find some ASCII strings when the original source code is not available.