VERITAS Volume Manager 3.5 Installation Guide (August 2002)

Initializing VxVM

36 VERITAS Volume Manager Installation Guide

Initializing VxVM

After you install the VERITAS Volume Manager, use vxinstall(1M) to initialize it.

vxinstall does the following:

◆ Sets up the initial VxVM disk group, rootdg, and populates it with disks.

◆ Starts the conﬁguration, notiﬁcation, and relocation daemons used by VxVM.

Selecting Disks for VxVM Initialization

The vxinstall command initializes the Volume Manager, as described below. Tasks

performed through vxinstall include initializing disks and bringing them under

Volume Manager control. Be aware of the contents of all disks on your system so that you

can determine the disposition of each as vxinstall is run.

During the initialization process, you must decide whether you wish to place all or just

some of thedisks ona controllerunder Volume Manager control.Two typesof installation

are available, as follows:

◆ Custom Installation, to initialize certain disks and not others

◆ Quick Installation, to initialize all disks on a controller together

In order to complete a VxVM initialization through vxinstall, select at least one disk

to bring under Volume Manager control. Alternately, use the vxinstall -C option to

convert an existing LVM Volume Group. Even if you use the conversion option for

vxinstall, it is recommended that you survey your attached disks.

When you run vxinstall, disks that you want to initialize for Volume Manager control

cannot be under the control of LVM; vxinstall does not allow initialization of LVM

disks for VxVM control.

Excluding Disks from VxVM Control

To exclude speciﬁc disks from VxVM control, add the names of those disks to the

/etc/vx/disks.exclude ﬁle.

Note The ﬁles /etc/vx/cntrls.exclude, /etc/vx/disks.exclude and

/etc/vx/enclr.exclude are used by the vxinstall and vxdiskadm utilities

to automatically exclude controllers, disks or enclosures so that these devices are

not conﬁgured as Volume Manager devices. These ﬁles do not exclude controllers,

disks and enclosures from use by any other VxVM commands. See the

vxinstall(1M) and vxdiskadm(1M) manual pages for more information.