HP Integrity Virtual Machines Installation, Configuration, and Administration

To use VxVM, the Virtual LvDisk resource statement is
disk:scsi::lv:/dev/vx/rdsk/VxvmTest1/vxvm_2.
For information about multipath solutions for Virtual LvDisks, see Section 7.2.1.3: “VM Storage
Multipath Solutions” (page 77).
7.2.2.3.3 Virtual FileDisks
A Virtual FileDisk is an emulated SCSI disk whose virtual media comes from a VM Host file.
The VM Host file is specified using the absolute pathname to the file. The file can be on a VxFS
file system locally mounted on the VM Host. NFS file systems are not supported for Virtual
FileDisks.
Virtual FileDisks cannot be shared simultaneously across active virtual machiness. Only one
active virtual machine can be given a particular Virtual FileDisk resource at a time. Virtual
FileDisk resources can be changed dynamically between active virtual machines (see Section 7.3:
“Using Integrity VM Storage” (page 92)).
The file systems used for Virtual FileDisks need to be managed to prevent data corruptions. To
help with accounting, it is recommended that all files under a given directory be used with a
single virtual machines. Additionally, it may help to allocate file directories from complete logical
volumes or whole disks to make the accounting even easier. See Section 7.2.1.4: “VM Storage
Management” (page 78) for more details.
The Virtual FileDisk resource statement takes the form of:
disk:scsi::file:/pathname/file
Where the /pathname/file specifies the VM Host file used as virtual media.
A VxFS file system can be created on top of a whole disk or logical volume. For files over 2 GB,
VxFS requires the file system be marked with a largefiles option. The mkfs command can
be used to create the VxFS file systems directly. Once the file systems are created, mount can be
used to mount them onto the VM Host file system. Alternatively, if using logical volumes to
create the file system on, the volume manager GUIs like sam can be used to create the file systems
and their mount points, when the logical volumes are created. In any case, once the file system
is mounted, empty files for Virtual FileDisk can be created using hpvmdevmgmt.
# mkfs -F vxfs -o largefiles /dev/dsk/c1t2d0
# mount /dev/dsk/c1t2d0 /fdev/frackA/
# hpvmdevmgmt -S 4G /fdev/frackA/disk1
In this example, the Virtual FileDisk resource statement is
disk:scsi::file:/fdev/frackA/disk1.
Multipath options for a Virtual FileDisk device are discussed in Section 7.2.1.3: “VM Storage
Multipath Solutions” (page 77).
7.2.2.3.4 Virtual DVDs
A Virtual DVD is an emulated SCSI DVD-ROM with virtual media that comes from a disc inside
of a CD/DVD drive on the VM Host. The VM Host CD/DVD drive is specified using an HP-UX
sdisk character device file.
While the Virtual DVD is read-only, the slowness of the physical VM Host CD/DVD drives
prohibits them from being shared across active virtual machines. Thus only one active virtual
machine at time should be given a particular Virtual DVD resource. Virtual DVD resources can
be changed dynamically between active virtual machines (see Section 7.3: “Using Integrity VM
Storage” (page 92)).
The Virtual DVDs, being read-only, do not require management to prevent conflicts writing to
the device. However, to prevent potentially sensitive information from being accessed by the
wrong virtual machine, make sure you know which virtual machine currently owns the device
before you load a CD/DVD. This information can be found on the VM Host with the hpvmstatus
commands.
86 Creating Virtual Storage Devices