VERITAS Volume Manager 3.2 for HP-UX Release Notes

Preparing to Install the VERITAS Volume Manager for HP-UX on a System with LVM Volume Groups

Chapter 142

Preparing to Install the VERITAS Volume Manager for

HP-UX on a System with LVM Volume Groups

If you are installing the VERITAS Volume Manager for HP-UX on a system that already has

LVM volume groups, do the preparation steps described below. If you are installing on a new

system with no pre-existing LVM volume groups (other than vg00, which is set up

automatically during HP-UX installation), you do not need to follow these steps.

Step 1. Review the contents of all the disks on your system, so that you can decide the

disposition of each when you run vxinstall(1M) to initialize VxVM.

During initialization by vxinstall, you will have to decide whether you wish to

place all or just some of the disks on a controller under VxVM control. For each disk

you can choose to initialize or leave the disk alone (Custom Installation).

Alternatively, you can choose to initialize all the disks on a controller together

(Quick Installation).

Step 2. Select at least two disks to put under VxVM control.

LVM and VxVM volumes and disks can coexist on your system. To initialize VxVM,

however, you must set up the default VxVM disk group, rootdg, and assign at least

one disk to it. (Despite its name, rootdg will not be your root disk.)

During vxinstall, it is advisable to have at least two disks (preferably on separate

controllers) in the default VxVM disk group, rootdg. Having at least two disks

guarantees that multiple copies of the VxVM configuration database exist. This

database is required not only to start VxVM, but also required when making VxVM

configuration changes (for example, creating volumes).

Step 3. Decide whether to put any existing LVM disks under VxVM control.

To do this, you must “decommission” unused existing LVM disks so that they can be

put under VxVM control by vxinstall. If you do this, any data on the disks will be

lost. Follow the procedure in Step 4.

Step 4. Do the following for any unused disks under LVM control that you want to

decommission for later use by VxVM.

If any disk you want to put under VxVM control has been initialized by pvcreate,

use pvremove to erase the LVM disk headers (Step d). This is true even for disks not

currently in use in any volume or volume group.