VERITAS File System 4.1 Release Notes (June 2006)

VERITAS File System 4.1 Release Notes
Software Issues in Base-VXFS
Chapter 1 23
If you try to convert a sparse file to a Quick I/O file, the Oracle instance can fail if Oracle
tries to write into an unallocated block. Specifically, datafiles used by the Oracle8i and
Oracle9i temporary tablespace may be sparse files, so do not convert these to Quick I/O
files. See the VERITAS Storage Foundation 4.1 for Oracle Database Administrator’s
Guide for more information.
• PHCO_33308 Required for LVM Commands to Recognize Disk Layout Version 6
When reducing a volume, LVM checks the volume to prevent any part of the existing file
system from being thrown away. Likewise, when an LVM physical volume is created, LVM
ensures that it is not clobbering an existing file system. However, LVM does not recognize
a VxFS 4.1 file system with disk layout Version 6, which is the default disk layout version
in VxFS 4.1. Install PHCO_33308 for LVM to work with disk layout Version 6.
• PHCO_33238 Required for swapon Command to Recognize Disk Layout Version
6
The swapon command does not recognize a VxFS file system with disk layout Version 6,
and therefore does not produce a warning while using a device that has such a file system.
Install PHCO_33238 to enhance the swapon command to recognize the VxFS disk layout
Version 6.
• Applications using statvfsdev(3C) interface need to relink with new LIBC
The applications which use statvfsdev (3C) interface on a device name, need to relink
with the newLIBC library, with the option-llibdlv_vxfs to be able to understand Disk
Layout Version 6, available with Base-VXFS 4.1.
If the applications are not relinked, they will not be able to recognize Disk Layout Version
6 file system. However, they would continue to recognize Disk Layout Version 4 and Disk
Layout Version 5 file system. The applications that are linked with the new library with
the option -llibdlv_vxfs will work with VxFS 3.5 on HP-UX 11i version 2 without
re-linking. However, the dynamic binaries need the new library on HP-UX 11i version 2
for VxFS 3.5 to work.
• System Hang Occur on Systems With Less Cache Memory
VxFS allocates a fixed amount of memory. The amount of memory allocated can be
changed using the tunables vx_ninode and vx_bc_bufhwm. After long hours of operation,
low-memory systems, slow down or hang due to memory pressure. To solve this problem,
lower the values of vx_ninode and vx_bc_bufhwm to limit VxFS memory consumption.
NOTE VxFS consumes a fixed percentage of memory for the default values of
tunables such as vx_ninode and vx_bc_bufhwm. VxFS consumes nearly
10% of total physical memory for the default value of vx_ninode. If the