volmake(8) System Manager's Manual volmake(8)
NAME
volmake - Create Logical Storage Manager objects
SYNOPSIS
/sbin/volmake [-Vp] [-g diskgroup] [-o useopt] [-U usetype] [-d descfile]
/sbin/volmake [-Vp] [-g diskgroup] [-o useopt] sd name [attr=value...]
/sbin/volmake [-Vp] [-g diskgroup] [-o useopt] plex name [attr=value...]
/sbin/volmake [-Vp] [-g diskgroup] [-o useopt] [-U usetype] vol name [attr=value...]
OPTIONS
The following options are recognized: Specifies the disk group for the operation. The disk group can be specified either by name or by disk
group ID. If no disk group is specified, the rootdg disk group is implied. See voldg(8) for more information on disk groups. Specifies
usetype as the default usage type for volumes. This option has no effect if only subdisks and plexes are created, or if the usage type for
a volume is specified directly with the description file variable usetype. Gives usage-type-specific options to the usage type utility.
Specifies the name of a description file to use for building subdisks, plexes, and volumes. If the -d option is used with no descfile argu-
ment, then the description file is read from the standard input. If no operands are specified, and no descfile is specified, then a
description file is read from the standard input. This option is ignored for records that are specified directly on the command line. Dis-
plays a list of utilities that would be called from volmake, along with the arguments that would be passed. The -V option performs a ``mock
run'' of the utilities; the utilities are not actually called, and no changes are made to the volume configuration database. Prints to the
standard output a list of all changes that would be made, but does not make those changes. The output is in the volmake description file
format. All computable and potentially useful attributes are printed for new records. For records that would be modified, only those
attributes that would change are printed, along with an extra attribute declaration, CHANGED=yes. In this way, the -p option performs a
"mock run" of the utilities.
This option is intended for use with higher-level tools that preview record creations, particularly with respect to usage-type-
dependent attribute modifications.
DESCRIPTION
The volmake utility creates subdisk, plex, and volume records for the Logical Storage Manager. Records can be created entirely from parame-
ters specified on the command line, or they can be created using a description file.
If no operands are specified, then a description file is used to specify what records to create. By default, this description file is read
from the standard input. If operands are specified, then the first operand is a keyword that determines the object to build, the second op-
erand is the name of the object to be created, and additional operands specify attributes for the object to be built. An attribute given on
the command line is specified in the same manner used with the description file (with multiple attributes given, one attribute per oper-
and), except that the double-quote convention is not needed. See the EXAMPLES section for sample uses.
For convenience, a special attribute form can be used for subdisks specified directly from the command line. This special attribute form
is:
/devicepath,offset[,len]
or
medianame,offset[,len]
The first form specifies a subdisk location by device path, offset within that device, and length. The second form specifies the subdisk
location by a disk media record name, offset within the disk's public region, and length. Optionally, the length can be specified with a
len=length attribute instead. If a device path is specified, then it must match the device path for the public region of a known disk in
the indicated disk group.
More than one record, including more than one volume or plex hierarchy, can be specified in a single description file. volmake attempts to
create all records within a single transaction, so that either all records are created or no records are created.
See the volmake(4) reference page for a specification of volmake descriptions.
Descriptions of records within a volume hierarchy are filtered through a usage-type-specific utility, as appropriate for the usage type,
before the records are actually created. Subdisks and plexes that are not specified within a volume hierarchy are filtered by the gen usage
type. The usage-type utilities may change the descriptions so that certain fields are ignored or set up with initial values. Plex or sub-
disk records to be associated with a volume or plex may also be changed if the association is indicated in the description, even if the
plex or subdisk record is not explicitly specified.
A usage type must be specified for every volume record, either through setting the usetype field in the volume record description, or
through the -U option to volmake.
ATTRIBUTE SPECIFICATION RULES
The only attributes that must be specified are the path and len attributes for subdisk records, and a usage type for volume records. In
addition, if the layout attribute for a plex record is set to STRIPE, then a positive value must be specified for the stwidth attribute.
Also, if no subdisks are specified for a plex of the STRIPE layout, the ncolumn attribute must be specified.
Attempts to specify certain attributes are ignored by volmake. Some attributes are ignored by the switchout (usage-type independent) vol-
make itself. The usage-type dependent volmake may cause additional attributes to be ignored.
The sections that follow provide information on the attributes that can be specified for subdisk, plex, and volume creation.
Subdisks
Fields that can be specified for subdisks are: tutil0, tutil1, tutil2, putil0, putil1, putil2, daname, dmname (or disk), path, comment,
devoffset, dmoffset, len and dmrid.
The disk specification for subdisks uses one of following fields, in order of precedence: dmrid, dmname, daname, or path. The dmrid field
is used, if non-zero. One of the other fields is used if defined to a non-empty string. If the path field is the only field used, then it
must define the block device path for a partition containing the public region of a disk in the requested disk group.
With path, the devoffset field is used as an offset into the partition; otherwise dmoffset is used as an offset into the public region.
This distinction is important if the public region does not begin at the beginning of its partition.
Specification of a disk in some form (including possibly the special forms devicepath,offset,length or medianame,offset,length) is
required. Specification of the len field is also required. All other fields default to zero (for numbers) or empty strings (for strings).
Plexes
Fields that can be specified for plexes are: tutil0, tutil1, tutil2, putil0, putil1, putil2, comment, layout, ncolumn, stwidth, sd, and
logsd.
There are no required fields for plex records. All fields default to zero (for numbers) or empty strings (for strings). The layout field
defaults to concat.
If the layout field is set to stripe or raid5, then the stwidth attribute must be specified. If the layout field is set to concat, the
ncolumn field cannot be specified.
An sd specification names the subdisks to associate with the plex. The specification optionally names the offsets of the subdisks within
the plex. If no offsets are specified, then the subdisks are directly concatenated in the order indicated. If the sd attribute is specified
for a striped plex and ncolumn is not specified, ncolumn will default to the column of the subdisk with the highest column specification.
As a special case, if ncolumn is not specified and the sd does not specify columns or offsets for the subdisks, then each subdisk will be
placed in its own column at an offset of zero in the order they are specified and the plex's ncolumn attribute is set to the number of sub-
disks specified.
A logsd specification names a subdisk to associate as a special log subdisk for recording volume activity as part of the dirty region log-
ging feature.
Volumes
Fields that can be specified for volumes are: tutil0, tutil1, tutil2, putil0, putil1, putil2, comment, usetype, startopts, readpol, pref-
name, minor, user, group, mode, len, writeback, writecopy, logtype, and plex.
Specification of a usage type is required, either using the -U option on the command line, or using the usetype attribute. Specification of
a usetype attribute overrides a value specified with -U. All other fields have default values: readpol defaults to round; user and group
both default to 0 (root); mode defaults to u=rw (mode 600); writeback and writecopy default to on; len defaults to the length of the short-
est associated plex (or zero, if no plex associations are requested); all other numeric fields default to zero, and all other string fields
default to empty strings.
A plex specification names the plexes to associate with the volume. The order of plexes in this list is not important.
The value of the prefname field is relevant only if the readpol attribute is set to prefer.
FSGEN AND GEN DESCRIPTION
The fsgen and gen usage-type-specific utilities that support volmake are used by the switchout volmake utility as filters that set defaults
for plex and volume states.
Subdisk fields are set, checked, or modified as follows: Subdisk lengths are required to be set to a nonzero value. This field is cleared.
Plex fields are set, checked, or modified as follows: This field is cleared. If the plex is to be associated with a volume, the state
field is set to EMPTY; otherwise it is cleared.
Volume fields are set, checked, or modified as follows: This field is cleared. This field is set to EMPTY.
Attempts to associate an existing subdisk or plex with a new plex or volume will be refused, unless the putil0 field for the existing
record is empty.
The putil0 fields are not set, and their contents are preserved.
RAID-5 DESCRIPTION
The raid5 usage-type-specific utilities that support volmake are used by the switchout volmake utility as filters that set defaults for
plex and volume states.
Subdisk fields are set, checked or modified as follows: Subdisk lengths are required to be set to a nonzero value. This field is cleared.
Plex fields are set, checked, or modified as follows: This field is cleared. If the plex is to be associated with a volume, the state
field is set to EMPTY; otherwise it is cleared.
Volume fields are set, checked, or modified as follows: This field is cleared. This field is set to EMPTY.
Attempts to associate an existing subdisk or plex with a new plex or volume will be refused, unless the putil0 field for the existing
record is empty.
The putil0 fields are not set, and their contents are preserved.
The raid5 specific volmake utility will only allow one plex with a layout of raid5 to be associated with a volume. Plexes not of the raid5
layout are associated as RAID-5 log plexes.
EXAMPLES
The following is an example of a volmake description file:
#rectyp #name #options sd disk3-01 disk=disk3 offset=0 len=10000 sd disk3-02 disk=disk3 off-
set=25000 len=10480 sd disk4-01 disk=disk4 offset=0 len=8000 sd disk4-02 disk=disk4 offset=15000 len=8000 sd
disk4-03 disk=disk4 offset=30000 len=4480 plex db-01 layout=STRIPE ncolumn=2 stwidth=16k
sd=disk3-01:0/0,disk3-02:0/10000,disk4-01:1/0,
disk4-02:1/8000,disk4-03:1/16000 sd ramd1-01 disk=ramd1 len=640
comment="Hot spot for dbvol plex db-02 sd=ramd1-01:40320
vol db usetype=gen plex=db-01,db-02
readpol=prefer prefname=db-02
comment="Uses mem1 for hot spot in last 5m
This description specifies a gen type volume that contains two plexes: a volatile memory disk plex (db-02), which is preferred, and a phys-
ical disk plex (db-01). The memory disk plex is sparse and covers only the last 640 sectors of the 40960-sector length of the volume. The
physical disk plex is striped across two 20480-sector columns. Column zero contains two subdisks and column one contains three subdisks.
The plex offset specified for each subdisk concatenates the subdisks contiguously in their respective columns.
For striped or RAID-5 plex subdisk associations, if one number is specified for the the column and column offset field, the number is
interpreted as a column number and the subdisk is associated at the end of the column in the order it appears in the subdisk list. The same
subdisk association list for plex db-01 could be re-written as follows:
sd=disk3-01:0,disk3-02:0,disk4-01:1,disk4-02:1,disk4-03:1
The following is a simple sequence of commands to create a hierarchy with one subdisk, one plex, and one volume:
volmake sd dsk-01 /dev/dsk/dsk1,32000 comment="dsk1 subdisk 1" volmake plex demo-1 sd=dsk1-01 comment="Demo volume, plex 1" volmake -U gen
vol demo plex=demo-1 comment="Demo gen volume"
EXIT CODES
The volmake utility exits with a nonzero status if the attempted operation fails. A nonzero exit code is not a complete indicator of the
problems encountered, but rather denotes the first condition that prevented further execution of the utility.
See volintro(8) for a list of standard exit codes.
FILES
Usage-type-specific utility for filtering volume hierarchy descriptions.
SEE ALSO
volmake(4) volintro(8), volassist(8), voldisk(8), voldg(8)
volmake(8)