262Creating volumes

Accessing a volume

Accessing a volume

As soon as a volume has been created and initialized, it is available for use as a virtual disk partition by the operating system for the creation of a file system, or by application programs such as relational databases and other data management software.

Creating a volume in a disk group sets up block and character (raw) device files that can be used to access the volume:

/dev/vx/dsk/diskgroup/volume

block device file for volume

/dev/vx/rdsk/diskgroup/volume

character device file for volume

The pathnames include a directory named for the disk group. Use the appropriate device node to create, mount and repair file systems, and to lay out databases that require raw partitions.

Note: As the rootdg disk group no longer has special significance, VxVM only creates volume device nodes for this disk group in the /dev/vx/dsk/rootdg and /dev/vx/rdsk/rootdg directories. VxVM does not create device nodes in the /dev/vx/dsk or /dev/vx/rdsk directories for the rootdg disk group.