SUMMARY: LSM, General advice solicited on mirroring disks

From: Kevin Criss <Kevin_Criss_at_DWD-IS_at_ima.isd.state.in.us>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 11:04:52 -0500

     ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     [Overview]
     
     Our thanks to all who responed with a special thanks to the early responses
     received from Paribas which got the ball rolling for us. Attached you will
     find Ramesh Seshadri's write up on the steps we employed to install two
     disks having one disk mirror the other. I am also including an example of
     a general consensus type solution. Plus a few interesting point of
     information we received along the way. And of course at the very bottom
     you will find my original [Q] question.
     
     
     ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     [Thank You]
     
     I received responses from the following individuals.
     
     Trevor_PARRY_at_paribas.com Trevor Parry
     Lucien_HERCAUD_at_paribas.com Lucien HERCAUD
     Russ_Fish_at_idx.com Russ Fish
     digiunix_at_bellatlantic.net Larry Magnello
     "GSNA99::LAURENTIUS_S"_at_gsnr01.denet.abb.de Steffi Laurentius
     anthony.miller_at_vf.vodafone.co.uk Anthony Miller
     GGuethlein_at_GiantofMaryland.com George Guethlein
     Ramesh_Seshadri_at_dwd-is_at_ima.isd.state.in.us Ramesh Seshadri
     David_Beltz_at_dwd-is_at_ima.isd.state.in.us David Beltz
     
     
     ---------------------------------------------------------------------
     [Good will points of information]
     
     "Normally you would mirror across 2 different SCSI busses otherwise
     your performance may be reduced, and certainly you've lost the
     resilience if the SCSI controller or power supply fail."
     - Trevor Parry
     
     "I will say that mirroring rz10 to rz11 is NOT an optimal scenario,
     because both drives are on the same SCSI bus. If at all possible,
     you should get the mirror drive on a different shelf."
     - George Guethlein
     
     "On Digital Unix, you do not mirror disks directly rather you mirror
     the LSM volumes once they were created on the disks." LSM volumes
     are virtual disks.
     -Lucien HERCAUD
     
     I forgot to include in my original [Q] query we use the advanced file
     system. Eeeeek!
     - Kevin Criss
     
     
     ----------------------------------------------------------------------
     [SUMMARY] LSM, General advice solicited on mirroring disks
     
     1. Create new disk labels for the two new disks using the following
        commands.
     
        disklabel -t advfs -rw rz10 /dev/rrz10c
     
        By using rrz10c, we are indicating that the entire disk, which is
        normally the 'c' partition, is to be configured as advfs.
     
        disklabel -t advfs -rw rz11 /dev/rrz11c
     
     2. Create new disk volume by adding the two new disks to a new volume
        using the following command.
     
        voldiskadm
     
        Select the option 'Add or Initialize a Disk'. Enter the new disk
        as rz10 [not rrz10c]
        Enter the disk group as dwddg
        [new group gets automatically created]
     
        Execute the same steps for rz11 and enter the same group name, dwddg.
     
     3. Check for the newly created volume using the following command.
     
        volprint -ht A
     
     4. Observe the free space available in the two disks attached to the
        'dwddg' disk group by using the following command.
     
        voldg -g dwddg free
     
        Note down the least of the free space shown against the two disks.
        In our case, the free size should be the same as both of the disks
        are of identical sizes. (should be approx. 4 GB)
     
     5. Create a new volume and a mirror copy of one of the disks on the
        other using the following command.
     
        volassist -g dwddg make dwddg_vol1 <size as noted in 4 above>
        mirror=yes
     
        A new volume dwddg_vol1 gets created. We need not mention the disk
        names, rz10 and rz11 here as the volassist command automatically
        checks for the disks and its free sizes in the disk group, dwddg,
        and organizes the mirror. In our case, it is made easier as both the
        disks are of identical configuration.
     
     6. Create a file domain using the following command.
     
        mkfdmn /dev/vol/dwddg/dwddg_vol1 dwd_domain
     
     7. Create filesets and mount points for this domain. From this point,
        we will be referring to the domain names and not the LSM volume
        names.
     
     8. Save the LSM volume configuration using the following command.
     
        volsave
     
     Thanks - Ramesh
     
     
     ----------------------------------------------------------------------
     [General Consensus Solution] the George Guethlein variation
     
     1) disklabel -z rz10; disklabel -rw rz10 rzxx
     2) disklabel -z rz11; disklabel -rw rz11 rzxx
        ** 1 & 2 will zero out any label info on the drives and
        relabel them with the default info from the physical drive.
     3) voldisksetup -i rz10 privlen=1024 nconfig=2 nlogs=2
     4) voldisksetup -i rz11 privlen=1024 nconfig=2 nlogs=2
        ** 3 & 4 will initialize the physical drives in the LSM
        diskfarm, reserving 1024 blocks of 512 bytes for LSM configuration
        info space, and each LSM device media
        will contain 2 copies of the LSM configuration database and 2
        copies of the LSM configuration logs.
     5) voldg -g rootdg adddisk rz10=rz10
     6) voldg -g rootdg adddisk rz11=rz11
        ** 5 & 6 will add the "new" LSM devices into the specified
        LSM diskgroup ("rootdg" in my example).
     7) volassist -g rootdg make New_Vol Vol_Size rz10
        ** ie. volassist -g rootdg make new_vol 4000m rz10
        would make a 4GB LSM volume (new_vol) on rz10
     8) volassist -g rootdg mirror New_Vol rz11
        ** ie. volassist -g rootdg mirror new_vol rz11
        would create a amirror of new_vol on rz11
     9) At this point you can create a UFS or AdvFS filesystem
        on the LSM volume and mount it. I use AdvFS myself, as follows :
        mkfdmn /dev/vol/rootdg/new_vol new_dmn mkfset new_dmn new_fs
        mount -t advfs new_dmn#new_fs /tmp
     
     
     ----------------------------------------------------------------------
     [Q] LSM: General advice solicited on mirroring disks
     
     We are adding Two [2] RZ1CB-CA type disks that have 4.3 gigabytes of
     storage capacity each. These are new disks which have never been used
     and currently are not labeled.
     
     rz10 at scsi1 target 2 lun 0 (LID=3) RZ1CB-CA rz11 at scsi1 target 3
     lun 0 (LID=4) RZ1CB-CA
     
     We would like to use LSM command line directives to configure rz11 as
     a mirror of rz10.
     
     Any information that can be provided regarding this procedure would be
     appreciated.
     
     Thanks - Kevin
Received on Wed Nov 11 1998 - 16:08:16 NZDT

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