10/23/2020 Document 1494494.

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Copyright (c) 2020, Oracle. All rights reserved. Oracle Confidential.

Solaris Volume Manager (SVM) How to Troubleshoot and Repair Soft Partitions
(Softpartitions) Resolution Path (Doc ID 1494494.1)

APPLIES TO:

Sun Solaris Volume Manager (SVM) - Version 11.9.0 to 11.11 [Release 11.0]
Oracle Solaris on x86-64 (64-bit)
Oracle Solaris on SPARC (64-bit)

PURPOSE

This document is a Resolution Path. It will guide you through step by step to troubleshoot Soft Partition issues or errors
associated with Solaris Volume Manager aka.: SVM, SDS, metadevices.

Note: If you creating soft partitions and want to know best practices, you may want to review
Document 1417827.1 Solaris Volume Manager (SVM): Best Practices for Creation and Implementation of Soft Partitions

TROUBLESHOOTING STEPS

Troubleshooting Steps for Softpartitions:

1. To verify metadevice in question has soft partitions

2. Identify disks that have soft partitions using the metastat command

3. Check the status of the soft partition

4.Mount errors

5. I/O errors

6. fsck errors

7. Problems creating or rebuilding soft partitions

8. Delete errors

9. Grow errors

1. To verify metadevice in question has soft partitions run the following command

# metastat [ -s <setname> <device> ]

and look for the text "Soft Partition" in the output as show in example below

# metastat
d84: Soft Partition <--------------
Device: d80
State: Ok
..<SNIP>....

If you don't see the above "Soft Partition", then this document does not apply to you. Please see:

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Document 1503383.1 How to Troubleshoot and Fix Solaris Volume Manager SVM Problems or Errors. Master Document, a
Compass to all SVM Resolution Paths

2. Identify disks that have soft partitions using the metastat command.

The SVM command metastat reports state information all devices. When the mirror is healthy, the state will report "Okay"
for the mirror, submirror and any sub-component (such as a soft partition). Any device whose "State" is not ok needs to
be investigated.

Here is an example:

# metastat
d200: Soft Partition
Device: c0t10d0s0
State: Okay
Size: 6291456 blocks (3.0 GB)
Device Start Block Dbase Reloc
c0t10d0s0 0 No Yes
Extent Start Block Block count
0 4194306 6291456
d100: Soft Partition
Device: c0t10d0s0
State: Okay
Size: 4194304 blocks (2.0 GB)
Device Start Block Dbase Reloc
c0t10d0s0 0 No Yes
Extent Start Block Block count
0 1 4194304

This example shows two metadevices d200 and d100 carved out of device c0t10d0s0. Notice the Start Block for d100 (1)
and the Block count (4194304) and that d200's Start Block is 4194306 which is the next available block

Remember, if this is a diskset you will need the -s <setname> optional argument i.e. metastat -s <setname>

More complete information can be found in:

Document 1500210.1 Solaris Volume Manager (SVM) Metadevices to Physical Device Mapping. How to Find Physical
Device of SVM meta device.

3. Check the status of the soft partition

The SVM command metastat reports state information all devices. When the mirror is healthy, the state will report
"Okay" for the mirror, submirror and any sub-component (such as a soft partition). Any device whose "State" is not ok
needs to be investigated. The following documents will assist in repairing the device

Document 1010479.1 Solaris Volume Manager (SVM) metastat Command Shows Soft Partition in Errored State

Document 1008147.1 Solaris Volume Manager (SVM): How to Repair a "Needs Maintenance" Metadevice in a One-Way
Mirror

Document 1477405.1 Solaris Volume Manager (SVM): How to Replace a Physical Disk Containing Soft Partitions

4. Mount errors

4.1 Verify device is present using the ls and metatstat commands

# ls -l /dev/md/<md_device>

# metastat [-s setname] <md_device>

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Example:

# mount /dev/md/dsk/d120 /AB

mount: /dev/md/dsk/d120 or /AB, no such file or directory

4.2 Check using ls -l both arguments passed to mount to verify they are present

# ls -l /dev/md/dsk/d120
/dev/md/dsk/d120: No such file or directory <----------- The problem
# ls -l /AB
total 0
#

4.3 Check for permission on the directory:

# ls -l /<mount point>

4.4 Check that either an application or a user has mount point open that can make it busy (check fuser
man pages# man fuser)

# fuser /<mount point>

4.5 Check for device

# metastat d120
metastat: <nodename>: d120: No such file or directory <----------- The device does not exist

If above is returned, recheck the device name you are attempting to mount

Note if running Oracle Solaris Cluster or using disksets also check to see if running into issue described in:

Document 1019240.1 Adding a Host to a SVM Metaset Deletes the Set Name Link

Also note that

Document 1007770.1 Solaris Volume Manager (SVM) Solstice DiskSuite (SDS): Can Not Mount Soft Partitions After/Within
Reboot (Not Applicable for Solaris 10 because the requirement for /etc/system directives removed)

4.6 If you see this error

"open failed, watermark does not have a valid checksum"

See Document 1465079.1 Solaris Volume Manager (SVM) Mounting Soft Partition Fails with "open failed, watermark
does not have a valid checksum"

4.7 If all above are ok, then issue is not with the metadevice. Capture the error returned by the mount
command and search again in MOS.

5. I/O errors

The ls(1) and cp(1) commands reporting I/0 error against SVM device that contains soft partitions

5.1 Verify device is present

# ls -l /dev/md/<md_device>

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or

# ls -l /dev/md/<setname>/<md_device>

5.2 Check status of device

# metastat -d<number>

NOTE: The state of a soft partition as returned by metastat -i will only change from "State: Okay" to "State: Errored"
if the soft partition is open and I/O is either in progress or attempted. If the device is merely open without any I/O being
attempted then the State will not change. More information on this can be found in:

Document 1010931.1 Solaris Volume Manager (SVM) Soft Partition State change

5.3 Validate watermarks

See Document 1007490.1 Solaris Volume Manager (SVM): I/O to Soft Partition Fails with "/dev/md/rdsk/dxx: I/O
error"

5.4 If all above are ok, check /var/adm/messages for errors or warnings against the physical devices
making up the metadevice in question. You can also use iostat -E to see if any reported issues with the
physical devices.

The following docs are useful for the above step:

Document 1007250.1 How to Interpret Error Counters for the Solaris iostat -E output

Following document has information on how to 'map' sd or ssd numbers to cxtxdx format:
Document 1500210.1 Solaris Volume Manager (SVM) Metadevices to Physical Device Mapping. How to Find Physical
Device of SVM meta device.

6. fsck errors

6.1 Verify device is present

# ls -l /dev/md/<md_device>

or

# ls -l /dev/md/<setname>/<md_device>

6.2 Check status of device

# metastat -d<number>

6.3 Validate watermarks

See Document 1007490.1 Solaris Volume Manager (SVM): I/O to Soft Partition Fails with "/dev/md/rdsk/dxx: I/O
error"

6.4 If all of the above are good, issue is not with metadevice. Review the following document on fsck
which will help you better determine if the filesystem can be repaired

Document 1018583.1 fsck and what it does in different phases

7. Problems creating or rebuilding soft partitions

7.1 metainit returns

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"error writing extent header"

See Document 1480470.1 Solaris Cluster 3.x 4.x Solaris Volume Manager (SVM) errors while trying to create a Soft
Partition softpartition (SP) "error writing extent header"

"invalid unit"

See Document 1001988.1 See Solaris Volume Manager (SVM): Creating Mirrors from Soft Partitions 'metainit' Command
Fails with "invalid unit"

8. Delete errors

This is achieved by using the metaclear command in the normal way against the soft partition device.

8.1 If metaclear <Soft Partition Device> returns:

metaclear: hostname: d0: metadevice in use

It means other metadevices may be part of that soft partition and they need to be cleared first. Use the metastat
command and look for devices using that soft partition, then delete those using metaclear. Once they are all

cleared, you should be able to clear the soft partition metadevice.

9. Grow errors

Soft partitions are 'grown' using the metattach command.

9.1 If metattach <SoftPartition> <Size> returns

"metattach: hostname: d10: invalid unit"

See Document 1513015.1 Solaris Volume Manager (SVM) When Attempting to Grow Soft Partition 'metattach' Command
Returns "metattach: hostname: d10: invalid unit"

Please visit the Solaris Volume Manager Community with questions:

https://community.oracle.com/community/support/oracle_sun_technologies/oracle_solaris_volume_manager

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