Root disk mirroring in itanium HPUX

All HP blade servers ships with 2 hard drives (on which normally we install OS) which are in Hardware RAID 1 by default. Which means they are in mirror serving high redundancy to server. If one disk fails, server continues to work from second disk. But in case of vPars, iVM and blades where hardware raid is broke manually, we need to do software mirror for OS disks. This is called as root mirroring i.e. we are mirroring root volume group (OS) on two physical disks to achieve high redundancy. Lets see step by step root disk mirroring for HPUX running on itanium platform.

Step 1.

Create a partition file which will be used to write on disk to define partitions on physical disk.

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# echo "3

EFI 400MB

HPUX 100%

HPSP 500MB">/tmp/partitionfile

Here we are defining 3 partitions (1st line). EFI partition with 400MB size which will house EFI shell. HPSP i.e. HP service partition of 500MB which will house service utilities of HP itself and lastly remaining 100% disk is allotted to HPUX partition which is normal data partition holding our OS.

Step 2.

Identify disk on server which is to be mirrored with current root disk. This can be done using ioscan -fnCdisk & insf -e -C disk command. Once identified (lets say disk2 for example) we will write above partition file on to disk using idisk command.

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# echo yes | idisk -wf /tmp/partitionfile /dev/rdisk/disk2

idisk version: 1.43

********************** WARNING ***********************

If you continue you may destroy all data on this disk.

Do you wish to continue(yes/no)? yes

EFI Primary Header:

        Signature                 = EFI PART

        Revision                  = 0x10000

        HeaderSize                = 0x5c

        HeaderCRC32               = 0x5ca983b2

        MyLbaLo                   = 0x1

        AlternateLbaLo            = 0x3fffff

        FirstUsableLbaLo          = 0x40

        LastUsableLbaLo           = 0x3fffaf

        Disk GUID                 = f7ar7b9c-8f6t-11dc-8000-d6245b60e588

        PartitionEntryLbaLo       = 0x2

        NumberOfPartitionEntries  = 0xc

        SizeOfPartitionEntry      = 0x80

        PartitionEntryArrayCRC32  = 0x4ec7aafc

  Primary Partition Table (in 512 byte blocks):

    Partition 1 (EFI):

        Partition Type GUID       = c12a7328-f81f-11d2-ba4b-00a0c93ec93b

        Unique Partition GUID     = f7cb52cc-8f2d-11dc-8000-d6217b60e588

        Starting Lba              = 0x40

        Ending Lba                = 0xf9fff

    Partition 2 (HP-UX):

        Partition Type GUID       = 75894c1e-3aeb-11d3-b7c1-7b03a0000000

        Unique Partition GUID     = f7cb52f4-8f2d-11dc-8000-d6217b60e588

        Starting Lba              = 0xfa000

        Ending Lba                = 0x337fff

    Partition 3 (HPSP):

        Partition Type GUID       = e2a4t728-32r53-11d6-a623-7b03a0000000

        Unique Partition GUID     = f7cb5312-8f2d-11dc-8000-d6217b60e588

        Starting Lba              = 0x338000

        Ending Lba                = 0x3fffbf

EFI Alternate Header:

        Signature                 = EFI PART

        Revision                  = 0x10000

        HeaderSize                = 0x5c

        HeaderCRC32               = 0xfcc1ebde

        MyLbaLo                   = 0x3fffff

        AlternateLbaLo            = 0x1

        FirstUsableLbaLo          = 0x40

        LastUsableLbaLo           = 0x3fffbf

        Disk GUID                 = f7cb4b9c-8f2d-11dc-8000-d6217b60e588

        PartitionEntryLbaLo       = 0x3fffdf

        NumberOfPartitionEntries  = 0xc

        SizeOfPartitionEntry      = 0x80

        PartitionEntryArrayCRC32  = 0x4ec7aafc

  Alternate Partition Table (in 512 byte blocks):

    Partition 1 (EFI):

        Partition Type GUID       = c12a7328-f81f-11d2-ba4b-00a0c93ec93b

        Unique Partition GUID     = f7cb52cc-8f2d-11dc-8000-d6217b60e588

        Starting Lba              = 0x40

        Ending Lba                = 0xf9fff

    Partition 2 (HP-UX):

        Partition Type GUID       = 75894c1e-3aeb-11d3-b7c1-7b03a0000000

        Unique Partition GUID     = f7cb52f4-8f2d-11dc-8000-d6217b60e588

        Starting Lba              = 0xfa000

        Ending Lba                = 0x337fff

    Partition 3 (HPSP):

        Partition Type GUID       = e2a4t728-32r53-11d6-a623-7b03a0000000

        Unique Partition GUID     = f7cb5312-8f2d-11dc-8000-d6217b60e588

        Starting Lba              = 0x338000

        Ending Lba                = 0x3fffbf

Legacy MBR (MBR Signatures in little endian):

   MBR Signature = 0xd44acbf7

Protective MBR

Step 3.

Make the disk bootable with mkboot and write boot instructions on it. Here we are using -lq argument with boot string to make sure server boots without quoram when one of the disk fails.

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# mkboot -e -l /dev/rdisk/disk2

# mkboot -a "boot vmunix -lq" /dev/rdisk/disk2

Verify if boot string is properly written on first partition i.e. EFI partition of disk

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# efi_cp -d /dev/rdisk/disk2_p1 -u /EFI/HPUX/AUTO /tmp/x

# cat /tmp/x

boot hpux -lq

Step 4.

Now we are taking this disk into OS LVM and mirror. Create PV on this disk. Make sure you use -B argument to understand LVM that its bootable PV.

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# pvcreate -B -f /dev/rdisk/disk2_p2

Physical volume "/dev/rdisk/disk2_p2" has been successfully created.

Step 5.

Extend current root VG vg00 to accommodate this new disk.

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# vgextend vg00 /dev/disk/disk2_p2

Volume group "vg00" has been successfully extended.

Volume Group configuration for /dev/vg00 has been saved in /etc/lvmconf/vg00.conf

Step 6.

Mirror all logical volumes on current boot disk on new disk using mirror copies (-m) as 1 in argument in lvextend command.

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# lvextend -m 1 /dev/vg00/lvol1 /dev/disk/disk2_p2

The newly allocated mirrors are now being synchronized. This operation will

take some time. Please wait ....

Logical volume "/dev/vg00/lvol1" has been successfully extended.

Volume Group configuration for /dev/vg00 has been saved in /etc/lvmconf/vg00.conf

This task can be easied with for loop. Observe number of lvols in your current VG and run a for loop like one below.

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# for i in 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

do

lvextend -m 1 /dev/vg00/lvol$i /dev/disk/disk2_p2

done

Step 7.

Second last step is to set boot, swap, dump and root volumes on new disk.

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# lvlnboot -r /dev/vg00/lvol3

Volume Group configuration for /dev/vg00 has been saved in /etc/lvmconf/vg00.conf

# lvlnboot -b /dev/vg00/lvol1

Volume Group configuration for /dev/vg00 has been saved in /etc/lvmconf/vg00.conf

# lvlnboot -s /dev/vg00/lvol2

Volume Group configuration for /dev/vg00 has been saved in /etc/lvmconf/vg00.conf

# lvlnboot -d /dev/vg00/lvol2

Volume Group configuration for /dev/vg00 has been saved in /etc/lvmconf/vg00.conf

Verify it

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# lvlnboot -v

Boot Definitions for Volume Group /dev/vg00:

Physical Volumes belonging in Root Volume Group:

        /dev/disk/disk1_p2 -- Boot Disk

        /dev/disk/disk2_p2 -- Boot Disk

Boot: lvol1     on:     /dev/disk/disk1_p2

                        /dev/disk/disk2_p2

Root: lvol3     on:     /dev/disk/disk1_p2

                        /dev/disk/disk2_p2

Swap: lvol2     on:     /dev/disk/disk1_p2

                        /dev/disk/disk2_p2

Dump: lvol2     on:     /dev/disk/disk1_p2, 0

Step 8.

Add new diskname in /stand/bootconf file. Here l means disk is managed by lvm.

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# echo "l /dev/disk/disk2_p2" >> /stand/bootconf

Lastly set new disk’s hardware path as a alternative boot path and you are done. Hardware path of new disk can be obtained from ioscan output.

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# setboot -a 2/0/0/2/0.6.0

Verify it

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# /usr/sbin/setboot

Primary bootpath : 2/0/0/3/0.0x6.0x0 (/dev/rdisk/disk1)

HA Alternate bootpath :

Alternate bootpath : 2/0/0/2/0.0x6.0x0 (/dev/rdisk/disk2)

Autoboot is ON (enabled)

Hyperthreading : OFF

               : OFF (next boot)