Preface

Solstice DiskSuite^{^(TM)} is an unbundled software package that offers a pseudo device driver (called a metadisk driver) providing better performance, greater capacity, and improved availability of data.

Solstice DiskSuite allows for up to three-way mirroring of any file system including /usr, root, and swap. Other features of Solstice DiskSuite include online concatenation of physical drives, online expansion of file systems, disk striping, hot spares, UFS logging, and RAID Level 5 support. Also included is a diskset feature which provides facilities for hosts to share disks in a high availabilty environment.

Solstice DiskSuite 4.0 runs on all SPARC^{^(R)} systems running Solaris^{^(TM)} 2.3 or a later Solaris 2.x release, and on all x86 systems running Solaris 2.4 or a later Solaris 2.x release. To use the UFS logging facilility, you must be running Solaris 2.4 or a later Solaris 2.x release.

The diskset feature is supported on SPARC Solaris 2.4 or a later SPARC Solaris 2.x release. This feature is not supported on x86 systems.

Who Should Use This Book

System administrators and others with the task of administering disk configurations and maintenance will find this manual to be a valuable resource. Much of the information in this book is targeted towards administrators with experience performing disk maintenance.

How This Book Is Organized

This document has an introduction, twelve chapters, and six appendixes. Examples are included at the end of chapters, where appropriate.

Chapter 1, "Introduction," introduces you to the basic concepts of Solstice DiskSuite, lists the peripherals supported, and defines some of the general terminology used in this document.

Chapter 2, "Installation and Setup," provides information on what you need to do before using Solstice DiskSuite, including installation and initial setup instructions for the software. This chapter also describes how to create the initial state database.

Chapter 3, "Overview of Solstice DiskSuite," offers a high-level overview of the functionality included with Solstice DiskSuite. The interaction between the various parts of Solstice DiskSuite is also discussed.

Chapter 4, "Concatenating and Striping," provides conceptual details and procedures for using the Solstice DiskSuite facilities that enable you to create metadevices consisting of either concatenated or striped disk partitions.

Chapter 5, "Mirroring," includes information on the operation of mirrors, using mirrors to recover from a single-component failure, the reconfiguration of mirrors, and the use of mirroring for online backups of file systems.

Chapter 6, "UFS Logging," provides information on how to set up and use the UNIX file system logging facility included with Solstice DiskSuite.

Chapter 7, "Hot Spares," describes how to define and use hot spares and includes information on conditions to avoid when using hot spares.

Chapter 8, "Disksets," provides information on how to set up and use the diskset utility included with Solstice DiskSuite. This feature provides facilities for hosts to share disks in a high availabilty environment.

Chapter 9, "RAID Devices," provides information on RAID (Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks) Level 5, including hardware and software considerations and examples for the RAID 5 support in software.

Chapter 10, "State Database Replicas," provides an overview of the state database and discusses proper use.

Chapter 11, "Expanding a File System," provides instructions for expanding mounted and unmounted UFS file systems.

Chapter 12, "Configuration Guidelines," provides performance, capacity, and availability configuration tips.

Appendix A, "Solstice DiskSuite Files," discusses the format of the three system files associated with Solstice DiskSuite.

Appendix B, "Solstice DiskSuite Messages," explains the most common Solstice DiskSuite error messages.

Appendix C, "Recovery From Failed Boots," provides detailed information on how to recover from failed boots and other common errors.

Appendix D, "Upgrading to Other Solaris Versions," outlines a procedure for upgrading Solstice DiskSuite configurations to later versions of Solaris. This procedure is provided as an alternative to completely reinstalling the Solaris and Solstice DiskSuite packages.

Appendix E, "Using Solstice DiskSuite 4.0 with the SPARCstorage Array 100," describes the characteristics of the SPARCstorage Array (SSA) with which DiskSuite users should be familiar and explains how DiskSuite should be configured and used to take advantage of the SSA.

Appendix F, "Man Pages," is a printed copy of the associated manual pages, which are also included on the installation CD.

Related Books

Sun documentation related to the Solstice DiskSuite product and disk maintenance and configuration includes the following:

Solstice DiskSuite Tool 4.0 User's Guide
Solaris 2.4 File System Administration

What Typographic Changes and Symbols Mean

The following table describes the type changes and symbols used in this book.

Table P-1

Typeface or Symbol	Meaning	Example
`AaBbCc123`	The names of commands, files, and directories; on-screen computer output	Edit your `.login` file. Use `ls -a` to list all files. `% You have mail.`
`AaBbCc123`	What you type, contrasted with on-screen computer output	`%` `su` `password:`
*AaBbCc123*	Command-line placeholder: replace with a real name or value	To delete a file, type `rm` *filename*`.`
*AaBbCc123*	Book titles, new words or terms, or words to be emphasized	Read Chapter 6 in *User's Guide`.` These are called class* options. You *must* be root to do this.
Code samples are included in boxes and may display the following:
`%`	UNIX C shell prompt	`%`
`$`	UNIX Bourne shell prompt	`$`
`#`	Superuser prompt, either shell	`#`