1. Getting Started With Solaris Volume Manager
2. Storage Management Concepts
3. Solaris Volume Manager Overview
4. Solaris Volume Manager for Sun Cluster (Overview)
5. Configuring and Using Solaris Volume Manager (Scenario)
8. RAID-0 (Stripe and Concatenation) Volumes (Overview)
9. RAID-0 (Stripe and Concatenation) Volumes (Tasks)
10. RAID-1 (Mirror) Volumes (Overview)
11. RAID-1 (Mirror) Volumes (Tasks)
12. Soft Partitions (Overview)
16. Hot Spare Pools (Overview)
20. Maintaining Solaris Volume Manager (Tasks)
21. Best Practices for Solaris Volume Manager
22. Top-Down Volume Creation (Overview)
23. Top-Down Volume Creation (Tasks)
Top-Down Volume Creation (Task Map)
Prerequisites for Top-Down Volume Creation
Creating Volumes Automatically
Analyzing Volume Creation by Specifying Output Verbosity
How to Create RAID-1 (mirror) Volumes Using the metassist Command
Working With File-Based Data Using the metassist Command
Creating a Command File (Shell Script) Using the metassist Command
How to Create a Command File (Shell Script) Using the metassist Command
Creating a Volume With a Saved Shell Script Created by the metassist Command
How to Execute a Saved metassist Command Shell Script
Creating a Volume Configuration File With the metassist Command
How to Create a Volume Configuration File Using the metassist Command
Changing the Default Behavior of the metassist Command
Changing the Volume Defaults File
24. Monitoring and Error Reporting (Tasks)
25. Troubleshooting Solaris Volume Manager (Tasks)
A. Important Solaris Volume Manager Files
B. Solaris Volume Manager Quick Reference
The metassist command enables you to create Solaris Volume Manager volumes, as well as sets of volumes, based on quality-of-service criteria. The metassist command creates volumes for you with one command, rather than the series of commands that Solaris Volume Manager traditionally requires to create volumes.
You can use the metassist command to create RAID-1 (mirror) volumes directly. Thus, you do not have to first create the submirrors (concatenations or stripes) that are used as components of the RAID-1 (mirror) volume.
When you run the metassist command, you can specify the level of verbose output. More verbose output can help diagnose problems, such as determining why disks were or were not selected for use in a volume, or to determine why a specific attempted command failed. Less verbose output can reduce the amount of extraneous information that you must review.
When you specify output verbosity, you can learn what the metassist command does and how it makes its decisions. This information is useful for troubleshooting some of the following:
Why a volume was created in a certain way
Why a volume was not created
What volumes the metassist command would create, without actually creating the volumes
Check Prerequisites for Top-Down Volume Creation.
If you do not explicitly specify storage, Solaris Volume Manager identifies unused storage on the system and uses it, as appropriate. If you choose to specify storage, either broadly (for example, all storage on controller 1) or specifically (for example, use c1t4d2, but do not use c1t4d1), Solaris Volume Manager uses the storage you specify.
To create volumes from the command line, use the following form of the metassist command.
# metassist create -s diskset-name -f -r redundancy -a device1, device2... -S size -v verbosity
Is the subcommand used to create volumes.
Specifies the name of the disk set to use for the volume.
Specifies that the volume be associated with a hot spare.
Specifies the level of redundancy (number of data copies) to create.
Specifies the devices that are available for creating the volume.
Specifies the size of the volume to create in KB, MB, GB, or TB, for kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, and terabytes, respectively.
Specifies how verbose the output should be. Allowable values range from 0 (nearly silent output) to 2 (significant output). The default level is 1 (moderate output).
To create volumes using an input file to specify volume characteristics, use one of the following forms of the metassist command.
# metassist create [-v n] [-c] -F config_file # metassist create [-v n] [-c | -d] -F request_file
Specifies to output the command script that would implement the specified or generated volume configuration. The command script is not run, and processing stops at this stage.
Specifies to output the volume configuration that satisfies the specified or generated volume request. No command script is generated or executed, and processing stops at this stage.
Specifies the volume request or volume configuration file to process. If config_file or request_file is specified as a dash (-), it is read from standard input. The -d option cannot be specified when input file is a volume configuration file.
A volume configuration file describes detailed configurations of the volumes to be created, while a volume request file provides characteristics for the volumes to be produced. For more information, see volume-config(4)volume-config(4) and volume-request(4) man pages.
Specifies how verbose the output should be. Allowable values range from 0 (nearly silent output) to 2 (significant output). The default level is 1 (moderate output).
See the following examples and the metassist(1M) man page for more information.
# metastat -s diskset-name
Example 23-1 Creating a Two-Way Mirror Using the metassist Command
The following example shows how to create a two-way mirror, 10 Mbytes in size. The metassist command identifies unused disks and creates the best mirror possible using those disks. The -s myset argument specifies that the volumes will be created in the myset disk set. The disk set is created, if necessary.
# metassist create -s myset -r 2 -S 10mb
Example 23-2 Creating a Two-Way Mirror and Hot Spare Using the metassist Command
The following example shows how to use the metassist command to create a two-way mirror, 10 Mbytes in size, with a hot spare to provide additional fault tolerance. The -f option specifies the fault tolerance.
# metassist create -s myset -f -r 2 -S 10mb
Example 23-3 Creating a Stripe With a Specific Controller Using the metassist Command
The following example shows how to use the metassist command to create a stripe using disks available on controller 1. The -a option specifies the available controller.
# metassist create -s myset -a c1 -S 10mb
Example 23-4 Specifying Output Verbosity From the metassist Command
The following example shows how to use the metassist command to create a two-way mirror, 10 Mbytes in size, with a hot spare to provide additional fault tolerance. The -f option specifies fault tolerance. The final argument (-v 2) specifies a verbosity level of two, which is the maximum level and will provide the most information possible about how the metassist command worked.
# metassist create -s myset -f -r 2 -S 10mb -v 2 Scanning system physical device configuration... These HBA/Controllers are known:. c0 /pci@1f,0/pci@1,1/ide@3 c1 /pci@1f,0/pci@1/pci@2/SUNW,isptwo@4 These disks are known: c0t0d0 id1,dad@AST34342A=____________VGD97101 c1t1d0 id1,sd@SSEAGATE_ST39204LCSUN9.0G3BV0L88P000021097XNL c1t2d0 id1,sd@SSEAGATE_ST39102LCSUN9.0GLJW22867000019171JDF c1t3d0 id1,sd@SSEAGATE_ST39204LCSUN9.0G3BV0L7RV00007108TG0H c1t4d0 id1,sd@SSEAGATE_ST39204LCSUN9.0G3BV0LDFR000021087R1T c1t5d0 id1,sd@SSEAGATE_ST39204LCSUN9.0G3BV0L0M200002109812L c1t6d0 id1,sd@SSEAGATE_ST39204LCSUN9.0G3BV0L8K8000021087R0Z . . . (output truncated)
The following example shows how to use the metassist command to create a two-way mirror, 10 Mbytes in size, with a hot spare to provide additional fault tolerance. The -f option specifies fault tolerance. The final argument (-v 0) specifies a verbosity level of zero, which is the minimum level and will provide nearly silent output when the command runs.
# metassist create -s myset -f -r 2 -S 10mb -v 0 myset/hsp000: Hotspare pool is setup myset/hsp000: Hotspare is added myset/d2: Concat/Stripe is setup myset/d1: Concat/Stripe is setup myset/d0: Mirror is setup myset/d0: submirror myset/d1 is attached
Example 23-5 Creating a Volume Using an Input File
The following example shows how to use the metassist command to create a volume using an input file.
# metassist create -F request.xml
For more information on using input files with the metassist command, see Working With File-Based Data Using the metassist Command.