RAID Volume Name Requirements and Guidelines for Custom JumpStart and Solaris Live Upgrade

Observe the following rules when assigning names for volumes.

• Use a naming method that maps the slice number and disk number to volume numbers.

• Volume names must begin with the letter d followed by a number, for example, d0.

• Solaris Volume Manager has 128 default volume names from 0–127. The following list shows some example volume names.

  • Device /dev/md/dsk/d0 – block volume d0

  • Device /dev/md/dsk/d1 – block volume d1

• Use ranges for each particular type of volume. For example, assign numbers 0–20 for RAID-1 volumes, and 21–40 for RAID-0 volumes.

• Instead of specifying the full volume name, such as /dev/md/dsk/d1, you can often use an abbreviated volume name, such as d1.

RAID Volume Naming Conventions for Solaris Live Upgrade

You can abbreviate the names of physical disk slices and Solaris Volume Manager volumes. The abbreviation is the shortest name that uniquely identifies a device. Examples follow.

• A Solaris Volume Manager volume can be identified by its dnum designation, so that, for example, /dev/md/dsk/d10 becomes simply d10.

• If a system has a single controller and multiple disks, you might use t0d0s0, but with multiple controllers use c0t0d0s0.

When you use the Solaris Live Upgrade to create RAID-1 volumes (mirrors) and RAID-0 volumes (submirrors), you can let the software detect and assign volume names, or you can assign the names. If you let the software detect the names, the software assigns the first mirror or submirror name that is available. If you assign mirror names, assign names ending in zero so that the installation can use the names ending in 1 and 2 for submirrors. If you assign submirror names, assign names ending in 1 or 2. If you assign numbers incorrectly, the mirror might not be created. For example, if you specify a mirror name with a number that ends in 1 or 2 (d1 or d2), Solaris Live Upgrade fails to create the mirror if the mirror name is a duplicate of a submirror's name.

In this example, Solaris Live Upgrade assigns the volume names. The RAID-1 volumes d0 and d1 are the only volumes in use. For the mirror d10, Solaris Live Upgrade chooses d2 for the submirror for the device c0t0d0s0 and d3 for the submirror for the device c1t0d0s0.

lucreate -n newbe -m /:d10:mirror,ufs -m /:c0t0d0s0:attach -m
/:c1t0d0s0:attach

In this example, the volume names are assigned in the command. For the mirror d10, d11 is the name for the submirror for the device c0t0d0s0 and d12 is the name for the submirror for the device c1t0d0s0.

lucreate -n newbe -m /:d10:mirror,ufs -m /:c0t0d0s0,d11:attach -m
/:c1t0d0s0,d12:attach

For detailed information about Solaris Volume Manager naming requirements, see Solaris Volume Manager Administration Guide.

RAID Volume Naming Conventions for Custom JumpStart

When you use the custom JumpStart installation method to create RAID-1 volumes (mirrors) and RAID-0 volumes (submirrors), you can let the software detect and assign volume names to mirrors, or you can assign the names in the profile. If you let the software detect the names, the software assigns the first volume number that is available. If you assign names in the profile, assign mirror names ending in zero so that the installation can use the names ending in 1 and 2 for submirrors. If you assign numbers incorrectly, the mirror might not be created. For example, if you specify a mirror name with a number that ends in 1 or 2 (d1 or d2), JumpStart fails to create the mirror if the mirror name is a duplicate of a submirror's name. In the following profile example, the mirror is assigned the first volume numbers that are available. If the next available mirror ending in zero is d10, then the names d11 and d12 are assigned to the submirrors.

filesys                 mirror c0t0d0s1  / 

In the following profile example, the mirror number is assigned in the profile as d30. The submirror names are assigned by the software, based on the mirror number and the first available submirrors. In this example, the submirrors are named d31 and d32.

filesys                 mirror:d30 c0t1d0s0 c0t0d0s0  /

For detailed information about Solaris Volume Manager naming requirements, see Solaris Volume Manager Administration Guide.