VERITAS Volume Manager 3.5 Administrator's Guide (September 2002)

Chapter 7, Creating Volumes
Creating a Volume
161
Creating a Volume
You can create volumes using either an advanced approach or an assisted approach. Each
method uses different tools although you may switch from one set to another at will.
Note Most VxVM commands require superuser or equivalent privileges.
Advanced Approach
The advanced approach consists of a number of commands that typically require you to
specify detailed input. These commands use a “building block” approach that requires
you to have a detailed knowledge of the underlying structure and components to
manually perform the commands necessary to accomplish a certain task. Advanced
operations are performed using several different VxVM commands.
The steps to create a volume using this approach are:
1. Create subdisks using vxmake sd; see “Creating Subdisks” on page 139.
2. Create plexes using vxmake plex, and associate subdisks with them; see “Creating
Plexes” onpage 147, “Associating Subdisks with Plexes”on page 142 and “Creating a
Volume Using vxmake” on page 178.
3. Associate plexes with the volume using vxmake vol; see “Creating a Volume Using
vxmake” on page 178.
4. Initialize the volume using vxvol start or vxvol init zero; see “Initializing and
Starting a Volume” on page 181.
See “Creating a Volume Using a vxmake Description File” on page 180 for an example of
how you can combine steps 1 through 3 using a volume description file with vxmake.
See “Creating a Volume Using vxmake” on page 178 for an example of how to perform
steps 2 and 3 to create a RAID-5 volume.
Assisted Approach
The assisted approach takes information about what you want to accomplish and then
performs the necessaryunderlying tasks. Thisapproachrequiresonly minimal input from
you, but also permits more detailed specifications.