PowerPath on Solaris

Question

Okay, I have a Solaris Sparc 10 server with Powerpath 4.5 and VxVM 4.1, and DMX storage. I can scan and see disk online without a reboot, but to vxdisk list they all show up as native device names, i.e. c1t10d2s2. But, If I add storage and reboot the server, it shows up as emcpower device. This is what I want to try and have happen without a reboot. Either way format command shows both, native and emcpower. Without a reboot the device entries for the emcpower# under /dev/vx/dmp are not being created. I have tried to run powermt check, powermt config, and powercf -q. Per PowerPath docs, under vxvm 4.1 or later and powerpath 4.5 or later DMP and PowerPath coexist peacefully and I am not suppose to need to run powervxvm. Does anyone know how to get a Solaris server to get disk devices to use powerpath pseudo device names without having to reboot the server?

MarcT2 · Answer

Presumably you've already done a 'devfsadm -v' to see the new devices (but if not, try that).You could also try 'vxdctl disable' followed by 'vxdctl enable', which might provoke VM into building the missing /dev entries.Regards,Marc

JasonBailey · Answer

I just had a read of the PP Install Guide on Solaris:

http://powerlink.emc.com/km/live1/en_US/Offering_Technical/Technical_Documentation/300-002-909_a01_elccnt_0.pdf?mtcs=ZXZlbnRUeXBlPUttQ2xpY2tDb250ZW50RXZlbnQsZG9jdW1lbnRJZD0wOTAxNDA2NjgwMTMyNTUzLG5hdmVOb2RlPVNvZndhcmVEb3dubG9hZHM

I can see that it talks about running powervxvm if you using VxVM 4.0, but under VxVM 4.1 it never mentions powervxm? So that could be interpreted to mean you don't need powervxvm for VxVM 4.1? I am not sure if this is the case or not, will try and find out.

JasonBailey · Answer

Answer:Yes, it's correct that 'powervxvm' is not required starting with VxVM 4.1Symantec introduced the TPD ASL for PowerPath pseudo devices in VxVM 4.1. That removes the need to use 'powervxvm'.

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