Dynamic Volume Expansion of Shadow Set

[C.J. Sheppard]

I have been attempting to follow directions for the dynamic volume expansion for an individual disk on a system shadow set of disks with no success. Is there any way to expand a system disk without performing a stand alone backup and restore? If needed, does anyone know if the init/limit for init/size commands are available in SDA mode? Thanks

[comarow]

You will need to mount it privately. That's usually the key.

$set volu/size I think.
You can set volume/size=big_number
if you prefer.

[Hoff]

Depending on the particular OpenVMS version involved, there can be a bug involving the distro and enabling Dynamic Volume Expansion (DVE) here.

If this is the OpenVMS Alpha (circa) V7.3-2 bug involving the distro CD and the SET VOLUME/LIMIT command returning the following errors:

%SET-E-NOTSET, error modifying ddcu:
-SYSTEM-W-DEVNOTALLOC, device not allocated

Then the usual approach is to use the OpenVMS V8.2 or later distro, to enable the feature. Or you can use a second system disk for the task. Or you can re-spin the distro onto a new disk, with the requisite ECO applied onto your own customized distro.

Once you have the DVE flag enabled, there is a second related bug here involving restoring the limit attributes after a BACKUP/IMAGE restoration; you have to reset the attributes on the restored disk. There's a BACKUP ECO kit for that on V7.3-2. This is fixed in newer OpenVMS versions, so the distro CD from, say, V8.3 can be used.

There's a third DVE-related bug involving ANALYZE/DISK when a limit was specified. VERIFY gets cranky about a few things, and incorrectly. There's an VERIFY ECO kit for that for V7.3-2. Again, the V8.3 distro can be used.

If I've guessed incorrectly here, please post related commands, error messages, or details. With that information, I or others here might well be able to better target your question.

Stephen Hoffman
HoffmanLabs

[Robert Brooks_1]

If needed, does anyone know if the init/limit for init/size commands are available in SDA mode? Thanks

--

What do you mean by "SDA MODE"?

-- Rob

[Volker Halle]

C.J.,

if the Expansion Size Limit has already been increased (SHOW DEV/FULL will tell) and the disk has been pyhsically increased already, you can easily use the SET VOL/SIZE command in the running system - you do NOT need to mount the disk privately for that operation.

If you need to increase the Expansion Size Limit with the SET VOL/LIMIT command - Hoff said it all...

You can LOOK at the disk size and volume size parameters with SDA, but you can't change them that way:

$ ANAL/SYS
SDA> SHOW DEV Dxxx
SDA> READ SYSDEF
SDA> EXA UCB+UCB$L_MAXBLOCK
SDA> EXA VCB+VCB$L_VOLSIZE
SDA> EXA VCB+VCB$L_EXPSIZE
SDA> EXIT

Volker.

[C.J. Sheppard]

My mistake, I did not mean to write SDA mode, I was wondering if a stand-alone booted system would have the init/limit commands available?

[Ian Miller.]

when booted from a VMS installation CD then all commands are available.

[Mike Kier]

>when booted from a VMS installation CD then all commands are available.

Can you Mount/Shadow from the installation CD to do a Set Volume /Limit for the shadowed system disk? (no license db available at that point, I think)

[C.J. Sheppard]

Thanks for all your input.