7.4 Initializing a Device

You must initialize a device to set up its device format before you can create volumes on it. You can also initialize a device to wipe its current structure and reconfigure it. Devices that you want to use for Linux POSIX volumes should be in an unshared state whether they are local or SAN devices. For command usage information, see Init Device in the OES 11 SP3: NLVM Reference.

IMPORTANT:NLVM and NSSMU do not support using Linux software RAID devices and NSS software RAID devices with Linux POSIX file systems. You can use a hardware RAID device to achieve device fault tolerance for Linux POSIX volumes.

Initializing a device formats it with an MSDOS or a GPT partitioning scheme. MSDOS supports devices up to 2 TB in size. GPT supports devices of any size. The default is MSDOS. If the device size is greater than 2 TB and the partitioning scheme is not specified, the default partitioning scheme of MSDOS applies, and the device size is truncated to 2 TB with the remainder as unusable space.

WARNING:Initializing a device removes all partitions and data from the device. Do not initialize the device that contains the operating system.

Devices that have never been initialized have a format of None. Devices that are being used for a Novell Cluster Services SBD (split brain detector) partition also have a format of None; however, you should not use the nlvm init command to remove an SBD partition. For information about removing an SBD partition, see Creating or Deleting Cluster SBD Partitions in the OES 11 SP3: Novell Cluster Services for Linux Administration Guide.

  1. Log in to the server as the root user, then open a terminal console.

  2. View a list of active devices by entering

    nlvm list devices

  3. Identify the device that you want to initialize. If a device is contains data, be prepared to lose all data on the device when you initialize it.

    In the following example, the sdd and sde devices are uninitialized and display a format of None. The clus1.sbd device is a mirrored RAID device that is used for the SBD partition of a cluster named clus1. The SBD device should not be used.

    nlvm list devices
 Name            Size     Used     Free   Format Shared RAID Enabled
 sda           11.00GB   9.29GB   1.70GB   MSDOS   No    No
 sdb          102.00MB 102.00MB      0KB   MSDOS  Yes    No
 sdc          102.00MB 102.00MB      0KB   MSDOS  Yes    No
 sdd          512.00MB      0KB      0KB    None   No    No
 sde          512.00MB      0KB      0KB    None   No    No
 clus1.sbd     99.57MB  99.57MB      0KB    None  Yes     1   Yes

  4. Initialize the device by entering

    nlvm [--force] [--no-prompt] init <device_name> [format=<gpt|msdos>] unshared

    You are automatically prompted to confirm the initialize action. Enter yes to continue or enter no to cancel. Use the --no-prompt NLVM option to suppress the confirmation.

    Replace device_name with the node name of the device to be initialized, such as sde. The device name must be the first option after init.

    Specify gpt or msdos as the partitioning scheme to use when formatting the device.

    The unshared option removes all partitions from a device. If the device was previously set as shared, this removes the Shareable for Clustering setting from the device.

    For devices that contain data, specify the --force option to force the initialization if the device contains the root (/), swap, or /boot partition, or if the init command cannot delete any pools on the disk.

    For example, to initialize a device with the MSDOS partitioning scheme and leave it as unshared, enter

    nlvm init sde format=msdos unshared

  5. List details about the device to verify that the device is formatted, and the amount of free space has increased.

    nlvm list device <device_name>

    For example, enter

    nlvm list device sde

 Name=sde
 Size=512.00MB(1048576) Used=16KB(32) Free=511.98MB(1048544)
 Format=MSDOS Shared=No RAID=No M:M=8:64 H:S=255:32