vinum configuration broken

[Joan Picanyol i Puig]

Summary: I've screwed up my working vinum configuration. I have done it
_without_ issuing any vinum commands. About all the info I can give is
on the web at http://biaix.org/pk/debug/vinum/, plus some postings on
questions@ and stable@ with 'vinum' on the subject.

On Sun, Apr 18, 2004 at 09:53:38AM +0930, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
> On Saturday, 17 April 2004 at 21:30:36 +0200, Joan Picanyol i Puig wrote:
> > [please honour Mail-Followup-To:]
> This appears to be identical to the group reply addresses.  Am I
> missing something?
I can't access my subscription address, it's on the broken system :(.
I set MFT so both me and the list get the answer.

> > On Sat, Apr 17, 2004 at 04:15:45PM +0200, Joan Picanyol i Puig wrote:
> >> During this afternoon I'll work on crafting a configuration file for all
> >> this, should I do a resetconfig before applying it? In any case, I'll
> >> definitely wish I can get a reassuring review of the config file before
> >> I risk it :o
> >
> > I'm attaching what I think is the right configuration file to get vinum
> > back to reason. However, I have some doubts:
> >
> > I'd really like if someone could reassure me before definitely screwing
> > up everything, just to be able to not feel guilty twice (once for
> > screwing it up, another time for _really_ screwing it up)
> You've sent a lot of messages, but none of them contain the
> information that is asked for in the man page or at the web site
> (http://www.vinumvm.org/vinum/how-to-debug.html).  I publish this link
> at least once a week.  In particular, I want to see the history file.
> In many cases where it's missing, it shows that somebody did something
> wrong.

I realize that posting so many messages doesn't make it easier to solve
the issue, and I'm 99% sure it's my fault. However, the only vinum
commands I've issued are start/stop and read disk (once vinum was
already broken). Before that, I booted from another root partition
(dump/restored from the original) and reMAKEDEV'd devices.

I just started giving info as I could gather it. In
http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20040417120451.GB26650 I state that
my logs (/var/log) are on one of the affected vinum volumes, therefore I can't
provide them :(

>   Publishing your findings on the web as a maze of links doesn't make
>   it any easier.

On the web there's the output of the vinum list command and the on-disk
configuration (I just rechecked and would ask you to rely on
vinum.log.ad0s1.clean); since there's no tr in the fixit CD, I did the
'clean up' later, hence the names. In there you can find what I've been
able to gather so far, I'll be glad to follow any further directions.
The fdisk* files are what fdisk says about my disks, same with
disklabel*. I obtained vinum.log* following your directions, first as a
whole and then separated. Sorry if it looks confusing, I thought my
naming scheme was clear enough.

> Nor does a configuration file by itself.  From the link mentioned
> above:
> 
>   What not to supply ------------------ Please don't supply the
>   following information unless I ask for it: [...] * Your Vinum
>   configuration file, unless your problem is that you can't start
>   Vinum at all.

The configuration file I attached is _not_ the one used to set
everything up (which is also on one of the affected volumes). It's the
one I think would reset my config to a working state (ie: restore the
disk metadata preserving the data).

To make sure there's no misunderstanding:

I feel I've broken my vinum configuration beyond any hope of sane
recovery. However, since I believe my data is still OK, I'm trying to
devise a way to restore my configuration. So far, the best I've come up
with is resetconfig and apply vinum.recreate to get my setup back to
live. Is there anything I should try before such traumatic ways?

tks

P.S.: I'm on CET, what's your time zone?
--
pica