Administering disks 91

Changing the disk-naming scheme

If the disk was previously in use by the LVM subsystem, you can preserve existing data while still letting VxVM take control of the disk. This is accomplished using conversion. With conversion, the virtual layout of the data is fully converted to VxVM control (see the Veritas Volume Manager Migration Guide).

If the disk was previously in use by the LVM subsystem, but you do not want to preserve the data on it, use the LVM command, pvremove, before attempting to initialize the disk for VxVM.

Multiple disks on one or more controllers can be placed under VxVM control simultaneously. Depending on the circumstances, all of the disks may not be processed the same way.

It is possible to configure the vxdiskadm utility not to list certain disks or controllers as being available. For example, this may be useful in a SAN environment where disk enclosures are visible to a number of separate systems.

To exclude a device from the view of VxVM, select item 17 (Prevent

multipathing/Suppress devices from VxVM’s view) from the vxdiskadm main menu. See Disabling and enabling multipathing for specific devices” on page 133 for details.

Changing the disk-naming scheme

You can either use enclosure-based naming for disks or the operating system’s naming convention. Select menu item 20 from the vxdiskadm main menu to change the disk-naming scheme that you want VxVM to use. When prompted, enter y to change the naming scheme. For operating system based naming, you are asked to select between default, legacy or new device names. The vxconfigd daemon is then restarted to bring the new disk naming scheme into effect.

VxVM commands display device names according the current naming scheme. If operating system-based naming is selected, all VxVM commands that list DMP node devices will display device names according to the mode that is specified.

ModeFormat of output from VxVM command

 

 

default

The same format is used as in the input to the command (if this can

 

be determined). Otherwise, legacy names are used. This is the default

 

mode.

 

 

legacy

Only legacy names are displayed.

 

 

new

Only new (agile) names are displayed.