NetApp Data ONTAP - Preparing the simulator disks
Jun 6th 2008Unitek NetApp BlogUncategorized
This is where we left off. The install script prompted us through creating virtual disks that will be used by the simulator.
The install script leaves us with the instructions for starting the simulator, so let’s start the simulator with the command:
/sim/runsim.sh
(This may vary if you installed the simulator in a different directory.) You will see a great many error messages as the simulator starts. Most of these are related to the disks that we created. You should see raid.config.disk.bad.label:error messages for each disk. Finally you will end up at the login prompt. Go ahead and log in as root.
Once you are logged in, type the command “sysconfig –r” and you will see something like this:
This shows the new disks that we created during the install. Notice they all have “bad label” under the RAID disk column.
To repair the disk we will need to use an advanced mode command, so enter the command “priv set advanced”.
You will get a warning message after entering the command and then the command line prompt will change to indicate that you are no longer in administrative mode. Also notice the “Device” column from the previous. This indicates the device names for the new drives we created with the install script. These names are different from what you would see on real hardware, reflecting the fact that you are using the simulator.
Type the command “disk unfail –s v4.19” to repair the disk label for device 4.19. You should see the following response:
Disk v4.19 will be placed in the spare pool. You will need to run this command for each disk. Once you have run the disk unfail command for each drive you, run “sysconfig –r” again. You should see something like the following output:
The first column output should now indicate that the disks are spares. Now type the command “disk zero spares”.
If you wait a few minutes and type “sysconfig –r” you should see output similar to the following:
The drives are now being zeroed. One this is complete, the drives will be ready to include in aggregates or traditional volumes. (You don’t have to pre-zero the drives, but if you try to use a non-zero drive, Data ONTAP will zero the drives before inserting them into RAID groups for your aggregates.
It is possible you may get an error while this process is running. Until now the virtual disk did not take much physical space. When the zeroing process is complete, the virtual disk will exist physically as files within your Linux system, taking the same amount of space as the virtual disks you selected. Make sure you have enough free space to support the combination drive size and number of drives you selected during the install.
When the drive zeroing process completes, NetApp Data ONTAP will indicate it is done with the following messages:
Finally, if you type “sysconfig –r” you should see the following output:
The drives are now in the spare pool and ready to use.
