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System Administration Guide: Devices and File Systems Oracle Solaris 11 Express 11/10 |
1. Managing Removable Media (Overview)
2. Managing Removable Media (Tasks)
3. Accessing Removable Media (Tasks)
4. Writing CDs and DVDs (Tasks)
5. Managing Devices (Overview/Tasks)
6. Dynamically Configuring Devices (Tasks)
7. Using USB Devices (Overview)
9. Using InfiniBand Devices (Overview/Tasks)
11. Administering Disks (Tasks)
12. SPARC: Adding a Disk (Tasks)
13. x86: Adding a Disk (Tasks)
14. Configuring iSCSI Storage Devices With COMSTAR
15. Configuring and Managing the Solaris Internet Storage Name Service (iSNS)
17. The format Utility (Reference)
Recommendations and Requirements for Using the format Utility
format Menu and Command Descriptions
Rules for Input to format Commands
Specifying Numbers to format Commands
Specifying Block Numbers to format Commands
Specifying format Command Names
Specifying Disk Names to format Commands
Getting Help on the format Utility
18. Managing File Systems (Overview)
19. Creating ZFS, UFS, TMPFS, and LOFS File Systems (Tasks)
20. Mounting and Unmounting File Systems (Tasks)
21. Configuring Additional Swap Space (Tasks)
22. Copying Files and File Systems (Tasks)
The format.dat file that is shipped with the Oracle Solaris OS supports many standard disks. If your disk drive is not listed in the format.dat file, you can do the following:
Add an entry to the format.dat file for the disk.
Add entries with the format utility by selecting the type command and choosing the other option.
Adding an entry to the format.dat file can save time if the disk drive will be used throughout your site. To use the format.dat file on other systems, copy the file to each system that will use the specific disk drive that you added to the format.dat file.
You might need to modify the /etc/format.dat file for your system if you have one of the following:
A disk that is not supported by the Oracle Solaris OS
A disk with a partition table that is different from the Oracle Solaris OS's default configuration
Note - Do not alter default entries in the /etc/format.dat file. If you want to alter the default entries, copy the entry, give the entry a different name, and make the appropriate changes to avoid confusion.
The /etc/format.dat is not applicable for disks with EFI labels.
The format.dat contains disk drive information that is used by the format utility. Three items are defined in the format.dat file:
Search paths
Disk types
Slice tables
The following syntax rules apply to the /etc/format.dat file:
The pound sign (#) is the comment character. Any text on a line after a pound sign is not interpreted by the format utility.
Each definition in the format.dat file appears on a single logical line. If the definition is longer than one line long, all lines but the last line of the definition must end with a backslash (\).
A definition consists of a series of assignments that have an identifier on the left side and one or more values on the right side. The assignment operator is the equal sign (=). The assignments within a definition must be separated by a colon (:).
White space is ignored by the format utility. If you want an assigned value to contain white space, enclose the entire value in double quotation marks ("). This syntax causes the white space within the quotes to be preserved as part of the assignment value.
Some assignments can have multiple values on the right side. Separate values by a comma.
The format.dat file contains disk definitions that are read by the format utility when it is started. Each definition starts with one of the following keywords: disk_type or partition. These keywords are described in the following table.
Table 17-6 Keyword Descriptions for the format.dat File
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The disk_type keyword in the format.dat file defines the controller and disk model. Each disk_type definition contains information about the physical geometry of the disk. The default format.dat file contains definitions for the controllers and disks that the Oracle Solaris OS supports. You need to add a new disk_type only if you have an unsupported disk. You can add as many disk_type definitions to the data file as you want.
The keyword itself is assigned the name of the disk type. This name appears in the disk's label, and is used to identify the disk type whenever the format utility is run. Enclose the name in double quotation marks to preserve any white space in the name. The following table describes the identifiers that must also be assigned values in all disk_type definitions.
Table 17-7 Required disk_type Identifiers (format.dat)
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Other identifiers might be necessary, depending on the controller. The following table describes the identifiers that are required for SCSI controllers.
Table 17-8 Required disk_type Identifiers for SCSI Controllers format.dat
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Example 17-1 Required disk_type Identifiers for SCSI Controllers (format.dat)
The following are examples of disk_type definitions:
disk_type = "SUN1.3G" \ : ctlr = SCSI : fmt_time = 4 \ : trks_zone = 17 : asect = 6 : atrks = 17 \ : ncyl = 1965 : acyl = 2 : pcyl = 3500 : nhead = 17 : nsect = 80 \ : rpm = 5400 : bpt = 44823 disk_type = "SUN2.1G" \ : ctlr = SCSI : fmt_time = 4 \ : ncyl = 2733 : acyl = 2 : pcyl = 3500 : nhead = 19 : nsect = 80 \ : rpm = 5400 : bpt = 44823 disk_type = "SUN2.9G" \ : ctlr = SCSI : fmt_time = 4 \ : ncyl = 2734 : acyl = 2 : pcyl = 3500 : nhead = 21 : nsect = 99 \ : rpm = 5400
A partition table in the format.dat file defines a slice table for a specific disk type.
The partition keyword in the format.dat file is assigned the name of the partition table. Enclose the name in double quotation marks to preserve any white space in the name. The following table describes the identifiers that must be assigned values in all partition tables.
Table 17-9 Required Identifiers for Partition Tables (format.dat)
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The other identifiers in a slice definition describe the actual partition information. The identifiers are the numbers 0 through 7. These identifiers are optional. Any partition that is not explicitly assigned is set to 0 length. The value of each of these identifiers is a pair of numbers separated by a comma. The first number is the starting cylinder for the partition. The second is the number of sectors in the slice.
Example 17-2 Required Identifiers for Partition Tables (format.dat)
The following are some examples of slice definitions:
partition = "SUN1.3G" \ : disk = "SUN1.3G" : ctlr = SCSI \ : 0 = 0, 34000 : 1 = 25, 133280 : 2 = 0, 2672400 : 6 = 123, 2505120 partition = "SUN2.1G" \ : disk = "SUN2.1G" : ctlr = SCSI \ : 0 = 0, 62320 : 1 = 41, 197600 : 2 = 0, 4154160 : 6 = 171, 3894240 partition = "SUN2.9G" \ : disk = "SUN2.9G" : ctlr = SCSI \ : 0 = 0, 195426 : 1 = 94, 390852 : 2 = 0, 5683986 : 6 = 282, 5097708
The format utility determines the location of an alternate file by the following methods in this order:
If a file name is given with the format -x option, that file is always used as the data file.
If the -x option is not specified, then the format utility searches the current directory for a file named format.dat. If the file exists, it is used as the data file.
If neither of these methods yields a data file, the format utility uses the /etc/format.dat file as the data file. This file is shipped with the Oracle Solaris OS and should always be present.