Importing cloned EMC disk from one RedHat box to another.
 

Hello,
I have a volume group on a Redhat ES 3 box that have cloned and need to import on another RedHat ES 3 box to be backed up. The storage device is an EMC Symmetrix.

The error I get when running "vgimport vgname /dev/emcpowerad1" is:


vgimport -- locking logical volume manager
vgimport -- checking volume group name
vgimport -- checking volume group "vghpm" existence
vgimport -- trying to read physical volumes
vgimport -- checking for duplicate physical volumes
vgimport -- checking physical volume name "/dev/emcpowerad1"
vgimport -- reading data of physical volume "/dev/emcpowerad1" from disk
vgimport -- ERROR "pv_read(): read" reading physical volume "/dev/emcpowerad1"

There are 22 disk in the volumegroup, I ran the vgimport for all 22 disk at one time.


Any help is appreciated,

Thanks,
Tom.

did you do a LUN scan and able to see the LUNs?
how about the pvs (using pvs or pvscan)?

i'm not sure if symmetrix behaves the same way like clariion LUNs when moved to a different host but once the PVs are visible (you can verify using powermt display dev=all and pvscan), the vgimport should be ok.

Hello,
Sorry for the delay... we performed another sync and split then rebooted the box and are now able to see and mount the vg. Before the reboot, the pvscan did not "see" the disks.

We have a test scheduled in the next day or two to sync and split and update the cloned copy on our RedHat box. I plan to unmount, deactivate and export the volume group. Once the sync and split is complete I'll then import the volume group. Not sure if this is the right way to do this, please let me know your thoughts.

Thanks,
Tom.