Solaris/VXVM: Starting VXVM Vols that are in “DISABLED RECOVER” state

When a system encounters a problem with a volume or a plex, or if Veritas Volume Manager (VxVM) has any reason to believe that the data is not synchronized, VxVM changes the kernel state, KSTATE and state, STATE, of the volume and its plexes accordingly. The plex state can be stale, empty, nodevice, etc. A particular plex state does not necessarily mean that the data is good or bad. The plex state is representative of VxVM's perception of the data in a plex.

The output from the vxprint utility using the switches "-h" and "-t" (for more information about these switches and all applicable switches, see the man page for vxprint) displays information from records in VxVM disk group configurations, including the KSTATE and STATE of a volume and plex as indicated in columns 4 and 5 respectively in the table below. When viewing the configuration records of a VxVM disk group using the vxprint utility and the KSTATE and STATE fields display DISABLED ACTIVE for the volume and DISABLED RECOVER for the plex, recovery steps need to be followed to bring the volume back to an ENABLED ACTIVE state so it can be mounted and make the file system accessible again.

From the below output, it can be seen that the KSTATE and STATE for the volume test is DISABLED ACTIVE and its plex test-01 is DISABLED RECOVER.

# vxprint -ht -g testdg

DG NAME NCONFIG   NLOG    MINORS   GROUP-ID  
DM NAME DEVICE    TYPE    PRIVLEN  PUBLEN   STATE
RV NAME RLINK_CNT KSTATE  STATE    PRIMARY  DATAVOLS  SRL
RL NAME RVG       KSTATE  STATE    REM_HOST REM_DG    REM_RLNK
V  NAME RVG       KSTATE  STATE    LENGTH   USETYPE   PREFPLEX RDPOL
PL NAME VOLUME    KSTATE  STATE    LENGTH   LAYOUT    NCOL/WID MODE
SD NAME PLEX      DISK    DISKOFFS LENGTH   [COL/]OFF DEVICE   MODE
SV NAME PLEX      VOLNAME NVOLLAYR LENGTH   [COL/]OFF AM/NM    MODE
            
             
dg testdg default default 84000 970356463.1203.alu    
              
dm testdg01 c1t4d0s2 sliced 2179 8920560 -  
dm testdg02 c1t6d0s2 sliced 2179 8920560 -  
              
v test - DISABLED ACTIVE 17840128 fsgen - SELECT
pl test-01 test DISABLED RECOVER 17841120 CONCAT - RW
sd testdg01-01 test-01 testdg01 0 8920560 0 c1t4d0 ENA
sd testdg02-01 test-01 testdg02 0 8920560 8920560 c1t6d0 ENA

Follow these steps to change KSTATE and STATE of a plex that is DISABLED RECOVER to ENABLED ACTIVE so the volume can be recovered / started and the file system mounted:

1. Change the plex test-01 to the DISABLED STALE state:

#vxmend -g  diskgroup fix stale

For example:

# vxmend -g testdg fix stale test-01

This output shows the plex test-01 as DISABLED STALE:

# vxprint -ht -g testdg
       
DG NAME NCONFIG   NLOG    MINORS   GROUP-ID  
DM NAME DEVICE    TYPE    PRIVLEN  PUBLEN   STATE
RV NAME RLINK_CNT KSTATE  STATE    PRIMARY  DATAVOLS  SRL
RL NAME RVG       KSTATE  STATE    REM_HOST REM_DG    REM_RLNK
V  NAME RVG       KSTATE  STATE    LENGTH   USETYPE   PREFPLEX RDPOL
PL NAME VOLUME    KSTATE  STATE    LENGTH   LAYOUT    NCOL/WID MODE
SD NAME PLEX      DISK    DISKOFFS LENGTH   [COL/]OFF DEVICE   MODE
SV NAME PLEX      VOLNAME NVOLLAYR LENGTH   [COL/]OFF AM/NM    MODE
              
dg testdg default default 84000 970356463.1203.alu    
              
dm testdg01 c1t4d0s2 sliced 2179 8920560 -  
dm testdg02 c1t6d0s2 sliced 2179 8920560 -  
              
v test - DISABLED ACTIVE 17840128 fsgen - SELECT
pl test-01 test DISABLED STALE 17841120 CONCAT - RW
sd testdg01-01  test-01 testdg01 0 8920560 0 c1t4d0 ENA
sd testdg02-01  test-01 testdg02 0 8920560 8920560 c1t6d0 ENA

2. Change the plex test-01 to the DISABLED CLEAN state:

vxmend -g diskgroup fix clean

For example:

# vxmend -g testdg fix clean test-01

This output shows the plex test-01 as DISABLED CLEAN:

# vxprint -ht -g testdg
      
DG NAME NCONFIG   NLOG    MINORS   GROUP-ID  
DM NAME DEVICE    TYPE    PRIVLEN  PUBLEN   STATE
RV NAME RLINK_CNT KSTATE  STATE    PRIMARY  DATAVOLS  SRL
RL NAME RVG       KSTATE  STATE    REM_HOST REM_DG    REM_RLNK
V  NAME RVG       KSTATE  STATE    LENGTH   USETYPE   PREFPLEX RDPOL
PL NAME VOLUME    KSTATE  STATE    LENGTH   LAYOUT    NCOL/WID MODE
SD NAME PLEX      DISK    DISKOFFS LENGTH   [COL/]OFF DEVICE   MODE
SV NAME PLEX      VOLNAME NVOLLAYR LENGTH   [COL/]OFF AM/NM    MODE
              
dg testdg default default 84000 970356463.1203.alu    
              
dm testdg01 c1t4d0s2 sliced 2179 8920560 -  
dm testdg02 c1t6d0s2 sliced 2179 8920560 -  
              
v test - DISABLED ACTIVE 17840128 fsgen - SELECT
pl test-01 test DISABLED CLEAN 17841120 CONCAT - RW
sd testdg01-01  test-01 testdg01 0 8920560 0 c1t4d0 ENA
sd testdg02-01  test-01 testdg02 0 8920560 8920560 c1t6d0 ENA

3. Start the volume test:

vxvol -g diskgroup start

For example:

# vxvol -g diskgroup start test

This output shows that the volume test and its plex test-01 are both ENABLED ACTIVE:

# vxprint -ht -g testdg
       
DG NAME NCONFIG   NLOG    MINORS   GROUP-ID  
DM NAME DEVICE    TYPE    PRIVLEN  PUBLEN   STATE
RV NAME RLINK_CNT KSTATE  STATE    PRIMARY  DATAVOLS  SRL
RL NAME RVG       KSTATE  STATE    REM_HOST REM_DG    REM_RLNK
V  NAME RVG       KSTATE  STATE    LENGTH   USETYPE   PREFPLEX RDPOL
PL NAME VOLUME    KSTATE  STATE    LENGTH   LAYOUT    NCOL/WID MODE
SD NAME PLEX      DISK    DISKOFFS LENGTH   [COL/]OFF DEVICE   MODE
SV NAME PLEX      VOLNAME NVOLLAYR LENGTH   [COL/]OFF AM/NM    MODE
              
dg testdg default default 84000 970356463.1203.alu    
              
dm testdg01 c1t4d0s2 sliced 2179 8920560 -  
dm testdg02 c1t6d0s2 sliced 2179 8920560 -  
              
v test - ENABLED ACTIVE 17840128 fsgen - SELECT
pl test-01 test ENABLED ACTIVE 17841120 CONCAT - RW
sd testdg01-01  test-01 testdg01 0 8920560 0 c1t4d0 ENA
sd testdg02-01  test-01 testdg02 0 8920560 8920560 c1t6d0 ENA

4. Mount the volume to its associated mount point (refer to the /etc/vfstab file if the mount point location is not known) if the file system is a Veritas File System (VxFS) file system:

mount -F vxfs /dev/vx/dsk/diskgroup/volume /mount-point

For example:

# mount -F vxfs /dev/vx/dsk/testdg/test /testvol

Note: An error may be generated stating that the file system needs to be checked for consistency. If this occurs, run the VxFS specific fsck utility (/usr/lib/fs/vxfs/fsck) where the default is to replay the intent log, instead of performing a full structural file system check which is usually sufficient to set the file system to CLEAN and allow the volume to be mounted