09 December 2010

Mounting an SVM Root Disk from CDROM

The following illustrates how to mount a root disk under Solaris Volume
Manager (SVM) control when booted from a CDROM.  Our host details:
        HOST:                   snorkle
        PROMPT:                 cdrom [0]
        OS:                     Solaris 10 u8 x86
        SVM ROOT DEVICE:        d2
        PHYSICAL ROOT SLICE:    c1t1d0s0
        NOTES:                  The following is applicable for Solaris 
                                9 and 10, x86 and SPARC.  Also, while a 
                                boot from CDROM is used for the example,
                                booting from jumpstart would work as well.
Though the following details accessing the SVM managed root disk,
after step 3, any SVM volume could instead be mounted and managed.
Regardless of what volume you intend to manage, the purpose is to show
how to work with SVM volumes while booted from the CDROM in a sane manner
(see note 1).
   
Step 0) Start with booting to single user:
    CDROM Boot:
    
        x86 [0] /usr/sbin/reboot
        # set cdrom boot from the BIOS and select 'option 6' from the
        # Solaris installation menu to get a single user shell

        sparc [0] /usr/sbin/reboot -- 'cdrom -s'

                or

        {0} ok boot cdrom -s
Step 1) After booting to single user from the CDROM, 'fsck' the physical
     root slice (c1t1d0s0) to ensure it is stable:
        cdrom [0] /usr/sbin/fsck -n /dev/rdsk/c1t1d0s0
        ** /dev/rdsk/c1t1d0s0 (NO WRITE)
        ** Last Mounted on /
        ** Phase 1 - Check Blocks and Sizes
        ** Phase 2 - Check Pathnames
        ** Phase 3a - Check Connectivity
        ** Phase 3b - Verify Shadows/ACLS
        ** Phase 4 - Check Reference Counts
        ** Phase 5 - Check Cylinder Groups
        157521 files, 4394691 used, 3862820 free (5412 frags, 482176 blocks, 0.1% fragmentation)
Step 2) Mount 'c1t1d0s0' to '/a', copy the SVM config file (see note 2)
    over to the current ramdisk FS, and umount 'c1t1d0s0':
        cdrom [0] /usr/sbin/mount -o ro /dev/dsk/c1t1d0s0 /a
        cdrom [0] /usr/bin/cp /a/kernel/drv/md.conf /kernel/drv/md.conf
        cdrom [0] /usr/sbin/umount /a
Step 3) Now that the SVM config (md.conf) has been copied over, force
    a reload of the 'md' driver and verify the state of our metadevices
    (see notes 3 and 4):
        cdrom [0] /usr/sbin/update_drv -f md
        devfsadm: mkdir failed for /dev 0x1ed: Read-only file system
        cdrom [0] /usr/sbin/metastat
        d8: Mirror
            Submirror 0: d7
              State: Okay
        <snip...>
        Device Relocation Information:
        Device   Reloc  Device ID
        c1t1d0   Yes    id1,sd@f0c6dd7544cf411d1000620200000
    If necessary, sync any metadevices that need it.  As an example:
        cdrom [0] /usr/sbin/metasync d2
Step 4) Mount the SVM root device 'd2' to '/a', verify the mount, and
    do your work:
        cdrom [0] /usr/sbin/mount -F ufs -o rw /dev/md/dsk/d2 /a
        cdrom [0] /usr/bin/df -h /a
        Filesystem             size   used  avail capacity  Mounted on
        /dev/md/dsk/d2         7.9G   4.2G   3.6G    54%    /a
        cdrom [0] /usr/sbin/mount | /usr/bin/grep /a
        /a on /dev/md/dsk/d2 read/write/setuid/devices/intr/largefiles/logging/xattr/onerror=panic/dev=1540002 on Wed Dec  8 12:15:42 2010
        cdrom [0] /usr/bin/ls /a
        a           dev         kernel      opt         tmp
        b           devices     lib         platform    usr
        bin         etc         lost+found  proc        var
        boot        export      mnt         sbin        vol
        cdrom       home        net         system
        cdrom [0] /usr/bin/cat /a/etc/nodename
        snorkle
Step 5) After you've finished working, umount 'd2' from '/a', verify
    the volume is stable, and reboot:
        cdrom [0] /usr/sbin/umount /a
        cdrom [0] /usr/sbin/fsck -n /dev/md/rdsk/d2
        ** /dev/md/rdsk/d2 (NO WRITE)
        ** Last Mounted on /a
        ** Phase 1 - Check Blocks and Sizes
        ** Phase 2 - Check Pathnames
        ** Phase 3a - Check Connectivity
        ** Phase 3b - Verify Shadows/ACLS
        ** Phase 4 - Check Reference Counts
        ** Phase 5 - Check Cylinder Groups
        157521 files, 4394691 used, 3862820 free (5412 frags, 482176 blocks, 0.1% fragmentation)
        cdrom [0] /usr/sbin/reboot

NOTES

Note 1:  Typically, the point of working with an SVM volume from a CDROM
    is for volume maintenance or recovery purposes and not general
    administration tasks.  Also, if you muck with the actual SVM
    configuration, you run an increased risk of having problems with SVM
    when booted back up into multiuser.  To explain, '/kernel/drv/md.conf'
    is used by SVM at startup to identify the state databases.  Copying
    over the version on the root disk to the ramdisk FS allows you to
    work with the local SVM volumes.  The ramdisk SVM config files
    under '/etc/lvm' will remain generic unless you modify the SVM
    configuration.  Changes to the SVM configuration while booted from
    the CDROM are based upon the environment presented by the CDROM, thus
    might be different than the normal runtime environment of the host.
    To illustrate, in the following I've deliberately removed one of the
    metadb slices:
        cdrom [0] /usr/bin/cat /kernel/drv/md.conf
        #
        #pragma ident   "@(#)md.conf    2.2     04/04/02 SMI"
        #
        # Copyright 2004 Sun Microsystems, Inc.  All rights reserved.
        # Use is subject to license terms.
        #
        # The parameters nmd and md_nsets are obsolete.  The values for these
        # parameters no longer have any meaning.
        name="md" parent="pseudo" nmd=128 md_nsets=4;
        # Begin MDD database info (do not edit) 
        mddb_bootlist1="sd:261:16:id1,sd@f0c6dd7544cf411d1000620200000/f sd:261:8208:id1,sd@f0c6dd7544cf411d1000620200000/f sd:261:16400:id1,sd@f0c6dd7544cf411d1000620200000/f sd:262:16:id1,sd@f0c6dd7544cf411d1000620200000/g sd:262:8208:id1,sd@f0c6dd7544cf411d1000620200000/g sd:262:16400:id1,sd@f0c6dd7544cf411d1000620200000/g";
        # End MDD database info (do not edit)
        #
        cdrom [0] /usr/bin/cat /etc/lvm/mddb.cf
        #metadevice database location file do not hand edit
        #driver minor_t daddr_t device id       checksum
        cdrom [0] /usr/sbin/metadb -d c1t1d0s6
        cdrom [0] /usr/bin/cat /kernel/drv/md.conf
        #
        #pragma ident   "@(#)md.conf    2.2     04/04/02 SMI"
        #
        # Copyright 2004 Sun Microsystems, Inc.  All rights reserved.
        # Use is subject to license terms.
        #
        # The parameters nmd and md_nsets are obsolete.  The values for these
        # parameters no longer have any meaning.
        name="md" parent="pseudo" nmd=128 md_nsets=4;
        # Begin MDD database info (do not edit) 
        mddb_bootlist1="sd:133:16:id1,sd@f0c6dd7544cf411d1000620200000/f sd:133:8208:id1,sd@f0c6dd7544cf411d1000620200000/f sd:133:16400:id1,sd@f0c6dd7544cf411d1000620200000/f";
        # End MDD database info (do not edit)
        #
        cdrom [0] /usr/bin/cat /etc/lvm/mddb.cf
        #metadevice database location file do not hand edit
        #driver minor_t daddr_t device id       checksum
        sd      133     16      id1,sd@f0c6dd7544cf411d1000620200000/f  -2977
        sd      133     8208    id1,sd@f0c6dd7544cf411d1000620200000/f  -11169
        sd      133     16400   id1,sd@f0c6dd7544cf411d1000620200000/f  -19361
    Following the delete of the metadbs on c1t1d0s6 above, 'md.conf'
    and 'mddb.cf' were both updated on the ramdisk.  The update not
    only removed the deleted metadbs, but also updated the minor device
    number relevant to the CDROM environment.  The device the CDROM
    has identified as c1t1d0s5, based on minor number, is actually
    c1t2d0s5 within the normal runtime environment.  Rebooting back into
    multiuser, 'metadb -i' shows only 3 metadb copies after the delete, as
    expected, since the database copies were removed from the disk slice.
    Both 'md.conf' and 'mddb.cf', however, still show 6 metadb copies
    in the configuration.  This leaves SVM in a potentially precarious
    position as the data on disk no longer matches the config data.
    You could copy over the appropriate configuration files, manually
    updating them as necessary.  To do so, you would need to update them
    based on the details of the runtime environment so they don't reflect
    the CDROM environment.  The above situation isn't too bad to resolve,
    though it is meant to illustrate that you can potentially wreck your
    SVM configuration if you are not careful.
   
Note 2:  For the curious, the following details the contents of
    '/etc/lvm/mddb.cf' and similarly, the MDD DB info section of
    '/kernel/drv/md.conf'.  The contents are prior to any the work above:
        snorkle [0] cat /etc/lvm/mddb.cf
        #metadevice database location file do not hand edit
        #driver minor_t daddr_t device id       checksum
        sd      261     16      id1,sd@f0c6dd7544cf411d1000620200000/f  -2977
        sd      261     8208    id1,sd@f0c6dd7544cf411d1000620200000/f  -11169
        sd      261     16400   id1,sd@f0c6dd7544cf411d1000620200000/f  -19361
        sd      262     16      id1,sd@f0c6dd7544cf411d1000620200000/g  -2977
        sd      262     8208    id1,sd@f0c6dd7544cf411d1000620200000/g  -11169
        sd      262     16400   id1,sd@f0c6dd7544cf411d1000620200000/g  -19361

    sd:         specifically, the device driver presenting the device,
                in this case SCSI
    261:        the minor number of the device; a long listing following
                the symlink of /dev/dsk/c1t1d0s5 would return the major
                number of 32 (sd if we look at /etc/name_to_major)
                and a minor of 261 to identify slice 5 on c1t1d0
    262:        same as 261, though identifying c1t1d0s6
    16, 8208, 16400:    block offset of each SVM state DB
    id1,sd@f0c6d..00:   unique device id for the disk device registered
                        with the OS by the sd driver at attach time
    /f:         slice 5 on the device identified by 'device id'
    /g:         slice 6 on the device identified by 'device id'
    -2977,...:  checksum of the DB entry maintained by SVM
    You can see the 'device id' correlated to a ctd from various commands,
    such as 'iostat' and 'prtconf'.  'iostat' example:
        snorkle [0] /usr/bin/iostat -niE c1t1d0 | /usr/bin/grep 'Device Id:'
        c1t1d0           Soft Errors: 0 Hard Errors: 0 Transport Errors: 0
        Vendor: VBOX     Product: HARDDISK         Revision: 1.0  Device Id: id1,sd@f0c6dd7544cf411d1000620200000
        Size: 11.01GB <11005853184 bytes>
        Media Error: 0 Device Not Ready: 0 No Device: 0 Recoverable: 0
        Illegal Request: 1 Predictive Failure Analysis: 0
Note 3:  The following error message after executing 'update_srv' can
    be safely ignored:
        devfsadm: mkdir failed for /dev 0x1ed: Read-only file system
Note 4:  Since the 'md' driver wasn't unloaded, it shouldn't be necessary
    to do so though if no metadevices are returned from 'metastat', run
    'metainit' to rescan the metadbs listed in 'md.conf':
        cdrom [0] /usr/sbin/metainit -r