[linux-lvm] inactive PV associated to unknown VG

[Randy Rubins]

Thanks, Heinz!

I got impatient this morning and executed:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=1 count=1

hoping the result would be that /dev/sdb1 would
contain the only valid VG descriptor, and it worked.

Just for confirmation,

1) Does VG always get written at the beginning of PE
(first 128 bytes), whether it's the whole disk
(/dev/sdb) or a partition (/dev/sdb1)? 

2) I was expecting kickstart to clear the disk label,
but looking at my ks.cfg I only see
clearpart --all
It probably should have said:
clearpart --all --initlabel
to avoid the situation of having an "old" PV structure
info on /dev/sdb...  I haven't tried it yet but would
that have been the right approach?

3) AJ Lewis's LVM-HOWTO contains a statement:
"The recommended method of partitioning a disk is to
create a single partition that covers the whole disk.
This avoids any nasty accidents with whole disk drive
device nodes and prevents the kernel warning about
unknown partition types at boot-up."

Is there a general agreement amongst lvm developers
and users that the partition based PE (/dev/sdb1) is
preferred over the "partitionless" PE (/dev/sdb) in a
"normal" production environment when the intent is to
use the entire physical disk as a PE?

Cheers,
Randy

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Heinz Mauelshagen <mauelshagen redhat com> 
To: linux-lvm redhat com 
Subject: Re: [linux-lvm] inactive PV associated to
unknown VG 
Date: Thu Feb 19 10:38:31 2004 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Randy,

the PV structure on /dev/sdb hasn't been removed.
Overwrite the first 128 bytes of /dev/sdb and rerun
vgscan.


On Wed, Feb 18, 2004 at 03:56:56PM -0800, Randy Rubins
wrote:
> I'm having a problem importing a VG after
> re-installing the server (original OS version RH
7.3,
> new RHEL 3 AS).  LVM is picking up the /dev/sdb, as
> well as the new /dev/sdb1 PV.  Any way to tell LVM
to
> ignore /dev/sdb and force it to use /dev/sdb1?  
> BTW, the LVM version used on RH 7.3 was 0.9.1_beta7,
> the new LVM version - whatever comes with RHEL 3 AS
> update 1.

1.0.3

> 
> Thanks,
> Randy
> 
> pvscan -- reading all physical volumes (this may
take
> a while...)
> pvscan -- ACTIVE   PV "/dev/sda2" of VG "rootvg" 
> [16.45 GB / 4.69 GB free]
> pvscan -- inactive PV "/dev/sdb"   is associated to
> unknown VG "localvg" (run vgscan)
> pvscan -- inactive PV "/dev/sdb1"  is associated to
> unknown VG "localvg" (run vgscan)
> pvscan -- total: 3 [45.42 GB] / in use: 3 [45.42 GB]
/
> in no VG: 0 [0]
> 
> =====
> Randy Rubins (eBay ID: lv_hockey)
> mailto://lv_hockey yahoo com
> 
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http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/

-- 

Regards,
Heinz    -- The LVM Guy --

*** Software bugs are stupid.
    Nevertheless it needs not so stupid people to
solve them ***

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Heinz Mauelshagen                                 Red
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=====
Randy Rubins (eBay ID: lv_hockey)
mailto://lv_hockey@yahoo.com

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