Veritas Volume Manager 4.1 Release Notes (5900-0590, March 2010)

Installation Issues
Following installation issues are identified:
• Mirror not Booted when VxVM is Started in HP-UX Maintenance Mode Boot (MMB)
Problem
HP-UX Maintenance Mode Boot (MMB) is used to recover from catastrophic failures that
have prevented the target machine from booting. If a mirrored root is configured, when you
boot in MMB, only one mirror is activated. Therefore, any writes to the root file system in
MMB can cause root file system corruption later when both mirrors are configured.
Workaround
The vx_emerg_start (1M) command is provided to be used when starting the Volume Manager
in MMB mode. It will start the volume manager such that any root mirror plexes, other than
the one on the boot disk, will be marked stale in the on disk configuration database. When
the recovery operation is completed and the system is rebooted, resynchronization will be
forced from the boot disk plex to the other root volume plexes, thus preventing data
corruption.
Utility Issues
Following utility issues are identified:
• Warning Message at Boot Time
Problem
A message such as the following is displayed if an attempt is made to open a volume at boot
time before any disk group has been imported.
WARNING: VxVM vxio V-5-0-23 Open on an spurious volume device (hex_id)
encountered. This device may be valid, but has not yet been configured
in the kernel.
Workaround
This message can be ignored. Once the disk group has been imported successfully, there
should be no problem in accessing its volumes.
• Shrinking a Swap Volume
Problem
vxassist has no built-in protection to prevent you from shrinking the swap volume without
first shrinking the available swap space.
Workaround
If it is necessary to shrink the swap volume, the operation must be done in single user mode
and the system must be rebooted immediately. Failing to take these precautions can result
in unexpected system behavior.
• vxassist Command Does not Add a Mirror and a Log
Problem
The vxassist command does not add a mirror and a log when processing a command
such as the following:
# vxassist mirror volume layout=log ...
The mirror is added, but the log is silently omitted.
Workaround
To add a log and a mirror, add them in two separate vxassist invocations, as follows:
# vxassist mirror volume ...
# vxassist addlog volume ...
Known Problems And Workaround 11