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Veritas Volume Manager (VxVM) cheat sheet
This article is aimed a providing a list of basic and advanced commands and common information for Veritas Volume Manager.
Basic VxVM Commands
| Disk Operations | |
| Action | Command Line |
|---|---|
| Initialise a disk | vxdisksetup -i device |
| List disks owned by local and remote hosts | vxdisk -o alldgs list |
| List disk header | vxdisk list diskname|device |
| Evacuate a disk | vxevac -g diskgroup from_disk to_disk |
| Rename a disk | vxdisk -g diskgroup rename oldname> newname |
| Set spare, no hot relocation, or reserved space on a disk | vxedit -g diskgroup set [spare|nohotuse|reserve]=on|off diskname |
| Unrelocate a disk | vxunreloc -g diskgroup original_diskname |
| Disk Group Operations | |
| Action | Command Line |
| Create a disk group | vxdisk list diskgroup diskname=device |
| Add a disk to disk group | vxdg -g diskgroup adddisk diskname=device |
| Remove a disk from disk group | vxdg -g disksgroup rmdisk diskname |
| Deport, inport or destroy a disk group | vxdg [deport|import|destroy] diskgroup |
| List disk groups | vxdg list [diskgroup] |
| Show free/spare space pool | vxdg -g diskgroup [free|spare] |
| Upgrade disk group version | vxdg [-T version] upgrade diskgroup |
| Rewrite disk headers, configuration copies, and kernel log copies in a disk group. | vxdg flush diskgroup targetdg object... or vxdctl enable for all disk groups |
| Move an object between disk groups | vxdg more sourcedg targetdg object... |
| Split objects between disk groups | vxdg split sourcedg targetdg object... |
| Join disk groups | vxdg join sourceg targetdg |
| List objects affected by a disk group move operation | vxdg listmove sourcedg targetdg object... |
| Volume Operations | |
| Action | Command Line |
| Create a volume | vxassist -g diskgroup make vol_name size layout=format diskname |
| Remove a volume | vxedit -g diskgroup -rf rm vol_name or vxassist -g diskgroup remove volume vol_name |
| Display a volume | vxprint -g diskgroup -bt vol_name vxprint -g diskgroup> remove volume vol_name |
| Display a volume | vxprint -g diskgroup -vt vol_name vxprint -g diskgroup -l vol_name |
| Change volume read policy | vxvol -g diskgroup> rcpol round vol_name vxvol -g diskgroup> rcpol prefer vol_name preferred_plex_name vxvol -g diskgroup> rcpol select vol_name |
| Mirror an existing plex | vxassist -g diskgroup mirror vol_name |
| Create a snapshot | vxassist -g diskgroup -b snapstart vol_name vxassist -g diskgroup snapshot vol_name new_volume |
| Abort a snapshot | vxassist -g diskgroup snapabort orig_vol_name |
| Reassociate a snapshot | vxassist -g diskgroup snapback snapshot_vol |
| Dissaciate a snapshot | vxassist -g diskgroup snapclear vol_name |
| Print snapshot information | vxassist -g diskgroup snapprint vol_name |
| Relayout a volume | vxassist -g diskgroup relayout vol_name layout=new_layout [attributes...] |
| Convert to or from a layered layout | vxassist -g diskgroup convert vol_name layout=new_layout [attributes...] |
| Add a log to a volume | vasssist -g diskgroup addlog vol_name |
Advanced VxVM Commands
| Subdisk Operations | |
| Action | Command Line |
|---|---|
| Create a subdisk | vxmake -g diskgroup sd subdisk_name diskname offset length |
| Remove a subdisk | vxedit -g diskgroup rm subdisk_name |
| Display subdisk information | vxprintr -st vxprint -l subdisk_name |
| Associate a subdisk to a plex | vxsd assoc plex_name subdisk_name |
| Plex and Volume Operations | |
| Action | Command Line |
| Create a plex | vxmake -g diskgroup plex plex_name sd=<subdisk_name, ... |
| Associate a plex (to a volume) | vxplex -g diskgroup att vol-name plex_name |
| Unmirror a volume (remove a plex) | vxplex -i rm disk plex_name |
| Start/stop volumes | vxvol [start|stop] vol-name |
| Start/stop all volumes | vxvol [startall|stopall] |
| Recover a volume | vxrecover -sn vol_name |
| Detach a plex | vxprint -g diskgroup det plex_name |
| Attach a plex | vxplex -g diskgroup att vol_name plex_name |
| Change state flags on plex | vxmend fix [active|clean|stale] plex_name |
| Turn plex online/offline | vxmend [on|off] plex_name |
| Set fastResync flag on a volume | vxvol set fastresync=on vol_name |
| Benchmarking Operations | |
| Action | Command Line |
| Count ans size of VxVM disk I/Os completed per sample time slice to a volume | vxstat -g diskgroup [-i interval] [-c count] -d vol_name |
| VxVM I/O trace information-- dump to file and read from file | vxtrace -g diskgroup [-t duration] -d filename] -o dev,disk vol_name vxtrace -l -f /tmp/tracedata | more |
| Sample I/O load with statistics-- sequential | vxbench -w [read|write] -i iosize=size,iocount=count filename |
| Sample I/O load with statistics-- random | vxbench -w [rand_read|rand_write] -i iosize=size,iocount=count,maxfilesize=size filename |
| Tuning Operations | |
| Action | Command Line |
| View currently set VxVM kernel parameters | Example: view the current setting for the kernel paramter vol_max_vol; # echo 'vol_max_io/D' | adb -k |
| Change VxVM kernel parameters | Example: change the VxVM kernel paramter vol_ax_vol from the current value to a new value of 2048 by adding the parameter to the /etc/system file: # set vxio: vol_max_vol=2048 then, reboot the system |