My vinum scare
Kirk Strauser
kirk at strauser.com
Mon Mar 29 07:39:26 PST 2004
Yesterday, I updated my system from a 5.1-CURRENT build on 2004-01-29 to
recent source. All of my filesystems, except for root and swap, are on
vinum volumes for flexibility in management. After the 'installkernel'
step, I rebooted into single-user to make installworld and run mergemaster,
and this completed successfully. Then, I rebooted to bring the system back
online.
That's when I discovered that vinum had totally lost all of its
configuration information, except for the name of the single drive ("wd120")
that I use. Following the instructions at
http://www.vinumvm.org/vinum/how-to-debug.html, I got:
# < log tr -d '\000-\011\200-\377'
IN VINOkanga.honeypot.netwd120a>P.pMg@[obme>MBR</name>
<geom id="0xc5e0da00">
<class ref="0xc08ebf20"/>
<name>da0</name>
<rank>2</rank>
<config>
</config>
<consumer id="0xc5d238c0">
<geom ref="0xc5e0da00"/>
<provider ref="0xc5e35000"/>
<mode>r0w0e0</mode>
<config>
</config>
</consumer>
<provider id="0xc1dfa280">
<geom ref="0xc5e0da00"/>
<mode>r0w0e0</mode>
<name>da0s4</name>
'vinum dumpconfig' reported nothing but the definition of the "wd120" drive:
no volumes, plexes, or subdisks. Nothing. At this point, I had a minor
heart attack.
Once I stepped back, I remembered that I *always* use 'printconfig' to write
a copy of my configuration to /etc/vinum.conf. A quick 'vinum create'
command had me back up and running with no ill effects.
I have no idea what happened, but I ask that you trust me when I say that I
hadn't touched vinum at all during the system update.
Two lessons:
1) Realizing that you have a backup of such critical data as your vinum
configuration is one of the best feelings in the world.
2) Realizing that in the event of failure of lesson #1, that you still
have a full backup to tape from a few hours earlier, and that no matter
*what* happens, you're only an hour away from having your system
back... It doesn't get much better than that.
--
Kirk Strauser
"94 outdated ports on the box,
94 outdated ports.
Portupgrade one, an hour 'til done,
82 outdated ports on the box."
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 188 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-current/attachments/20040329/10cf3ef3/attachment.bin
More information about the freebsd-current
mailing list