http://www.unixarena.com/2012/07/veritas-volume-manager-interview.

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VxVM Disk
Q-1 How to add a disk to a disk group in Veritas Volume Manager?
Ans: To add the physical disk c0t0d0 in the disk group homedg calling it disk90 in Veritas Volume
Manager:
# vxdg -g homedg adddisk disk90=c0t0d0

Q-2 How to remove a disk from a disk group in Veritas Volume Manager?
Ans: To remove a disk, disk90, from a disk group, homedg, in Veritas Volume Manager:
# vxdg -g homedg rmdisk disk90

Q-3 How to clear an import in Veritas Volume Manager after a crash?

Ans: # vxdisk clearimport c0t0d0s0

Q-4 How to list all disks and display their status in VxVM?
Ans: # vxdisk list

Q-5 How to remove a grayed out or obsolete disk, or remove a disk from a disk group in Veritas
Volume Manager?
Ans: # vxdisk rm disk01

Q-6 How to remove a disk so that it is no longer under Veritas Volume Manager controls?
Ans: # vxdisk rm c0t0d0

Q-7 How to add or bring a disk under Veritas Volume Manager control?
Ans: To add or bring a disk under Veritas Volume Manager control:
# vxdiskadd c0t0d1
or
# vxdisksetup -i c0t0d1

Note: It might help to newfs the s2 slice of the disk and perform a vxdctl enable to get it to add a disk.

Q-8 How to remove a volume and any subdisks and plexes associated in VxVM?
Ans: # vxedit -rf rm volume_name

Q-9 How to rename the disk disk90 to be called disk80 in the group rootdg in Veritas Volume
Manager?
Ans: # vxedit -g rootdg rename disk90 disk80

Q-10 How to set disk90 in the group homedg to be a hot spare in Veritas Volume Manager?
Ans: # vxedit -g homedg set spare=on disk90

Q-11 How to set the comment field of subdisk subdisk01-01 to "comments are here"?
Ans: # vxedit set comment"comments are here" subdisk01-01
Q-12 How to sets the user to ep, the group to epgrp and the mode rw-rw-rw on the volume vg01?
Ans: # vxedit set user=ep group=epgrp mode=0666 vg01

Disk Group
Q-1 How to display the default disk group?
Ans: #vxdg defaultdg

Q-2 How to set the default disk group?

Ans: # vxdctl defaultdg <disk group>

Q-3 How to display disk group information?

Ans: # vxdg list or
# vxdg list <disk group>

Q-4 How to display free disk space in disk group?

Ans: # vxdg free or
# vxdg g <disk group> free

Q-5 How to create a disk group?

Ans: # vxdg init <disk group> cds=on|of

Q-6 How to create a disk group with a specified disk group version no.?
Ans: # vxdg T <DG version> init <disk group>

Q-7 How to make a non CDS disk group to CDS disk group or vice versa?
Ans: # vxdg g <disk group> set cds=on|of
Q-8 How to import a disk group?
Ans # vxdg import <disk group>

Q-9 How to import a destroyed disk group?

Ans: First you must know the DG ID of the destroyed disk group name. You can get the DG ID by
displaying the included disk of destroyed DG.
# vxdg import <DG ID>

Q-10 How to disable/deport a disk group?

Ans: # vxdg deport <disk group>

Q-11 How to rename a disk group during import operation?

Ans: # vxdg t n <new disk group> import <disk group>

Q-12 How to rename a disk group during deport operation?

Ans: # vxdg n <new disk group> deport <disk group>

Q-13 How to clear locks on disk group during import?

Ans: # vxdg C import <disk group>
Q-14 How to forcible import the disk group?
Ans: # vxdg f import <disk group>

Q-15 How to move disk group object from one DG to another?

Ans: # vxdg o expand move <source DG> <target DG> <DG object>
# vxdg o expand move datadg newdatadg disk01
It will move the entire associated object with disk02 from datadg to newdatadg.

Q-16 How to split a disk group to form a new disk group?

Ans: # vxdg o expand split <old DG> <new DG> disk01 disk02
It will create a new DG with two specified disks.

Q-17 How to join two DGs into one?

Ans: # vxdg join <source DG> <target DG>

Q-18 How to destroy a disk group?

Ans: # vxdg destroy <disk group>

Q-19 How to upgrade a Disk group?

Ans: # vxdg upgrade <disk group>
It will upgrade the DG to the highest DG version supported by VxVM.
Or
# vxdg T <Version No.> <disk group>

Q-1 How to get volume information in Veritas Volume Manager?

Ans: # vxinfo <volume-name>

Q-2 How set the number of kernel thread in Veritas Volume Manager?
Ans: # vxiod set 10

Note: This is the daemon that allows for extended I/O calls without blocking calling processes. As this is a
kernel thread you cannot see it with ps command so you have to use the vxiod command to see if it is
running.

Q-3 How to create a plex from a subdisk in Veritas Volume Manager?

Ans: # vxmake plex <plex-name> sd=<sub-disk-name>

Q-4 How to make a subdisk from a disk in Veritas Volume Manager?

Ans: To make a subdisk called subdisk-80 at the beginning of the disk disk80 of size 10000 blocks:
# vxmake sd subdisk-80 disk80,0,10000
If you wanted to put another subdisk on this disk then you would have an ofset of the size of the
previous subdisk (10000 in our case):
# vxmake sd subdisk-81 disk80,10000,20000

Q-5 How to set a plex offline in Veritas Volume Manager?

Ans: # vxmend of <plex-name>

Q-6 How to set a plex online in Veritas Volume Manager?

Ans: # vxmend on <plex-name>

Q-7 How to set a plex to a clean state in Veritas Volume Manager?

Ans: # vxmend fix clean plex-name

Q-8 How to mirror all the volumes on the disk rootdisk to disk90 in Veritas Volume Manager?
Ans: # vxmirror rootdisk disk90

Q-9 How to rebuild the partition table after a root disk failure in Veritas Volume Manager?
Ans: To rebuild the partition table after recovering from a root disk failure after re-mirroring the disk
in Veritas Volume Manager:
# vxmksdpart -g rootdg diskpart 1 0x03 0x01
Q-10 How to attach a plex to a volume in Veritas Volume Manager?
Ans: # vxplex att <volume_name> <plex-name>

Q-11 How to display all the available information in Veritas Volume Manager?
Ans: # vxprint ht

Q-12 How to display all the information about plexes in Veritas Volume Manager?
Ans: # vxprint -l <plex-name>
OR
# vxprint lp

Q-13 How to display all the information about subdisks in Veritas Volume Manager?
Ans: # vxprint -l <diskname>
OR
# vxprint st

Q-14 How to display all the information about volumes in Veritas Volume Manager?
Ans: # vxprint -l volumename
OR
# vxprint -vl
OR
# vxprint vt
Q-15 How to list all the volumes on a boot disk Veritas Volume Manager?
Ans: # vxprint -t -v -e 'aslist.aslist.sd_disk="boot-disk-name"'

Q-16 How to bring a volume back online in background mode in Veritas Volume Manager?
Ans: # vxrecover -b volume

Q-17 How to recover a volume in Veritas Volume Manager?

Ans: # vxrecover -s <volume-name>

Q-18 How to recover all volumes in Veritas Volume Manager?

Ans: To start recovery of all volumes in Veritas Volume Manager:
# vxrecover s

Q-19 How to add a log disk to a volume in Veritas Volume Manager?

Ans: # vxsd aslog <disk-name> <volume-name>

Q-20 How to join subdisks in Veritas Volume Manager?

Ans: To join subdisk-88 and subdisk-77 to create the new bigger subdisk-99:
# vxsd join subdisk-88 subdisk-77 subdisk-99

Q-21 How to move the contents of a subdisk to another in Veritas Volume Manager?
Ans: To move the contents of subdisk-90 to subdisk-80 in Veritas Volume Manager:
# vxsd mv subdisk-90 subdisk-80
Q-22 How to report disk statistics in Veritas Volume Manager?
Ans: # vxstat g diskgroup d

Q-23 How to trace all the I/O on the selected volume in Veritas Volume Manager?
Ans: # vxtrace <volume-name>

Q-24 Veritas Volume Manager GUI

Ans: # vxva

Q-25 How to put a volume in maintenance mode in Veritas Volume Manager?

Ans: # vxvol maint <volume_name>

Q-26 How to stop a volume in a disk group in Veritas Volume Manager?

Ans: # vxvol -g <disk-group> stop <volume-name>

Q-27 How to check which tasks is running in Veritas Volume Manager?

Ans: # vxtask list
Or
# vxtask monitor
Q-28 How to change the naming scheme?
Ans: # vxddladm set namingscheme=<osn/ebn> <persistence=yes/no>

Q-29 How to get the list of all enclosure?

Ans: # vxdmpadm listenclosure all

Q-30 How to check how many disks are in a particular enclosure?

Ans # vxdmpadm getdmpnode enclosure=<enclosure name>

Q-31 How to get the path of a particular disk or how to check the enclosure of a particular device?
Ans # vxdmpadm getsubpaths dmpnodename=<device name (c1t2d0)>
Or
# vxdisk list <device name (c1t2d0)>

Q-32 How to restart VxVM configuration Daemon?

Ans # vxconfigd -k
Q-33 How to find the actual disk device name while disks are showing in enclosure based naming
scheme?
Note: When disks are showing in enclosure based scheme, is shows disks name as EMC0_0, EMC0_1
rather than c0t0d0
Ans # vxdisk list e <enc disk name (ENC0_1)>
Q-34 How to start failed VxVM object, which got failed due to changed from OS based naming
scheme to enclosure based naming.
Ans (1) First deport the disk group
(2) Run below given command
# /etc/vx/bin/vxdarestore
(3) Now import the disk group.

Q-35 How to reserve a disk for special purpose or vice versa? (Reserve disk cant use for normal
volume operation)

Ans: # vxedit g <Disk Group> set reserve=on diskname

And
# vxedit g <Disk Group> set reserve=of diskname

Q-36 How do you determine by how much a Veritas Volume can be expanded?
Ans: # vxassist g <DG> maxgrow <volume>

Q-37 How do you grow a Veritas VXVM volume?

Ans: # vxresize g <DG> <volume> +5g
Q-38 How many partitions are created in a disk when we initialize the disk under VxVM?
Ans: 2 partitions
Private region created on slice 3
Public region created on slice4

Q-39 What is the length of Private Region?

Ans: VxVM 5.0 = 32Mb
VxVM 4.0 = 1 Mb

Q-40 How do you determine Volume Status in Veritas VxVM?

Ans: # vxprint -htv

Q-41 Why would you deport a diskgroup in VxVM?

Ans: Normally we deport a disk group when we want to import that disk group on
other host.
# vxdg deport <DG>

Q-42 Interactive front end to the vxdisk program in VxVM?

Ans: # vxdiskadm

Q-43 How to display free space on the disks in Veritas volume Manager?
Ans: # vxdg free
Q-44 How to find how much a volume can be grown by in Veritas Volume Manager?
Ans: # vxassist maxgrow <volume-name>
Q-45 How to find the largest raid5 partition you can have in Veritas Volume Manager?
Ans: # vxassist maxsize layout=raid5

Q-46 How to find the largest stripe you can have in VxVM?
Ans: # vxassist maxsize layout=stripe

Q-47 How to move a volume to another disk except a particular one in Veritas Volume Manager?
Ans: To move a volume vg01 to any other disk except disk90 in Veritas Volume Manager:
# vxassist move vg01 !disk90

Q-48 How to set a preferred plex to read from in Veritas Volume Manager?
Ans: # vxvol rdpol prefer <volume-name> <plex-name>

Q-49 How to set a round robin read policy on the volume in Veritas Volume Manager?
Ans: # vxvol rdpol round volume_name

Q-50 How to verify and enable largefile support on a vxfs filesystem?

Ans: To verify if largefile support is enabled on a VXFS filesystem:
# fsadm -F vxfs /dir_name
If you need to enable largefile support:
# fsadm -F vxfs -o largefiles /dir_name

Q-51 How to add a log disk for a volume in Veritas Volume Manager?
Ans: To add a log disk for a raid5 or mirror of a volume in Veritas Volume Manager:
# vxassist addlog volume-name

Q-52 How to encapsulate the root disk?

Ans: We can encapsulate the root disk by vxdiskadm command.
# vxdiskadm Encapsulate one or more disks

Q-53 How to mirror the root volume?

Ans: We can mirror all the volumes needed to boot with the below command:
# vxrootmir <c0t1d0>
It will mirror all the file systems needed to boot on the c0t1d0 disk.

Q-54 How to remove rootability?

Ans: We can un-encapsulate the root disk and take it out from all the file systems needed to boot the
system from VxVM control by command vxunroot. This utility make the necessary changes to boot the
system without VxVM support.
# vxunroot
Q-55 how to create a mirror on a previously defined volume in Veritas Volume Manager
Ans: Example to use the disks disk80 and disk90 to make a mirror on the volume called vg01:
# vxassist mirror vg01 disk80 disk90

Example to make a 50 mb mirror on volume called vg01 using any two free disks:
# vxassist mirror vg01 50m layout=mirror
Q-56 How to create a raid5 volume in Veritas Volume Manager?
Ans: To create a raid5 volume in Veritas Volume Manager using any available disks:
# vxassist make vg01 100m layout=raid5

Q-57 How to create a volume in Veritas Volume Manager?

Ans: Example to make a volume called vg01 of size 100m using any available disk:
# vxassist g <DG> make <vol> 100m

Example to make a volume called vg01 to be 100m big using the disk disk80:
# vxassist g <DG> make <vol> 100m disk80

Q-58 How to create a volume with a mirror and log in Veritas Volume Manager?
Ans: Example to make a volume named vg01 with 50mb stripe disk using disks disk80 and disk90 and
mirror this on a stripped mirror using disk92 and disk95 and use a log subdisk:
# vxassistg <DG> make <vol> layout=mirror,stripe,log disk80 disk90 disk92 disk95

Q-59 How to create a volume with a mirror in Veritas Volume Manager?

Ans: Example to make a volume vg01 with a 50mb mirror using the two disks disk80 and disk90:
# vxassist g <DG> make <vol> 100m layout=mirror disk80 disk90
Q-60 How to grow the size of a volume in Veritas Volume Manager?
Ans: Examples to grow the size of the volume vg01 to 2000 512byte sectors:
# vxassist growto vg01 2000
OR
# vxassist growby vg01 2000

Q-61 How to mirror a volume on any free disk in Veritas Volume Manager?
Ans: To mirror a volume vg01 on any free disk in Veritas Volume Manager:
# vxassist mirror vg01

Q-62 How to mirror volumes in a disk group in Veritas Volume Manager?

Ans: Example to mirror volume vol80 to vol90 in the disk group rootdg:
# vxassist -g rootdg mirror vol80 vol90

Q-63 How to shrink the size of a volume in Veritas Volume Manager?

Ans: Examples to shrink the volume vg01 by 2000 512byte sectors:
# vxassist shrinkto vg01 2000
OR
# vxassist shrinkby vg01 2000
Q-64 How to verify the main daemon for Veritas Volume Manager?
Ans: vxconfigd is the main daemon of Veritas Volume Manager which must be running at all times. It
is started at system startup.
We can check its status by below given way:
# vxdctl mode

Or we can verify it is running with a ps command:

# ps -ef | grep vxconfigd

Q-65 How to enable, disable or verify the vxconfigd daemon in Veritas Volume Manager?
To verify the vxconfigd daemon in Veritas Volume Manager:
# vxdctl mode

To enable the vxconfigd daemon:

# vxdctl enable

To disable the vxconfigd daemon:

# vxdctl disable
# vxdmpadm setattr path c3t10d0s2 pathtype=primary
# vxdmpadm setattr path c4t10d0s2 pathtype=secondary
Q-67 What is vxbootsetup utility?
Ans: The vxbootsetup utility configures physical disks so that they can be used to boot the system.
Before vxbootsetup is called to configure a disk, mirrors of the root, swap, /usr and /var volumes (if they
exist) should be created on the disk. These mirrors should be restricted mirrors of the volume. The
vxbootsetup utility configures a disk by writing a boot track at the beginning of the disk and by creating
physical disk partitions in the UNIX VTOC that match the mirrors of the root, swap, /usr and /var.
With no medianame arguments, all disks that contain usable mirrors of the root, swap, /usr and /var
volumes are configured to be bootable. If medianame arguments are specified, only the named disks are
configured.
vxbootsetup requires that the root volume is named rootvol and has a usage type of root. The swap
volume is required to be named swapvol and to have a usage type of swap. The volumes containing /usr
and /var (if any) are expected to be named usr and var, respectively.
Q-68 What is vxrootmir utility?
Ans: The vxrootmir script creates mirrors of volumes required in booting. It creates a mirror for
rootvol, swapvol and standvol. It also creates mirrors of usr, var and home if they exist as separate
volumes on the boot disk. The mirror is created on the specified disk media device.
The specified disk media device should have enough space to contain the mirror for all the source
volumes mentione above, or else it will fail. Also, corresponding slices must be free because it is used to
create the partition for root.
All disk partitions for the new volume mirrors are created.

This script is called by the vxmirror command if the root disk is required to be mirrored. It is also called
from the vxdiskadm menus through the choice of the mirror volumes on a disk operation.
Q-69 What is vxmirror utility?
Ans: The vxmirror command provides a mechanism to mirror all the contents of a specified disk, to
mirror all currently un-mirrored volumes in the specified disk group, or to change or display the current
defaults for mirroring. All volumes that have only a single plex (mirror copy), will be mirrored by adding
an additional plex.
Volumes containing subdisks that reside on more than one disk will not be mirrored by vxmirror.
vxmirror is generally called from the vxdiskadm menus. It is not an interactive command and once called,
will continue until completion of the operation or until a failure is detected.
Q-70 What is vxunroot utility?
Ans: The vxunroot script causes the root, swap, usr and var file systems to be converted back into
being accessible directly through disk partitions instead of through volume devices. Other changes made
to ensure the booting of the system from the root volume are also removed such that the system will
boot with no dependency on the Volume Manager.
For vxunroot to work properly, all but one plexes of rootvol, swapvol, usr and var should be removed.
The plexes left behind for the above volumes should be the ones created by vxrootmir or the original
ones created when the root disk was encapsulated. This will ensure that the underlying subdisks will
have equivalent partitions defined for them on the disk. If none of these conditions are met, the
vxunroot operation will fail and none of the volumes will be converted to disk partitions.
Q-71 How to recover from the root disk and root-mirror disk failure?
Ans:
1) Boot the system into single user mode from Solaris installation CD.
ok boot cdrom s
2) Use the format command to create partitions on the new root disk (c0t0d0s2). These should be
identical in size to those on the original root disk before encapsulation unless you are using this
procedure to change their sizes.

3) Create the file system on this slice

# mkfs F ufs /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s0

4) Mount the root slice on /a

# mount /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s0 /a

5) Now restore the / file system from backup.

6) Now run the installboot command to install bootblk.

# cd /usr/platform/`uname i`/lib/fs/ufs
# installboot bootblk /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s0
Or
# installboot /usr/platform/`uname i`/lib/fs/ufs/bootblk /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s0

7) Now restore /usr file system if it is there.

8) Create /etc/vx/reconfig.d/state.d/install-db file to prevent the configuration daemon from starting.

# touch /a/etc/vx/reconfig.d/state.d/install-db
9) Now comment 2 lines in /etc/system file as given below
# cp /a/etc/system /a/etc/system.orig
# vi /a/etc/system
* set vxio:vol_rootdev_is_volume=1
* rootdev:/pseudo/vxio@0:0

10) Now edit the vfstab file to replace the volume device names with the disk slices.

11) Now remove the /a/dev/vx/dsk/bootdg and /a/dev/vx/rdsk/bootdg

# rm /a/dev/vx/dsk/bootdg
# rm /a/dev/vx/rdsk/bootdg

12) Now reboot the system. System will be booted into multi user mode.
# init 6
Q-72 How to recover the VxVM configuration after reinstallation of Solaris?
Ans: Reinstallation is necessary if all copies of your root disks are damaged, or if certain critical files
are lost due to file system damage. Disconnect all the disks which are not involved in reinstallation
process.
1) Install the Solaris OS
2) Install the VxVM software and also install the VxVM license also.
3) Recover the VxVM configuration.
4) touch the /etc/vx/reconfig.d/state.d/install-db file
5) Shut down the system
6) Reattach the disks which were removed before installation.
7) Reboot the system and when the system comes up, bring it into single user mode.
8) Remove the /etc/vx/reconfig.d/state.d/install-db file
9) Start VxVM IO daemons.
# vxiod set 10
10) Start the VxVM daemon in disable mode
# vxconfigd m disable
11) Initialize the vxconfigd daemon
# vxdctl init
12) Initialize the DMP subsystem
# vxdctl initdmp
13) Now start the vxconfigd daemon
# vxdctl enable
14) Now reboot the system
Now the configuration preserved on the disks not involved in the reinstallation has now been recovered.

Q-73 How to convert the SVM meta devices into VxVM volumes?
Ans: There are three utilities used to convert SVM meta devices into VxVM volumes.
1) Run the preconvert utility to analyze the current SVM configuration:
# preconvert
The preconvert utility analyzes the current Solaris Volume Manager configuration and builds a
description for the new VxVM configuration. preconvert does not make any changes to the Solaris
Volume Manager configuration or to the host system.

2) Now run the showconvert utility to display the preconvert conversions plan into readable format.
# showconvert

3) Now run the convertname utility to display the VxVM volume names .
# convertname /dev/md/dsk/d12
Note: The convertname utility takes Solaris Volume Manager device paths as arguments (metadevice
paths or raw disk paths) and returns the VxVM volume path for the device as it will show after the
conversion.

4) Now run the doconvert utility to start the actual conversion process
# doconvert

5) Now reboot the system to make the changes.

1. Name the mandatory disk group in VxVM 3.5 ? How will you configure VxVM in 3.5 ?
ANS: rootdg is the mandatory disk group in VxVM 3.5, vxinstall is the command to
configure VxVM, It will create the disk groups, initializes the disks and adds them to the
group.

2. How will you create private and shared disk group using VxVM ?
ANS: For Private DG:
Command: vxdg init

For Shared DG:

Command: vxdg -s init < disk1 disk2 disk3 >

3. Which are the different layouts for volumes in VxVM ?

ANS: mirror, stripe, concat (default one), raid5, stripe-mirror, mirror-stripe.

4. What is the basic difference between private disk group and shared disk group ?
ANS: Private DG: The DG which is only visible for the host on which you have created it,
if the host is a part of cluster, the private DG will not be visible to the other cluster nodes.
Shared DG: The DG which is sharable and visible to the other cluster nodes.

5. How will you add new disk to the existing disk group ?
ANS: Run vxdiskadm command, which will open menu driven program to do various disk
operations, select add disks option or you can use another command vxdiskadd.

6. How will you grow/shrink the volume/file system ? What is the meaning of growby and
growto options ? What is the meaning on shrinkto and shrinkby options ?
ANS: vxassist command is used to do all volume administration, following is the
description and syntax.

Growby option: This is will grow your file system by adding new size to the existing file
system.

Growto option: This will grow your file system as per the new size. This WILL NOT ADD
new size to the existing one.

Shrinkby option: This will shrink your file system by reducing new size from existing file
system.

Shrinkto option: This will shrink your file system as per the new size. This WILL NOT
REDUCE the file system by reducing new size.

Command:
vxassist -g [growto, growby, shrinkto, shrinkby] length
 7. How will you setup and unsetup disks explicitly using VxVM ?
ANS: You can use /etc/vx/bin/vxdiskunsetup to unsetup the disk, and /etc/vx/vxdisksetup
to setup the disk.

8. How will you list the disks, which are in different disk groups ?
ANS: vxdisk list is the command will list the disks from the DG which is currently
imported, you can check the same using vxprint command too. vxdisk -o alldgs list
command list all the disks which are in different dg's.

9. What is the private region in VxVM ?

ANS: Private region stores the structured VxVM information, it also stores the disk ID
and disk geometry. In short words it has metadata of the disk.

10. If, vxdisk list command gives you disks status as "error", what steps you will follow to
make the respective disks online ?
ANS: If you faced this issue because of fabric disconnection then simply do vxdisk
scandisks, otherwise unsetup the disk using using /etc/vx/bin/vxdiskunsetup and setup
the disks again using /etc/vx/bin/vxdisksetup, this will definitely help! [
/etc/vx/bin/vxdiskunsetup will remove the private region from the disk and destroys data,
backup the data before using this option]

Solaris, VxVM, Cluster L1/L2 and L3 also Interview questions:-

1. How do you replace a failed boot disk under Meta in Solaris? Step by step explanation?

2. How do you remove Meta only for the root slice? Remaining slices should run under meta?

3. What you would do if you want to replace a slice using met replace option?

4. What is the significance of 51% state database replicas in SVM?

5. What are the common errors you find in Solaris Volume manager?

6. You have a boot disk under SVM; the machine fails to boot and remains in ok prompt? what could
be the possible reason?

7. Metastat -p shows a metavolume needs replacement. Metavolume is a single way mirror only.
Actually you find disk and metavolumes are ok and I/O is happening to the file systems how you will
remove the Meta replace message that comes out of metastat.

8. How to create a shared disk group in VxVM?

9. What is the difference between private and public regions in VERITAS Volume manager?

10. what would you do if the private region of a particular disk group is full? What are the design
considerations for the size of private region in Vxvm disk group?
 11. How to replace a corrupt private region? In Vxvm 4, 5 and greater versions

12. How would you convert a volume from gen to fsgen? why should you do that?

13. How can you unencapsulate a boot disk in VxVM?

14. How to identify multiple paths for a disk.

15. What is the difference between Vxdump and EMC power path?

16. Vxdisk -o alldgs list o/p shows some disk groups in braces What does that signify?

17. What are the various layouts that are available in VxVM?

18. What is a layered volume? How to create it using vxmake?

19. How to quickly mirror a volume, if the volume is empty?

20. How to grow a volume?

21. What is the difference between failing and failed disks?

22. How to replace a failed disk in VERITAS?

23. Plex is in a disabled state. How will you recover? what are the steps to follow?

24.what is the difference between detached and disassociate state of Plexes?

25. Whats the boot process of VxVM?

26. Whats the difference between SVM and VxVM? What would you recommend to your clients? Why?

27. What are the various clusters you have worked on?

28. Which cluster is better VCS or Sun cluster?

29. Compare and contrast VCS and Sun Cluster.

30. How will you start VCS service? What are the configuration files in VCS?

31. How would switch a service group?

32. How would you freeze a service group?

33. What is a Split brain scenario?

UNIX Solaris L1/L2 interview questions:

1. What would be the action you will take if you are root file system get full (like 98%).
2. Different kind of patches. What is the need to install patches?
3. What r the diff level of RAIDS. (In Detail like how to setup diff RAIDS with commands)
4. Why we implement RAID 5.
5. In which case we use RAID 1 and RAID 5.
6. Different between diff SUN Servers (ex v440 and v 480)
7. Like how to check file system status
8. How u monitor logs and rotate logs
9. NFS daemons. How to share files Across n/w.
10. some user admin commands.(Like how to add /delete/modify user credential info, how to see
passwd status, how to update /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow file ),how to check passwd
consistency, change file permission,RBAC)
11. IMP Troubleshooting on Solaris, vxvm, vcs and some basic commands
12. Veritas volume manager certification questions
13. 1. A Volume Manager disk can be divided into one or more ________.
a. disk groups
b. partitions
c. slices
d. subdisks
2. What does an active/passive array provide?
a. load balancing using minimum I/O policy
b. high availability in the event of a total array failure
c. load balancing using the round robin I/O policy
d. high availability in the event of a path failure
3. Which configuration step must be completed prior to assigning a new disk to a
disk group?
a. initialize the disk
b. create subdisks
c. assign disk space to volumes
d. configure the volume disk pool
4. Which vxdisk command options display disk information and the disk group
status?
a. -o dg list
b. -o alldgs list
c. -o list alldgs
d. -o list dg
5. If the datadg disk group has a disk group version of 50, what occurs when you run
the vxdg upgrade datadg command with no other options?
1. a. The disk group is upgraded by one disk group version level, in this case, to
version 60
2. b. You receive an error stating that the disk group version must be specified
3. c. The disk group is upgraded to the latest disk group version
4. d. The current disk group version is displayed and no further action is taken
6. Output from the vxprint command displays information stored in the _______.
a. private region
b. public region
c. partition table
d. dirty region log
7. Which command removes the datavol volume from the datadg disk group?
a. vxassist -g datadg remove volume datavol
b. vxremove -g datadg remove volume datavol
c. vxassist -g datadg destroy volume datavol
d. vxdg -g datadg destroy volume datavol
8. Which statement is true about the relationship between a Volume Manager
volume and the corresponding file system?
a. Starting the volume will start the file system
b. The file system must be mounted to stop the volume
c. The file system must be unmounted to stop the volume
d. Starting the file system will start the volume
9. Which command forces the daemon to reread all the drives in the system?
a. kill ?HUP vxiod
b. vxdisk rescan
 c. vxdctl enable
d. vxprint -voldstart
10. Which command can be used to remove a disk interactively?
a. vxdiskadm option remove a disk
b. vxdisk remove -f -i
c. vxdisk relocate -f -i
d. vxdiskadm option relocate subdisks
11. The datadg disk group contains four disks. A 100 MB volume named datavol is
concatenated using two disks. There are no other volumes in the disk group. There
are three processes performing random reads that are 512K in size on the volume.
Output from a vxstat command indicates that all I/O activity occurred mostly on one
of the two disks.

Which action will most evenly distribute the I/O across all disks in the disk group?
a. Mirror the volume using the two unused disks
b. Remove the two unused disks from the disk group
c. Resize the volume to use all of the disks
d. Stripe the volume across all four disks
12. Which layout options are available when using the vxassist command to create a
layered volume? (Choose two)
a. concat-mirror
b. mirror-concatenate
c. stripe-mirror
d. mirror-stripe
e. concatenate-stripe
f. stripe-concatenate
13. Which menu option within the vxdiskadm utility can be used to create a new disk
group?
a. Add or initialize one or more disks
b. Add or initialize one or more disk groups
c. Make a disk available for hot-relocation use
d. Enable access to (import) a disk group
14. What are the benefits of enclosure-based naming? (Choose three)
a. easier fault isolation
b. improved array availability
c. device-name independence
d. improved SAN management
e. improved disk performance
15. Which command creates a 10 GB volume named datavol in the datadg disk group,
assuming that the /etc/default/vxassist file does NOT exist on the system?
a. vxvmvol -g datadg new 10g datavol
b. vxvol -g datadg create 10g datavol
c. vxassist -g datadg make datavol 10g
d. vxdisk -g datadg 10g newvol datavol
16. Online resizing of a Volume Manager volume and file system requires that the file
system is _____.
a. in the bootdg disk group
b. checked before the process
c. shared across disk groups
 d. mounted during the process
17.Which command displays the contents of the volboot file?
a. vxvolboot list
b. vxcat volboot
c. vxdctl list
d. vxconfig volboot
18. What are the characteristics of a space-optimized snapshot? (Choose two)
a. contains compressed primary data
b. references the primary data
c. requires less space than a full-sized point-in-time copy
d. initially contains a complete copy of primary data
e. performs an automatic atomic-copy resynchronization
19. Which Veritas Volume Manager command displays average volume read and
write times?
a. vxprint
b. vxstat
c. vxtrace
d. vxinfo
20. What is the recommended next step to be performed after a failed disk has been
physically replaced?
a. Logically replace the disk in volume Manager
b. Unrelocate any relocated Volume Manager subdisks to the new disk
c. Synchronize any STALE plexes
d. Ensure that the operating system can access the disk
21. Which commands can be used to manage dynamic multipathing? (Choose two)
a. vxddladm
b. vxdiskadm
c. vxdmpadm
d. vxpathadm
e. vxassist
22. Which task related to protecting the Volume Manager configuration has the steps
precommit and commit associated with it?
a. restore
b. backup
c. replace
d. remove
Answers: 1-d, 2-d,3-a, 4-b, 5-c, 6-a, 7-a, 8-c, 9-c,10-a,11-d, 12-a&c, 13-a, 14-a&c&d,
15-c, 16-d, 17-c, 18-b&c, 19-b, 20-d, 21-b&c, 22-a

How to identify VXVM version?

pkginfo -l packagename

What is the boot process of VxVM?

During the solaris boot process once it reads
the /etc/system file and is supposed to boot from veritas
volumes below are the two lines that need to be placed
in /etc/system file such that it boot using veritas root
device.
1. rootdev:/pseudo/vxio@0:0
2. set vxio:vol_rootdev_is_volume=1

Explain What are the common errors you find in Solaris Volume manager?
1) Disks failures (Boot device failures)
2) Insufficient state database replicas issues
3) Wrong entries in /etc/vfstab file
How to create a shared disk group in VxVM?
Creating shared dg form the existing dgs
1) List all the dg available: #vxdg list
2) Find out the node that is master or slace using:
#vxdctl -c mode
3) Deport the disk groups to be shared: #vxdg deport
<dg name>
4) Import dgs to be shared: #vxdg -s import < dg
name> % Do this on master node
5) To check the shared disk groups: #vxdg list

Creating Veritas Volume using vxmake

We will see how to create a veritas volume using vxmake command. There are two ways to create a vx
volume. A top to bottom approach wherein you create a volume and veritas creates the plex and
subdisk for you. A bottom to top approach where in you create the objects and then build a volume. On
a comparative note, vxassist is the easier way as it creates the volume top to bottom. Vxmake is
comparatively difficult to manage in a production environment..

Knowing how to build a volume from scratch does not hurt and is a good exercise in learning the
building blocks of VX. Lets see in detail how it works out. vxmake allows you to create objects
individually.

The approach will be to create Subdisks, associate plex with subdisk and put the plex in the volume. I
am assuming that the disk test01 is part of the testdg diskgroup.

1. Create the Subdisk; #vxmake sd test01-01 test01,0,104857600 ( The value is in sectors )

2. Build the Plex ; # vxmake plex testplex
3. Associate the Plex with subdisk ; # vxsd assoc testplex test01-01
assoc indicates we are associating the subdisk to the plex.

4. Attach the plex to volume ; # vxmake -U fsgen vol testvol plex=testplex

5. Check the status of the Objects.

# vxprint -g testdg -hrtdg testdg default default 0

dm test01 c1t0d0s2 sliced 2048 104857600 -
v testvol fsgen DISABLED EMPTY 104857600 ROUND -
pl testplex testvol DISABLED EMPTY 104857600 CONCAT RW
sd test01-01 testplex test01 0 104857600 0 c1t0d0 ENA
6. Start the volume ; # vxvol -g testdg start testvol
7. Check the status ; #vxprint -g testdg -hrt

Missing Volboot file in VxVM

Posted July 3, 2012
Filed under: veritas volume manager |
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How to recover from a missing /etc/vx/volboot file?

The volboot is an important file, it contains the hostid of the system and this is used by VxVM to
establish the ownership of disks. The volboot is important in the management of vxconfigd as well. If
the rootdisk is under VxVM control it also has the information of boot disk group information.

During boot up, vxvm config dameon reads the volboot file, if the file is missing, vxconfigd fails and the
boot sequence is aborted.

Solution will be

a) to copy the volboot file from backup and reboot the system.

b) If a valid backup is not available we may need to run the sequence of commands to enable it again.

Obtain the hostid of the system from vxprivutil.

# vxprivutil list /dev/dsk/c0t1d0s3 |grep -i hostid

# vxdctl stop ( stop the vxconfigd, if its running )
# vxiod set 10
# vxconfigd -m disable ( start the vxconfigd in disable mode )
# vxdctl init <hostid> ( hostid obtained from vxprivutil, this will recreate the /etc/vx/volboot file )

cfgadm:::Device being used by VxVM

Posted November 3, 2010
Filed under: Solaris, veritas volume manager |
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root@abc>/> cfgadm -c unconfigure c1::dsk/c1t0d0
cfgadm: Component system is busy, try again: failed to offline:
/devices/ssm@0,0/pci@1c,700000/pci@1/SUNW,isptwo@4/sd@0,0
Resource Information
-
/dev/dsk/c1t0d0s2 Device being used by VxVM
cfgadm unconfigure command fails here.

The way to resolve this is to disable the disks path from DMP control. Since there is only one path to
this disk, the -f (for force) option needs to be used:

root@abc>/> vxdmpadm -f disable path=c1t0d0s2

root@abc>/> vxdmpadm getsubpaths ctlr=c1
NAME STATE[A] PATH-TYPE[M] DMPNODENAME ENCLR-TYPE ENCLR-NAME ATTRS
================================================================================
c1t0d0s2 DISABLED - c1t0d0s2 Disk Disk -
c1t6d0s2 ENABLED(A) - c1t6d0s2 Disk Disk -
You can see the path now disabled from DMP.

root@abc>/> cfgadm -c unconfigure c1::dsk/c1t0d0

cfgadm goes through fine.

root@abc>/>

Rootdg corruption Server fails to boot

Posted May 1, 2010
Filed under: veritas volume manager |
Comments (1)
There are times when one has to go through the cut Server has a bad panic/power trip and it
corrupts the rootdg badly and the server is unable to boot with VxVM. Here is a procedure to recover
from the situation.

1. Boot from the cdrom or from the network

2. Mount the rootdisk.

3. Once mounted, disable the start up of VxVM.

- Edit /a/etc/system. Comment out the vx parameter as follow:

*rootdev:/pseudo/vxio@0:0
*set vxio:vol_rootdev_is_volume=1
- cd /a/etc/vx/reconfig.d/state.d/
- rm root-done
- touch install-db
- cp -p /a/etc/vfstab /a/etc/vfstab.withvm
- cp -p /a/etc/vfstab.prevm /a/etc/vfstab
- init 6
4. Ensure the server comes up without veritas starting up.
5. Manually start the veritas volume manager.

- vxiod set 10
- ps -ef |grep vxconfigd. If vxconfigd is not running, then run /usr/sbin/vxconfigd -m disable
- vxdctl mode. Should see it is in disabled mode.
- vxdctl init
- vxdctl enable
- vxdctl mode
6. Check the diskgroups.

- vxdg list
7. Deport the rootdg so that it does not come up again.

- vxdg deport rootdg

8. Zero out private and public region partitions from the disks on the rootdg.

- format -d <c#t#d#>
9. Once this is done, the disks should show as error.

- vxdisk list
10. Re encapsulate the disk.

- cd /etc/vx/reconfig.d/state.d/
- rm install-db
- vxdiskadm. Option 2 to encapsulate the primary bootdisk
- Reboot machine upon completed Option 2 above.
11. Verify for the boot and all volumes coming up clean.

- vxprint -ht, to verify all the volume are enabled. If the volume not started, then run vxvol -g
groupname startall to start the volume.
- Revert back the /etc/vfstab.withvm to /etc/vfstab
- mount all the volume and verify.
12. Mirror to second bootdisk

- vxdiskadm. Option 1 to Add or initialize the second bootdisk

- vxdiskadm. Option 6 to mirror the secondary bootdisk

VxVM Upgrade
Posted February 13, 2010
Filed under: veritas volume manager |
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Lets look at VxVM Upgrade this week
The setup is

a) Solaris 9
b) VxVM 4.0 / VxDMP > No powerpath
c) Oracle databases.
I upgraded to Storage Foundation 5.0 MP3. The tech plan is as below:

1. Install the VRTSspt Package. Down load the package from symantec website

2. Run the VRTSexplorer and keep the file at a safe location if you may need it in case you run in any
issue.

3. Break the rootmirror

4. Unencapsulate the rootmirror.

# mount /dev/dsk/c0t1d0s0 /alt.root

# cd /alt.root/etc
# touch /alt.root/etc/vx/reconfig.d/state.d/install-db
rootdev:/pseudo/vxio@0:0
set vxio:vol_rootdev_is_volume=1
Remove the above lines from /alt.root/etc/system file

Make changes to /etc/vfstab to ensure the system boots from the mirror disk ( c#t#d#)

5. Boot the server from rootmirror and verify for the server coming up.

6. Boot again from the rootdisk.

7. Check for the pre-requiste packages. Solaris 9 for Storage Foundation need

SUNWcfcl,SUNWcfclr, SUNWcfclx packages and patch 114477-04.

8. Install the packages first and then the patches. Packages and patches can be downloaded from

http://www.sun.com/downloads
and choose A-Z downloads

9. Verify the pre-staged software is not corrupted and working fine. ( You can do this by doing a tar
and keeping the software ready)

10. Ensure all applications/Databases are shutdown and the file-systems are down.

11. Ensure all the apps/dbs are umounted clean .

# echo 8192B.p S | fsdb -F vxfs <Raw_Device> | grep clean

Receive: flags 0 mod 0 clean clean_value
Note: A clean_value value of 0x5a indicates the file system is clean, 0x3c incidates the file system is
dirty, and 069 indicates the file system is dusty. A dusty file system has pending extended operations.

Note: If a file system is not clean, enter the following commands for that file system:

Enter: fsck -F vxfs filesystem

Enter: mount -F vxfs [Block_Device] [mountpoint]
Enter: umount [mountpoint]
Note: This should complete any extended operations that were outstanding on the file system and
unmount the file system cleanly.

12. Run the upgrade_start -check

# /storage_foundation/scripts/upgrade_start -check
-Note: this is a veritas check script that will check to see if this machine is eligible for upgrade.

13.Ensure that the root mirror is removed from rootdg.

# /sbin/vxdg g rootdg f rmdisk rootmirror

14. Un encapsulate the rootdisk

Remove the following lines from /etc/system

rootdev:/pseudo/vxio@0:0
set vxio:vol_rootdev_is_volume=1
Prevent veritas from starting up.
#/usr/bin/cd /etc/vx/reconfig.d/state.d
#/usr/bin/rm root-done
#/usr/bin/touch install-db
15 . Deport all appdiskgroups.

16. Reboot the node to single user mode.

17. Remove all packages that start with VRTS but for VRTSvlic. Dont remove the VRTSvlic packages. I
believe you can remove this as well, but I have not tried it myself.

# pkginfo | grep VRTS

# pkgrm VRTSxxxx
18. Install the Veritas 5.0 Software

# ./installer
Note : Answer the questions and complete the installation. Insome cases veritas may not start
correctly and will require a reboot.

19. If you are upgrading from 4.0 or later the licenses should take of themselves.
20. Manually Encapsualte the rootdisk after upgrade.

# vxdiskadm
Choose option 2 and give the root disk for encapsulation.

21. Import the disk groups and mount the filesystems.

22. Ensure applications are working fine

23. Remirror the rootdrive follow standard procedures.

Extending Filesystems in Sun Cluster using VxVM

Posted October 25, 2009
Filed under: Solaris, Sun cluster, veritas volume manager | Tags: Sun cluster,Veritas
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I did an activity to add LUNS to existing database file systems running sun Cluster 3.1, Solaris 9 OS with
VxVM. The steps I followed are :

a) Get the LUN information from Storage and update the sd.conf accordingly on both the servers

b) Make the LUNS Visible on the server. Run the command on both the nodes

#update_drv -f sd
c) Verify for the LUNS present; # format
d) Configure emcpower devices. Run on both the servers.

# /etc/powermt config
# /etc/powermt save
e) Create the Sun Cluster DID devices. Run on both nodes if required.

# devfsadm
# scgdevs
f) Verify the sun Cluster DID devices. # scdidadm -L
g) Add the disks to veritas diskgroup ; # vxdiskadm
h) Grow the FS

Identifying multiple paths for a disk under VxVM control

Posted December 8, 2008
Filed under: veritas volume manager |
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This is a routine task for people dealing with VERITAS volume manager. There are times when one need
to confirm the number of paths for the disk.

This can be accomplished by the below command.

# vxdisk list <diskname>
In this one can look at the numpaths value at the bottom of the output.

Mirroring an Empty volume under VxVM

Posted November 14, 2008
Filed under: veritas volume manager |
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If you are mirroring empty Veritas plexes, this post is for you. Normally we would wait ensuring the
plexes are in sync. If the plex size is large, then the waiting time is more. A workaround is

# vxassist -g <dgname> make testvol 1g layout=mirror init=active dgname01 dgname02

init=active is the keyword here.

This should save lot of time.

Identifying and Replacing failed disks in V880

Posted October 17, 2008
Filed under: Servers, veritas volume manager |
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Hi, recently i ran in to a problem of failed disk with V880. I wanted to make sure if the disk has indeed
failed. Server was running VxVM. Did these commands to identify the disk failure.

V880 has internal FCAL loop. So to identify that

#luxadm probe
Found Enclosure:
SUNWGS INT FCBPL Name:LoopA Node WWN:508002000011d7d8 Logical Path:/dev/es/ses0
#luxadm display LoopA
SUNWGS INT FCBPL
DISK STATUS
SLOT DISKS (Node WWN)
0 On (O.K.) 2000002037f87099
1 On (O.K.) 2000002037f39796
2 On (Login failed)
3 Not Installed
4 Not Installed
5 Not Installed
6 Not Installed
7 Not Installed
8 Not Installed
9 Not Installed
10 Not Installed
11 Not Installed
SUBSYSTEM STATUS
FW Revision:9218 Box ID:0
Node WWN:508002000011d7d8 Enclosure Name:LoopA
SSC100s 0=Base Bkpln, 1=Base LoopB, 2=Exp Bkpln, 3=Exp LoopB
SSC100 #0: O.K.(11.A)
SSC100 #1: O.K.(11.A)
SSC100 #2: Not Installed
SSC100 #3: Not Installed
Temperature Sensors 0 Base, 1 Expansion
0:21C
1:Not Installed
Here we can identify the disk failure at the slot no 2. This is a good way to identify the failed disk
under internal FCAL loop.

Since its a VxvM disk, make sure its in failed was or removed state.

# vxdisk list
DEVICE TYPE DISK GROUP STATUS
c1t0d0s2 sliced rootdisk rootdg online
c1t1d0s2 sliced disk01 rootdg online
c1t1d0s2 sliced - online
- - disk02 rootdg failed was:c1t2d0s2
Run vxdiskadm option 4 to remove the disk for replacement. After running vxdiskadm the output
should look similar to this:

# vxdisk list
DEVICE TYPE DISK GROUP STATUS
c1t0d0s2 sliced rootdisk rootdg online
c1t1d0s2 sliced disk01 rootdg online
c1t2d0s2 sliced - - online
- - disk02 rootdg removed was:c1t2d0s2
1. Put the disk into offline state; # vxdisk offline c1t2d0s2
2. VxVM is ready for removal of the disk, run the luxadm offline to remove the WWN entries and device
links for the failed drive ; # luxadm -e offline /dev/rdsk/c1t2d0s2
3. Do the luxadm to remove the device. ; #luxadm remove_device /dev/rdsk/c1t2d0s2
4. check the device file ; #devfsadm -C ; # ls -ld /dev/rdsk/c1t2d0*
5. Replace the disk physically

6. Run the devfsadm ; # devfsadm

7. verify with luxadm display ; # luxadm display LoopA
8. label the disk ; use format and label
9. # vxdctl enable
10. # vxdisk list ; you would see a new disk.
11. Now use vxdiskadm option 5 to replace the disk. Give yes to the access question.

12. Verify the sync ; # vxtask list

Thats it you should see the replaced disk doing just fine.

Veritas recovery features

Posted August 19, 2008
Filed under: Recovery, veritas volume manager |
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In this post i will explain the volume recovery and disk group recovery in veritas volume manager. As
an admin, we may face situations where one deletes a volume accidentally or destroy a dg by mistake.
If we do not have configuration backups of the objects, we are in for some trouble. In order to save
our a** its always better to be proactive and do the objects backups.

From 3.5 MP3 ( if am correct) vxvm offers vxconfigbackup & vxconfigrestore options for automatic
object backups. vxconfigbackupd is a daemon which runs in the background and do upto date backups
of all the disk group and the objects associated with it. All the backups are stored
in /etc/vx/cbr/bk/dgnamedirectory. Whenever a configuration change
occurs, vxconfigbackupd daemon updates the directories with the latest configuration. One can also
manually do the object backups using the vxconfigbackup command. One can use the -l option to
change the default location of the backups.
vxconfigbackup -l /var/vxvmbackups datadg
This would update all the configuration backups to /var/vxvmbackups directory for datadg. If we
need to recover the configuration information for the entire datadg, we can use
the vxconfigrestore option. There can be situations where the configuration information is completely
lost due to system outages or reboots.
/etc/vx/bin/vxconfigrestore -p /var/vxvmbackups datadg # to precommit the changes
/etc/vx/bin/vxconfigrestore -c /var/vxvmbackups datadg # to commit the changes
A vxprint output will give the confirmation

vxprint -g datadg
I just explained how to go about backingup and recovering configuration data using the vxconfigbackup
and vxconfigrestore options. There may be situations when someone accidentally deletes the volume
of a diskgroup. In such situations, backups of individual object information will come in handy You
can schedule a cron to backup individual object configuration

/usr/sbin/vxprint -rhmvps ${volume_name} > ${DIR_NAME}/${volume_name}.${DATE}

using the backed up file and vxmake we can easily recover the deleted volume configuration

vxmake -g <dgname> -d <file_name>

Verify the recovery using vxprint ; vxprint -g datadg -hrt
Start the volume ; vxvol -g <dgname> start <vol_name>
Volume is ready to do I/O. As with the case with any recovery options, these options should be
experimented before using in the production setup.