Veritas 5.0.1 Installation Guide, HP-UX 11i v3, First Edition, November 2009

Enabling Cluster Support in VxVM
This release includes an optional cluster feature that enables VxVM to be used in a cluster
environment. The cluster functionality in VxVM enables multiple hosts to simultaneously access
and manage a set of disks under VxVM control. A cluster is a set of hosts sharing a set of disks;
each host is referred to as a node in the cluster. The VxVM cluster feature requires a license that
you can obtain from your Customer Support channel.
To enable the cluster functionality in VxVM, complete the following steps:
1. Obtain a license for the VxVM cluster feature.
2. Install the software packages on each node in the cluster.
3. Initialize VxVM.
4. Start VEA.
5. Configure shared disks.
For information on configuring shared disks, see the Veritas Volume Manager Administrator’s
Guide available at:
http://www.docs.hp.com
If you are installing VxVM for the first time or adding disks to an existing cluster, you must
configure new shared disks. Ensure that you configure shared disks only from one node and
also specify if the disk is shared because VxVM cannot inform whether a disk is shared. While
you are performing the configuration, ensure that the shared disks are not being accessed from
another node. If you start the cluster on the node where you perform the configuration only, you
can prevent disk accesses from other nodes because the quorum control reserves the disks for
the single node. If you are upgrading VxVM from a previous version, verify that your shared
disks still exist.
For information on configuring new disks, verifying existing shared disks, and converting existing
VxVM disk groups to shared disk groups, see the following sections:
• “Configuring New Shared Disks” (page 42)
• “Verifying Existing Shared Disks” (page 43)
• “Converting Existing VxVM Disk Groups to Shared Disk Groups” (page 43)
Configuring New Shared Disks
If you are installing and setting up VxVM for the first time, you must configure the shared disks.
To configure shared disks, complete the following steps:
1. Start the cluster on at least one node.
2. Run the vxdiskadm program on the node and choose option 1 to initialize new disks. When
prompted to add these new disks to a disk group, choose none to leave the disks for future
use.
3. View the newly initialized disks on other nodes in the cluster:
# vxdctl enable
4. Create disk groups on the shared disks from the master node. To determine if a node is a
master or slave, run the vxdctl -c mode command.
Use the vxdg program or VEA to create disk groups. To create shared disk groups, use the
-s option of the vxdg program.
5. From the master node, use the vxassist command or VEA to create volumes in the disk
groups. The volumes must be of type gen. Do not create RAID-5 volumes. Before creating
42 Setting up the Veritas 5.0.1 Products