SPARC: How to Create and Register a Disk Group

Use this procedure to create your VxVM disk groups and volumes.

After a disk group is registered with the cluster as a disk device group, you should never import or deport a VxVM disk group by using VxVM commands. The Sun Cluster software can handle all cases where disk groups need to be imported or deported. See Administering Disk Device Groups in Sun Cluster System Administration Guide for Solaris OS for procedures about how to manage Sun Cluster disk device groups.

Perform this procedure from a node that is physically connected to the disks that make the disk group that you add.

Before You Begin

Perform the following tasks:

• Make mappings of your storage disk drives. See the appropriate manual in the Sun Cluster Hardware Administration Collection to perform an initial installation of your storage device.

• Complete the following configuration planning worksheets.

  • Local File System Layout Worksheet

  • Disk Device Group Configurations Worksheet

  • Volume-Manager Configurations Worksheet

  See Planning Volume Management for planning guidelines.

• If you did not create root disk groups, ensure that you have rebooted each node on which you installed VxVM, as instructed in Step 13 of SPARC: How to Install VERITAS Volume Manager Software.

Steps

1. Become superuser on the node that will own the disk group.

2. Create a VxVM disk group and volume.

   If you are installing Oracle Real Application Clusters, create shared VxVM disk groups by using the cluster feature of VxVM as described in the VERITAS Volume Manager Administrator's Reference Guide. Otherwise, create VxVM disk groups by using the standard procedures that are documented in the VxVM documentation.

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   Note –

   You can use Dirty Region Logging (DRL) to decrease volume recovery time if a node failure occurs. However, DRL might decrease I/O throughput.

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3. If the VxVM cluster feature is not enabled, register the disk group as a Sun Cluster disk device group.

   If the VxVM cluster feature is enabled, do not register a shared disk group as a Sun Cluster disk device group. Instead, go to SPARC: How to Verify the Disk Group Configuration.

   1. Start the scsetup(1M) utility.

      # scsetup

   2. Choose the menu item, Device groups and volumes.

   3. Choose the menu item, Register a VxVM disk group.

   4. Follow the instructions to specify the VxVM disk group that you want to register as a Sun Cluster disk device group.

   5. When finished, quit the scsetup utility.

   6. Verify that the disk device group is registered.

      Look for the disk device information for the new disk that is displayed by the following command.

      # scstat -D

Next Steps

Go to SPARC: How to Verify the Disk Group Configuration.

Troubleshooting

Failure to register the device group – If when you attempt to register the disk device group you encounter the error message scconf: Failed to add device group - in use, reminor the disk device group. Use the procedure SPARC: How to Assign a New Minor Number to a Disk Device Group. This procedure enables you to assign a new minor number that does not conflict with a minor number that is used by existing disk device groups.

Stack overflow – If a stack overflows when the disk device group is brought online, the default value of the thread stack size might be insufficient. On each node, add the entry set cl_comm:rm_thread_stacksize=0xsize to the /etc/system file, where size is a number greater than 8000, which is the default setting.

Configuration changes – If you change any configuration information for a VxVM disk group or volume, you must register the configuration changes by using the scsetup utility. Configuration changes you must register include adding or removing volumes and changing the group, owner, or permissions of existing volumes. See Administering Disk Device Groups in Sun Cluster System Administration Guide for Solaris OS for procedures to register configuration changes to a disk device group.