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Volume management
32 Dell EMC SC Series: Red Hat Enterprise Linux Best Practices | CML1031
volumes, and potentially cause data loss in the environment. Therefore, it is a best practice to always
unmount, remove, and delete all volume information on the Linux OS after the volume is deemed no longer in
use. This is non-destructive to any data stored on the actual volume itself, just the metadata about the volume
stored by the OS (such as volume size or type).
To remove an SC Series volume from a Linux host that is using DM-multipath, use the following steps:
1. Stop the applications and unmount filesystems associated with the volumes.
2. Remove the DM-multipath volume information
# multipath –f /dev/mapper/testvol
3. If LVM is involved, choose one of the options below.
a. To keep the data on the volumes, deactivate and export the volume group that is associated with
the volumes.
# vgchange –a n /dev/vgapp
# vgexport /dev/vgapp
b. If the data is no longer needed, delete the logical volume and the volume group.
# lvremove /dev/vgapp/lvapp
# vgremove /dev/vgapp
4. Remove the /dev/sdX devices.
# rescan-scsi-bus.sh –r
or
# echo 1 > /sys/block/sdX/device/delete
5. Unmap the volume from the SC Series array.
6. Clean up all volume references in /etc/fstab and /etc/multipath.conf.
Note: Edit the /etc/fstab file to remove any references to the volume and associated filesystem as required.
This ensures that no attempt is made to mount this filesystem at the next boot.
3.11 Boot from SAN
Using SC Series volumes as bootable volumes in Linux allows administrators to further leverage the strengths
of SC Series snapshot and snapshot view volume technologies. Two uses for snapshots of Linux boot
volumes include the following: a backup/recovery mechanism, or to preserve the state of an operating system
at a point in time prior to upgrades.