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InfoScale™ 9.0 Storage Foundation and High Availability Configuration and Upgrade Guide - Solaris

Last Published: 2025-04-18

Product(s): InfoScale & Storage Foundation (9.0)

Platform: Solaris

Converting a foreign disk to auto:simple

Release 4.0 of VxVM provides the vxddladm addforeign command to configure foreign disks with default disk offsets for the private regions and public regions, and to define them as simple disks. A foreign disk must be manually converted to auto:simple format before you upgrade to VxVM 9.0.

If the foreign disk is defined on a slice other than s2, you must copy the partition entry for that slice to that for s0 and change the tag. If the tag of the original slice is changed, the status of the disk is seen as online:aliased after the upgrade.

The following example is used to illustrate the procedure. The vxdisk list command can be used to display the EMCpower disks that are known to VxVM:

# vxdisk list
DEVICE          TYPE           DISK    GROUP   STATUS
c6t0d12s2       auto:sliced    -       -       online
emcpower10c     simple         fdisk   fdg     online
...

The vxprint command is used to display information about the disk group, fdg:

# vxprint
Disk group: fdg
TY NAME   ASSOC        KSTATE  LENGTH    PLOFFS  STATE TUTIL0 PUTIL0
dg fdg    fdg          -       -         -       -     -      -
dm fdisk  emcpower10c  -       17673456  -       -     -      -
...

To convert a foreign disk to auto:simple format

Stop all the volumes in the disk group, and then deport it:
```
# vxvol -g fdg stopall
# vxdg deport fdg
```

Use the vxddladm command to remove definitions for the foreign devices:

# vxddladm rmforeign blockpath=/dev/dsk/emcpower10c \
  charpath=/dev/rdsk/emcpower10c

If you now run the vxdisk list command, the EMCpower disk is no longer displayed:

# vxdisk list
DEVICE       TYPE           DISK   GROUP   STATUS
c6t0d12s2    auto:sliced    -      -       online
...

Run the vxprtvtoc command to retrieve the partition table entry for the device:
```
# /etc/vx/bin/vxprtvtoc -f /tmp/vtoc /dev/rdsk/emcpower10c
```

Use the vxedvtoc command to modify the partition tag and update the VTOC:

# /etc/vx/bin/vxedvtoc -f /tmp/vtoc /dev/rdsk/emcpower10c

# THE ORIGINAL PARTITIONING IS AS FOLLOWS:
# SLICE     TAG  FLAGS   START  SIZE
  0         0x0  0x201   0      0
  1         0x0  0x200   0      0
  2         0x5  0x201   0      17675520

# THE NEW PARTITIONING WILL BE AS FOLLOWS:
# SLICE     TAG  FLAGS    START  SIZE
  0         0xf  0x201    0      17675520
  1         0x0  0x200    0      0
  2         0x5  0x201    0      17675520

DO YOU WANT TO WRITE THIS TO THE DISK ? [Y/N] :Y 
WRITING THE NEW VTOC TO THE DISK #

Upgrade to VxVM 9.0 using the appropriate upgrade procedure.

After upgrading VxVM, use the vxdisk list command to validate the conversion to auto:simple format:

# vxdisk list
DEVICE         TYPE           DISK   GROUP   STATUS
c6t0d12s2      auto:sliced    -      -       online
emcpower10s2   auto:simple    -      -       online
...

To display the physical device that is associated with the metadevice, emcpower10s2, enter the following command:

# vxdmpadm getsubpaths dmpnodename=emcpower10s2

Import the disk group and start the volumes:

# vxdg import fdg
# vxvol -g fdg startall

You can use the vxdisk list command to confirm that the disk status is displayed as online:simple:

# vxdisk list
DEVICE         TYPE           DISK   GROUP   STATUS
c6t0d12s2      auto:sliced    -      -       online
emcpower10s2   auto:simple    fdisk  fdg     online