VERITAS Storage Foundation 4.1 Release Notes

Software Issues
34 VERITAS Storage Foundation Release Notes
File Systems Supported in Cluster-Shareable Disk Groups
The use of file systems other than VERITAS Storage Foundation Cluster File System (SFCFS) on
volumes in cluster-shareable disk groups can cause system deadlocks.
Reliability of Information About Cluster-Shareable Disk Groups
If the vxconfigd program is stopped on both the master and slave nodes and then restarted on the
slaves first, VxVM output and VEA displays are not reliable until the vxconfigd program is
started on the master and the slave is reconnected (which can take about 30 seconds). In particular,
shared disk groups are marked disabled and no information about them is available during this
time. The vxconfigd program must therefore be started on the master first.
Messages Caused by Open Volume Devices
When a node aborts from the cluster, open volume devices in shared disk groups on which I/O is
not active are not removed until the volumes are closed. If this node later joins the cluster as the
master while these volumes are still open, the presence of these volumes does not cause a problem.
However, if the node tries to rejoin the cluster as a slave, this can fail with the following error
message:
cannot assign minor #
This message is accompanied by the console message:
WARNING:minor number ### disk group group in use
Data Integrity Issues
Disks with Write-Back Caches
Disk drives configured to use a write-back cache, or disk arrays configured with volatile write-back
cache, exhibit data integrity problems. The problems occur after a power failure, SCSI bus reset, or
other event in which the disk has cached data, but has not yet written it to non-volatile storage.
Contact your disk drive or disk array manufacturer to determine whether your system disk drives
use a write-back cache, and if the configuration can be changed to disable write-back-caching.
Snapshot and Snapback Issues
Using Snapshots as Root Disks
It is recommended that you do not use snapshots of the root volume as a bootable volume. A
snapshot can be taken to preserve the data of the root volume, but the snapshot will not be bootable.
The data from the snapshot would have to be restored to the original root volume before the
machine could be booted with the preserved data.