In Certain Conditions, a Guest Domain's SVM Configuration or Metadevices Can Be Lost

If a service domain is running a version of Solaris 10 OS prior to Solaris 10 5/09 and is exporting a physical disk slice as a virtual disk to a guest domain, then this virtual disk will appear in the guest domain with an inappropriate device ID. If that service domain is then upgraded to Solaris 10 5/09, the physical disk slice exported as a virtual disk will appear in the guest domain with no device ID.

This removal of the device ID of the virtual disk can cause problems to applications attempting to reference the device ID of virtual disks. In particular, this can cause the Solaris Volume Manager (SVM) to be unable to find its configuration or to access its metadevices.

Workaround: After upgrading a service domain to Solaris 10 5/09, if a guest domain is unable to find its SVM configuration or its metadevices, execute the following procedure.

Find a Guest Domain's SVM Configuration or Metadevices

1. Boot the guest domain.

2. Disable the devid feature of SVM by adding the following lines to the /kernel/dr/md.conf file:

   md_devid_destroy=1; md_keep_repl_state=1;

3. Reboot the guest domain.

   After the domain has booted, the SVM configuration and metadevices should be available.

4. Check the SVM configuration and ensure that it is correct.

5. Re-enable the SVM devid feature by removing from the /kernel/drv/md.conf file the two lines that you added in Step 2.

6. Reboot the guest domain.

   During the reboot, you will see messages similar to this:

   NOTICE: mddb: unable to get devid for 'vdc', 0x10

   These messages are normal and do not report any problems.