Importing VxVM disk group with older disk group version
All disk groups have a version number associated with them. Each major Veritas Volume Manager (VxVM) release traditionally introduces a disk group version, however, in some cases, a new disk group version will not be created for a particular VxVM version.
To support new features, the disk group must be at least the disk group version of the release when the feature was introduced. If you need to import a disk group on a system running an older version of Veritas Volume Manager, you can create a disk group with an earlier disk group version.
By default, VxVM creates a disk group of the highest version supported by the release.
For example, Veritas Volume Manager 7.4.1 creates disk groups with version 280.
Each VxVM release supports a specific set of disk group versions. VxVM can import and perform operations on a disk group of any supported version. However, the operations are limited by what features and operations the disk group version supports.
Attempts to use a feature of the current version that is not a feature of the version from which the disk group was imported results in an error message similar to this:
VxVM vxedit ERROR V-5-1-2829 Disk group version doesn't support feature
VxVM product functionality is limited by the features and operations of the disk group version supports.
To list the version of an imported disk group, use this command:
# vxdg list <dgname>
You can also determine the disk group version of an imported disk group by using the vxprint command with the -l format option.
To create a disk group with a previous version, specify the -T version option to the vxdg init command.
When you want to use new features, the disk group can be upgraded. The upgrade is an explicit operation. Once the upgrade occurs, the disk group becomes incompatible with earlier releases of VxVM that do not support the new version. There is no "downgrade" facility. For disk groups that are shared among multiple servers for failover or for off-host processing, verify that the VxVM release on all potential hosts that may use the disk group supports the disk group version to which you are upgrading.
To use any of the new features, you must run the vxdg upgrade command to explicitly upgrade the disk group to a version that supports those features.
To upgrade a disk group to the highest version supported by the release of VxVM that is currently running, use this command:
# vxdg upgrade <dgname>
Until the disk group is upgraded, it can still be imported by other servers supporting the disk group version.
VxVM Disk Group Versions
| VxVM release | Disk Group version | Features included |
|---|---|---|
| 7.4.2 | 290 | DCM loggingin DCO Disk group level encryption and re-key feature |
| 7.4.1 | 280 | Technology preview: Adaptive synchronous mode in VVR |
| 7.4 | 260 | Intent lock |
| 7.3.1 | 240 | |
| 7.3 | 230 | 4K sector size disk support |
| 7.2 | 230 | 4K sector size disk support |
| 7.0 | 200 | Flexible storage sharing SmartIO support for shared volumes |
| 6.2 | 200 | Flexible storage sharing SmartIO support for shared volumes |
| 6.1 | 190 | SmartIO caching Note: The SmartIO caching feature requires VxVM version 6.2, but can provide caching for disk groups with version 190 or higher. CVM enhancements |
| 6.0.1 | 180 | CVM availability enhancements |
| 6.0 | 170 | VVR compression VVR Secondary logging CVM availability enhancements DCO version 30 Recovery for synchronization tasks |
| 5.1SP1 | 160 | Automated bunker replay as part of GCO failover Ability to elect primary during GCO takeover CVM support for more than 32 nodes and up to 64 nodes CDS layout support for large luns (> 1 TB) vxrootadm enhancements |
| 5.1 | 150 | SSD device support, migration of ISP dg |
| 5.0 | 140 | Data migration, Remote Mirror, coordinator disk groups (used by VCS), linked volumes, snapshot LUN import |
| 5.0 | 130 | VVR Enhancements |
| 4.1 | 120 | Automatic Cluster-wide Failback for A/P arrays Persistent DMP Policies Shared Disk Group Failure Policy |
| 4.0 | 110 | Cross-platform Data Sharing (CDS) Device Discovery Layer (DDL) 2.0 Disk Group Configuration Backup and Restore Elimination of rootdg as a Special Disk Group Full-Sized and Space-Optimized Instant Snapshots Intelligent Storage Provisioning (ISP) Serial Split Brain Detection Volume Sets (Multiple Device Support for VxFS) |
| 3.5 | 90 | Cluster Support for Oracle Resilvering Disk Group Move, Split and Join Device Discovery Layer (DDL) 1.0 Layered Volume Support in Clusters Ordered Allocation OS Independent Naming Support Persistent FastResync |
| 3.2 | 90 | Cluster Support for Oracle Resilvering Disk Group Move, Split and Join Device Discovery Layer (DDL) 1.0 Layered Volume Support in Clusters Ordered Allocation OS Independent Naming Support Persistent FastResync |
| 3.1.1 | 80 | VVR Enhancements |
| 3.1 | 70 | Non-Persistent FastResync Sequential DRL Unrelocate VVR Enhancements |
| 3.0 | 60 | Online Relayout Safe RAID-5 Subdisk Moves |
| 2.5 | 50 | SRVM (now known as Veritas Volume Replicator or VVR) |
| 2.3 | 40 | Hot-Relocation |
| 2.2 | 30 | VxSmartSync Recovery Accelerator |
| 2.0 | 20 | Dirty Region Logging (DRL) Disk Group Configuration Copy Limiting Mirrored Volumes Logging New-Style Stripes RAID-5 Volumes Recovery Checkpointing |
| 1.3 | 15 | |
| 1.2 | 10 |
* All previous disk group versions are supported.