Veritas Volume Manager 5.1 SP1 Administrator"s Guide (5900-1506, April 2011)

Creating a volume
You can create volumes using an advanced approach or an assisted approach.
Each method uses different tools. You may switch between the advanced and the
assisted approaches at will.
Note: Most VxVM commands require superuser or equivalent privileges.
Advanced approach
The advanced approach consists of a number of commands that typically require
you to specify detailed input. These commands use a “building block” approach
that requires you to have a detailed knowledge of the underlying structure and
components to manually perform the commands necessary to accomplish a certain
task. Advanced operations are performed using several different VxVM commands.
To create a volume using the advanced approach, perform the following steps in
the order specified:
■ Create subdisks using vxmake sd.
See “Creating subdisks” on page 272.
■ Create plexes using vxmake plex, and associate subdisks with them.
See “Creating plexes” on page 281.
See “Associating subdisks with plexes” on page 275.
■ Associate plexes with the volume using vxmake vol.
■ Initialize the volume using vxvol start or vxvol init zero.
See “Initializing and starting a volume created using vxmake” on page 327.
The steps to create the subdisks and plexes, and to associate the plexes with the
volumes can be combined by using a volume description file with the vxmake
command.
See “Creating a volume using a vxmake description file” on page 325.
See “Creating a volume using vxmake” on page 324.
Assisted approach
The assisted approach takes information about what you want to accomplish and
then performs the necessary underlying tasks. This approach requires only
minimal input from you, but also permits more detailed specifications.
Assisted operations are performed primarily through the vxassist command.
vxassist creates the required plexes and subdisks using only the basic attributes
299Creating volumes
Creating a volume