Back-End Devices

You can create virtual disks for a guest domain on a number of back-end types: files (file), ZFS volumes (zvol), physical disks or LUNs (disk), or volume manager volumes (disk). The ldmp2v command automatically creates files or ZFS volumes of the appropriate size if you specify file or zvol as the back-end type in one of the following ways:

• By using the -b option

• By specifying the value of the BACKEND_TYPE parameter in the /etc/ldmp2v.conf file

The disk back-end type enables you to use a physical disk, LUN, or volume manager volume (Oracle Solaris Volume Manager and Veritas Volume Manager (VxVM)) as a back-end device for virtual disks. You must create the disk or volume with an appropriate size prior to beginning the prepare phase. For a physical disk or LUN, specify the back-end device as slice 2 of the block or character device of the disk, such as /dev/dsk/c0t3d0s2. For a volume manager volume, specify the block or character device for the volume, such as /dev/md/dsk/d100 for Oracle Solaris Volume Manager or /dev/vx/dsk/ldomdg/vol1 for VxVM.

Unless you specify the volume and virtual disk names with the -B backend:volume:vdisk option, the volumes and virtual disks that you create for the guest are given default names.

• backend specifies the name of the back end to use. You must specify backend for the disk back-end type. backend is optional for the file and zvol back-end types, and can be used to set a non-default name for the file or ZFS volume that ldmp2v creates. The default name is $BACKEND_PREFIX/guest-name/diskN.

• volume is optional for all back-end types and specifies the name of the virtual disk server volume to create for the guest domain. If not specified, volume is guest-name-volN.

• vdisk is optional for all back-end types and specifies the name of the volume in the guest domain. If not specified, vdisk is diskN.

To specify a blank value for backend, volume, or vdisk, include only the colon separator. For example, specifying -B ::vdisk001 sets the name of the virtual disk to vdisk001 and uses the default names for the back end and volume. If you do not specify vdisk, you can omit the trailing colon separator. For example, -B /ldoms/ldom1/vol001:vol001 specifies the name of the back-end file as /ldoms/ldom1/vol001 and the volume name as vol001. The default virtual disk name is disk0.