SFORAC documentation asked me to create the minimum possible LUN on the array for

coordinator disks
- I created the smallest LUN (16 MB) on the array
- When trying to initialize it (using vxdisksetup -i Disk_0 format=cdsdisk) I got the error about
disk being too small
- I extended the disk size on the array to 50 MB
- The servers still saw the coordinator disks (/dev/sda to /dev/sdc) of size 16 MB. Since I'm not
well versed in Linux I rebooted both servers so they can see the new LUN size

Fdisk is able to view the new LUN size & manipulate it as well however vxdisksetup still would
not allow me to initialize the disks. I've tried the following:

# fdisk /dev/sda
Chose o & then w

# vxdisksetup -i Disk_0 format=cdsdisk

VxVM vxdisk ERROR V-5-1-535 Device Disk_0: Invalid attributes

# vxdisksetup -i Disk_0 format=cdsdisk

VxVM vxdisksetup ERROR V-5-2-0 Disk is too small for supplied parameters

Then I zero filled the LUN:

# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1M

Repeated the steps above to get the same errors. I've also tried to use simple format but it doesnt
work either. Have I missed out something or is it just that VxVM does not like volumes expanded
by the array?

The error occurs when vxdisksetup is run for disks that do not appear to be SCSI disks. I say "app
ear to" because the method used to find this out relies on a rather kludgy "grep 'SCSI'" on the
output of the disk inquiry command. So it is well possible that it vxdisksetup fails even on SCSI
disks, especially if they're iSCSI or similar.
The reason why vxdisksetup doesn't like non-SCSI-disks is because it is assumed that non-SCSI
means IDE/ATA/SATA, which in turn means the disk geometry cannot be reliably determined.
This is due to LBA-adressing and other ancient PC cruft.
How to fix it? Not sure. Technically speaking, you could certainly hack vxdisksetup (it's a script)
to ignore the error and just go on, but I wouldn't run an investment bank's production on the result

my disks are from an emc symetrix san environment. so this should not be the problem.

its working now. all coordinator disks have a size of 19mb. but vxdisksetup didn't create cdsdisks
with the standard value 65xxx (means 6,5mb). the fix was to take a half amount of this value and
create it with ~3mb.
ISSUE AS REPORTED:
vxdisksetup fails to initialize 16MB coordinator disks.

ERROR CODE/ MESSAGE:

# /usr/lib/vxvm/bin/vxdisksetup -i c1t500A098387893C76d0 format=cdsdisk
VxVM vxdisksetup ERROR V-5-2-2480 Disk is too small for supplied parameters

CAUSE:
The coordinator LUNs you are using are 16MB size. As of VxVM 5.0, the default private region
size was increased from 1MB to 32MB (see page 13 of the Storage Foundation 5.0 Release Notes
[http://support.veritas.com/docs/283990]). Since you are using the defaults for vxdisksetup you
are getting this error.
# /usr/lib/vxvm/bin/vxdisksetup -i c1t500A098387893C76d0 privlen=15m

SOLUTION:
Workaround is to use smaller private region for coordinator diskgroups as 32MB is really not
required for coordinator disks.
# /usr/lib/vxvm/bin/vxdisksetup -i c1t500A098387893C76d0 privlen=15m

Only scsi disk supports cds, for ide disk, you will have to specify sliced manually:
vxdisksetup -i sdb format=sliced.

# /opt/VRTS/bin/vxdisksetup -if c1t0d5

VxVM vxdisksetup ERROR V-5-2-2480 Disk is too small for supplied parameters
Got
Initializing device c1t0d5.
/usr/lib/vxvm/voladm.d/bin/disk.doinit[71]: vxdisksetup: A test command parameter is not valid.
Initializing device c1t0d6.
/usr/lib/vxvm/voladm.d/bin/disk.doinit[71]: vxdisksetup: A test command parameter is not valid.
when trying to add them through vxdiskadm.

Here is the disk list:

DEVICE TYPE DISK GROUP STATUS
c1t0d3 auto:LVM - - LVM
c1t0d4 auto:LVM - - LVM
c1t0d5 auto:none - - online invalid
c1t0d6 auto:none - - online invalid
c1t0d7 auto:cdsdisk - - online
c1t1d0 auto:cdsdisk - - online
c1t1d1 auto:LVM - - LVM
c1t1d2 auto:cdsdisk - - online
c1t1d3 auto:LVM - - LVM

# vxdisk list c1t0d5

Device: c1t0d5
devicetag: c1t0d5
type: auto
info: format=LVM
flags: online error private autoconfig
errno: Disk is not useable, bad format
Multipathing information:
numpaths: 2
c1t0d5 state=enabled
c4t0d5 state=enabled

c1t0d5 and c1t0d6 are supposed to be 2 TB luns that I need for creating clustered file systems for
oracle. Any ideas?

You might have to do a dd and write over first less say 100mb of disk to blank any previous head
er aka lvm and then re-format via sun format and vxdctl enable.

Problem:
1. Create /devices entries by OS command
# devfsadm -c disk
2. Initiate the disks, and get the following errors
wvprp06# ./vxdisksetup -ie c3t18d30
./vxdisksetup: test: argument expected
wvprp06# ./vxdisksetup -ie c3t18d30 format=sliced
./vxdisksetup: test: argument expected
wvprp06# ./vxdisksetup -ie c3t18d30 format=simple
./vxdisksetup: test: argument expected
wvprp06# ./vxdisksetup -ie c3t18d30 format=cdsdisk
VxVM vxdisksetup ERROR V-5-2-1529 The -e flag is incompatible with the cdsdisk format.
wvprp06# ./vxdisksetup -i c3t18d30 format=cdsdisk
VxVM vxdisksetup ERROR V-5-2-2480 Disk is too small for supplied parameters
wvprp06# format

Solution:
1. Then, I check the disk status, it showed the multi-pathing is invalid
wvprp06# vxdisk list c3t18d30
Device: c3t18d30s2
devicetag: c3t18d30
type: auto
flags: online error private autoconfig
pubpaths: block=/dev/vx/dmp/c3t18d30s2 char=/dev/vx/rdmp/c3t18d30s2
guid: –
udid: FUJITSU%5FETERNUS%5FDXL%5F0210AD%5F0020
site: –
errno: Device path not valid <– the multi-pathing is invalid
Multipathing information:
numpaths: 1
c3t18d30s2 state=enabled

2. Re-enable vxdctl, the problem was fixed

wvprp06# vxdctl enable
wvprp06# vxdisk list c3t18d30
Device: c3t18d30
devicetag: c3t18d30
type: auto
info: format=none
flags: online ready private autoconfig invalid
pubpaths: block=/dev/vx/dmp/c3t18d30 char=/dev/vx/rdmp/c3t18d30
guid: –
udid: FUJITSU%5FETERNUS%5FDXL%5F0210AD%5F0020
site: –
Multipathing information:
numpaths: 2
c3t18d30 state=enabled
c2t19d30 state=enabled
wvprp06# ./vxdisksetup -ie c3t18d30
wvprp06#

SR: QXCR1001059764
SYMANTEC Incident Number: 2020060 (2068127)
In a scenario, where the disk size is greater than 2 terabytes, the vxdisksetup (1M) command
fails with the following error message:
"Disk is too small for supplied parameters"

Problem
Unable to initualize lun with vxdisksetup
Error Message
VxVM vxdisk ERROR V-5-1-5433 Device : init failed: Disk is not usable
Cause
Sun require 2 alternate cylinders for backup label but the problem is this disk definition shows that
it only has two cylinders due to the size of each cylinder. That leaves vxvm with no cylinders to
create its private information on.

Solution
Hardware Admin to redefine the number of cylinders for the lun assigned to system
Re-run vxdisksetup
Note: VxVM requires at lease one cylinder.

Applies To
Using vxvm debug can assist with determining the root cause.

First set vxvm debug mode to log level 9

vxdctl debug 9 </var/tmp/vxdisksetup_debug.out>
The output of </var/tmp/vxdisksetup_debug.out> shows the problem is the mode sense page 3 and
4 on the array drives.

The first cds_get_geometry(1) shows the sun disk label

09/28 15:17:21: VxVM vxconfigd DEBUG V-5-1-16172 cds_get_geometry: sector_size1 512
track_size1 16 num_heads1 50 num_cyl1 128 disk_size1 102400

NOTE: When we initialize a device we dump the label as shown above and compare it to the raw
geometry the mode sense on the storage page 3 and 4.

If there is a difference greater than 1% we use the mode sense values on the array to build our dmp
records..

The second cds_get_geometry(2) shows the raw geometry mode page 3 &4
09/28 15:17:21: VxVM vxconfigd DEBUG V-5-1-16173 cds_get_geometry: sector_size2 512
track_size2 768 num_heads2 50 num_cyl2 2 disk_size2 76800
* Dimensions: ===Sun Label Values ==== Raw Geometry mode sense page 3& values
* 512 bytes/sector === sector_size1 512 ===== sector_size1 512
* 16 sectors/track === track_size1 16 ===== track_size2 768
* 50 tracks/cylinder = num_heads1 50 ===== num_heads1 50
* 800 sectors/cylinder
* 128 cylinders == num_cyl1 128 ==== num_cyl2 2
* 126 accessible cylinders _______ <<<< note "accessible cylinders" is minus 2 total "cylinders"
* ==disk_size1 102400 ==disk_size2 76800

The next line shows that we are going to pick the raw geometry mode sense page 3 and 4
09/28 15:17:21: VxVM vxconfigd DEBUG V-5-1-0 cds_get_geometry: geomp->sector_size 512
geomp->num_heads 50 geomp->num_sectors_per_track 768 geomp->num_cylinders 2