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Disk suite problem

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stuartd

Programmer
Joined
Jan 8, 2001
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146
Location
US
Hi,

We have an E250 with an A1000 disk array connected by fibre. Sol7 and Disk Suite installed. We mirror data using the disk suite between some disks in the E250 box and some in the A1000

Each week we do a full system backup (ufsdump), but almost all weeks one of the mirrored disks (/) get out of sync, and we have to "metareplace -e" and resync it.

Additionally, every 4-6 weeks the while array goes mad and we get constant "Transport rejected" messages scrolling up the console screen (on reboot into normal run level). The only way out of this is hard power off, and we then have to rebuild all of the mirrors.

Any ideas what is going wrong?

SD
 
Hello Stuart,

At the stage you have to remirror, do you at any time run fsck on the troublesome disks?

and / or

Do you copy main disk1 back across to say second mirrored disk2 using the "format" command and options name, select & label yes.

Bye

Marrow
 
I do not run fsck - I simply run 'metareplace -e {mirror} {component}' which resyncs the good disk back over the 'out of sync' partition. I could do, but I would still have to resync the disks even if fsck found inconsistencies

I am not familiar with using format to mirror, but as we are using disk suite, i don't think this applies.

My question really is: Is there a (known) problem with disk suite, or do i have a hardware issue?

SD
 
I'm not aware of disk suite problems. We use Disk Suite 4.2.1 on Solaris 2.6, 2.8 & 9 on over 30 different Sun Systems (including arrays) six different locations. I did have disk error problems after breaking the mirrors for one Solaris9 upgrade and used fsck -y to clear a couple of partitions. Afterwards using format commmand, name option on disk0 (this takes a copy of root disk) then called in Disk1 and select option (overwrites disk1 with disk0 copy followed by label = y to save. The idea is to make sure both disks are identical. That's all I can offer at present. Only on a couple of occasions have we used metareplace in the last 3 years.
 
What is this format command? Is it cli command or part of a disk suite gui?

SD
 
Can be quite potent and issues the odd scary message, I would advise caution if unsure how to use, it's a standared unix command. See man pages on format, a "disk partitioning and maintenance utility" format enables you to format, label, repair and analyze disks on your system. Access via root.
Some Examples

format
Searching for disks...done

AVAILABLE DISK SELECTIONS:
0. c1t0d0 <SUN36G cyl 24620 alt 2 hd 27 sec 107>
/pci@1c,600000/scsi@2/sd@0,0
1. c1t1d0 <SUN36G cyl 24620 alt 2 hd 27 sec 107>
/pci@1c,600000/scsi@2/sd@1,0
Specify disk (enter its number):0
selecting c1t0d0
[disk formatted]


FORMAT MENU:
disk - select a disk
type - select (define) a disk type
partition - select (define) a partition table
current - describe the current disk
format - format and analyze the disk
repair - repair a defective sector
label - write label to the disk
analyze - surface analysis
defect - defect list management
backup - search for backup labels
verify - read and display labels
save - save new disk/partition definitions
inquiry - show vendor, product and revision
volname - set 8-character volume name
!<cmd> - execute <cmd>, then return
quit
format> partition


PARTITION MENU:
0 - change `0' partition
1 - change `1' partition
2 - change `2' partition
3 - change `3' partition
4 - change `4' partition
5 - change `5' partition
6 - change `6' partition
7 - change `7' partition
select - select a predefined table
modify - modify a predefined partition table
name - name the current table
print - display the current table
label - write partition map and label to the disk
!<cmd> - execute <cmd>, then return
quit
partition> name (or can simply print disk info)
Enter table name (remember quotes): "copy_disk0"

partition>quit

partition> disk
select disk 1
partition> select
0. copy_disk0
Specify table (enter its number)[0]:

You can see the copy of disk0, if you now select it will overwrite disk1 then issue label command to implement.


 
Do you use raid manager to manage the disks in the A1000 itself?
 
No, I don't think so. We did set this box up a couple of years ago, so i don't clearly remember, but having done a search on the SUN site none of the raid manager commands are on our box.

I think we loaded a driver for the fibre card, and we can see the disks on 'c1' controller, and we simply use disk suite to manage mirroring.

SD
 
how do you run the ufsdumps, can you describe the procedere exactly?

Have you seen error messages from disks (A1000) during ufsdump?

Transport Rejected: just a few simple things/ideas -> Cables are ok? Not too long? Pluged in correctly (screw!?)
Changed anything recently? How long do you have this problem? Patches?

Best Regards, Franz
--
Solaris System Manager from Munich, Germany
I used to work for Sun Microsystems Support (EMEA) for 5 years
 
Is the A1000 terminated correctly? We had some issues when the supplier didn't supply the correct (differential) terminators for our A1000s.
 
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