Breaking and Syncing an MD Root Mirror

Here's one of those times where I thought, "I wonder", as in I wonder if
I can break an MD root mirror and sanely recreate it.  You can do so with
other software RAID solutions so why not here?  Well, you can.  There is
nothing short about this procedure, taking 80+ commands to accomplish.

Recreate a Linux EXT3 FS

We've looked at Solaris and FreeBSD, now it's time to look at recreating
a Linux EXT3 filesystem.  Similar to the previous two, if you customized
the options to 'mke2fs / mkfs', 'mke2fs -n' is not the answer since it
will only produce data about generic FS creation.  Our host details this

Recreate a FreeBSD UFS FS

As a follow up to recreating a Solaris UFS FS, the following details
FreeBSD.  Just as with Solaris, when trying to determine how a filesystem
was created, 'newfs -N /dev/da2s1a' is not the answer, as it only produces
information relevant to a default FS creation.  Our host details for this

Recreate a Solaris UFS FS

Have you ever wondered what options were used to create a UFS filesystem
(FS) on a Solaris host?  Normally when you ask that question, it
seems someone will refer you to passing '-N' to 'newfs'.  Unfortunately,
this response will only provide you with default parameters to build a

BIOS Boot Device - Solaris

In 'Host Info - Boot Parameters', we saw how the boot device on Solaris
could be identified using 'prtconf'.  The output was similar to:

        boot-device:    '/pci@1e,600000/ide@d/disk@0,0:a

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

Replacing VxVM with SVM for the rootdisk

The purpose of this post is to illustrate how to replace Veritas Volume
Manager (VxVM) with Sun Volume Manager (SVM) for control of the root disk
while leaving application volumes under VxVM control.  I had originally
tested this against Solaris 9 sparc running VxVM 4.0, though have updated

Identifying DMP Subpaths in Solaris

Recently I stumbled across one of my notes detailing a quick way to
identify the underlying subpaths supporting VxDMP devices:

        frost [0] /usr/sbin/vxdisk path

Logical Disk Names In Solaris

Anyone familiar with Solaris instantly recognizes c1t3d0s4 and that
it identifies slice 4 on disk c1t3d0.  That's great, but what does the
rest mean.  On other UNIX OSes, you might get sdb3 or da2s1a to identify
a disk slice / partition and have to use a variety of means to determine

Reassociating a Failed Disk in Veritas

Recently we had a situation wherein Vertias Volume Manager (VxVM)
marked a disk as 'failed' while additionally presenting the disk
available for use though unconfigured.  The weird part was that VxVM
continued to allow use of the volume until the volume was stopped.

ZFS Pool and FS Creation

Volume and file system management are traditionally separate affairs,
being created and maintained individually of one another.  With Sun's
ZFS, the line between the two become blurred.  As a brief understanding,
a 'zpool' can be generically considered a volume, comprised of multiple

Breaking and Syncing a SVM Root Mirror (Solaris)

INTRO

The information detailed below is to assist with proactive planning for
the potential demise and recovery of a host back to the state it was

Breaking and Syncing a Hardware Root Mirror (Solaris)

INTRO

The information detailed below is to assist with proactive planning for
the potential demise and recovery of a host back to the state it was

Determining Partition Tables

This tip deals somewhat with Solaris, though moreso with FreeBSD.
On a Solaris host, to quickly determine how a hard disk may be carved up,
one can simply run prtvtoc against the device:

Disk Cloning in Solaris

Disk Cloning in Solaris:

A few assumptions:
        master disk:  c0t0d0