Partial disk failure mail messages

If hot-relocation is enabled when a plex or disk is detached by a failure, mail indicating the failed objects is sent to root. If a partial disk failure occurs, the mail identifies the failed plexes. For example, if a disk containing mirrored volumes fails, you can receive mail information as shown in the following example:

To: root 
Subject: Volume Manager failures on host teal
Failures have been detected by the Veritas Volume Manager: 

failed plexes: 
home-02 
src-02

Mail can be sent to users other than root.

You can determine which disk is causing the failures in the above example message by using the following command:

# vxstat -g mydg -s -ff home-02 src-02

The -s option asks for information about individual subdisks, and the -ff option displays the number of failed read and write operations. The following output display is typical:

                            FAILED 
TYP NAME                 READS   WRITES 
sd mydg01-04                 0        0 
sd mydg01-06                 0        0 
sd mydg02-03                 1        0 
sd mydg02-04                 1        0

This example shows failures on reading from subdisks mydg02-03 and mydg02-04 of disk mydg02.

Hot-relocation automatically relocates the affected subdisks and initiates any necessary recovery procedures. However, if relocation is not possible or the hot-relocation feature is disabled, you must investigate the problem and attempt to recover the plexes. Errors can be caused by cabling failures, so check the cables connecting your disks to your system. If there are obvious problems, correct them and recover the plexes using the following command:

# vxrecover -b -g mydg home src

This starts recovery of the failed plexes in the background (the command prompt reappears before the operation completes). If an error message appears later, or if the plexes become detached again and there are no obvious cabling failures, replace the disk.

More Information

Modifying the behavior of hot-relocation

Removing and replacing disks