VERITAS Volume Manager 4.1 Administrator's Guide

Chapter 2 70

Device Discovery Function

To have VxVM discover a new disk array, use the following command:

# vxdctl enable

This command scans all of the disk devices and their attributes, updates the VxVM device list,

and reconﬁgures DMP with the new device database. There is no need to reboot the host.

NOTE This command ensures that dynamic multipathing is set up correctly on the

array. Otherwise, VxVM treats the independent paths to the disks as separate

devices, which can result in data corruption.

Enabling Discovery of New Devices

To have VxVM discover a new disk array, use the following command: # vxdctl enable This

command scans all of the disk devices and their attributes, updates the VxVM device list, and

reconﬁgures DMP with the new device database. There is no need to reboot the host. Note

This command ensures that dynamic multipathing is set up correctly on the array. Otherwise,

VxVM treats the independent paths to the disks as separate devices, which can result in data

corruption. Removing Support for a Disk Array To remove support for the vrtsda disk array,

use the following command: # swremove vrtsda If the arrays remain physically connected to

the host after support has been removed, they are listed in the OTHER_DISKS category, and

the volumes remain available.

Removing Support for a Disk Array

To remove support for the vrtsda disk array, use the following command:

# swremove vrtsda

If the arrays remain physically connected to the host after support has been removed, they

are listed in the OTHER_DISKS category, and the volumes remain available.

Third-Party Driver Coexistence

The third-party driver (TPD) coexistence feature of VxVM 4.1 allows I/O that is controlled by

third-party multipathing drivers to bypass DMP while retaining the monitoring capabilities

of DMP. Provided that a suitable ASL is available, devices that use TPDs can be discovered

without requiring you to set up a speciﬁcation ﬁle, or to run a special command. In previous

releases, VxVM only supported TPD coexistence if the code of the third-party driver was

intrusively modiﬁed. The new TPD coexistence feature maintains backward compatibility

with such methods, but it also permits coexistence without requiring any change in a

third-party multipathing driver.

See “Changing Device Naming for TPD-Controlled Enclosures” on page 78 for information on

how to change the form of TPD device names that are displayed by VxVM.