VERITAS Volume Manager 3.1 Administrator's Guide

Recovery
Plex and Volume States
Chapter 8360
STALE Plex State
If there is a possibility that a plex does not have the complete and
current volume contents, that plex is placed in the STALE state. Also, if
an I/O error occurs on a plex, the kernel stops using and updating the
contents of that plex, and an operation sets the state of the plex to
STALE.
A vxplex att operation recovers the contents of a STALE plex from an
ACTIVE plex. Atomic copy operations copy the contents of the volume to
the STALE plexes. The system administrator can force a plex to the
STALE state with a vxplex det operation.
OFFLINE Plex State
The vxmend off task indefinitely detaches a plex from a volume by
setting the plex state to OFFLINE. Although the detached plex
maintains its association with the volume, changes to the volume do not
update the OFFLINE plex. The plex is not updated until the plex is put
online and reattached with the vxplex att task. When this occurs, the
plex is placed in the STALE state, which causes its contents to be
recovered at the next vxvol start operation.
TEMP Plex State
Setting a plex to the TEMP state eases some plex operations that cannot
occur in a truly atomic fashion. For example, attaching a plex to an
enabled volume requires copying volume contents to the plex before it
can be considered fully attached.
A utility sets the plex state to TEMP at the start of such an operation
and to an appropriate state at the end of the operation. If the system
fails for any reason, a TEMP plex state indicates that the operation is
incomplete. A later vxvol start dissociates plexes in the TEMP state.
TEMPRM Plex State
A TEMPRM plex state is similar to a TEMP state except that at the
completion of the operation, the TEMPRM plex is removed. Some
subdisk operations require a temporary plex. Associating a subdisk with
a plex, for example, requires updating the subdisk with the volume
contents before actually associating the subdisk. This update requires
associating the subdisk with a temporary plex, marked TEMPRM, until
the operation completes and removes the TEMPRM plex.