diff --git a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/Makefile b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/Makefile
index a6255bd484..5f176c6f62 100644
--- a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/Makefile
+++ b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/Makefile
@@ -178,13 +178,6 @@ IMAGES_EN+= security/ipsec-network.pic
IMAGES_EN+= security/ipsec-crypt-pkt.pic
IMAGES_EN+= security/ipsec-encap-pkt.pic
IMAGES_EN+= security/ipsec-out-pkt.pic
-IMAGES_EN+= vinum/vinum-concat.pic
-IMAGES_EN+= vinum/vinum-mirrored-vol.pic
-IMAGES_EN+= vinum/vinum-raid10-vol.pic
-IMAGES_EN+= vinum/vinum-raid5-org.pic
-IMAGES_EN+= vinum/vinum-simple-vol.pic
-IMAGES_EN+= vinum/vinum-striped-vol.pic
-IMAGES_EN+= vinum/vinum-striped.pic
IMAGES_EN+= virtualization/parallels-freebsd1.png
IMAGES_EN+= virtualization/parallels-freebsd2.png
IMAGES_EN+= virtualization/parallels-freebsd3.png
@@ -283,7 +276,6 @@ SRCS+= printing/chapter.xml
SRCS+= security/chapter.xml
SRCS+= serialcomms/chapter.xml
SRCS+= users/chapter.xml
-SRCS+= vinum/chapter.xml
SRCS+= virtualization/chapter.xml
SRCS+= x11/chapter.xml
diff --git a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/book.xml b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/book.xml
index 5e638a17ea..4175e62144 100644
--- a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/book.xml
+++ b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/book.xml
@@ -236,7 +236,6 @@
&chap.disks;
&chap.geom;
&chap.filesystems;
- &chap.vinum;
&chap.virtualization;
&chap.l10n;
&chap.cutting-edge;
diff --git a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/chapters.ent b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/chapters.ent
index d7efb577fe..8bcfe3497c 100644
--- a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/chapters.ent
+++ b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/chapters.ent
@@ -39,7 +39,6 @@
<!ENTITY chap.disks SYSTEM "disks/chapter.xml">
<!ENTITY chap.geom SYSTEM "geom/chapter.xml">
<!ENTITY chap.filesystems SYSTEM "filesystems/chapter.xml">
- <!ENTITY chap.vinum SYSTEM "vinum/chapter.xml">
<!ENTITY chap.virtualization SYSTEM "virtualization/chapter.xml">
<!ENTITY chap.l10n SYSTEM "l10n/chapter.xml">
<!ENTITY chap.cutting-edge SYSTEM "cutting-edge/chapter.xml">
diff --git a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/disks/chapter.xml b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/disks/chapter.xml
index fb95cb5eb6..10cfa6f943 100644
--- a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/disks/chapter.xml
+++ b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/disks/chapter.xml
@@ -2999,10 +2999,6 @@ gbde_lockdir="/etc/gbde"</programlisting>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>gbde detach /dev/ad4s1c</userinput></screen>
- <para>Also, since &man.vinum.4; does not use the
- &man.geom.4; subsystem,
- <application>gbde</application> can not be used with
- <application>vinum</application> volumes.</para>
</sect3>
</sect2>
diff --git a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/preface/preface.xml b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/preface/preface.xml
index a4ad5b9bd9..23ac154516 100644
--- a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/preface/preface.xml
+++ b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/preface/preface.xml
@@ -107,13 +107,6 @@
filesystems, and encrypted disk partitions.</para>
</listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para><xref linkend="vinum-vinum"/>, Vinum, is a new chapter
- with this edition. It describes how to use Vinum, a logical
- volume manager which provides device-independent logical
- disks, and software RAID-0, RAID-1 and RAID-5.</para>
- </listitem>
-
<listitem>
<para>A troubleshooting section has been added to <xref
linkend="ppp-and-slip"/>, PPP and SLIP.</para>
@@ -492,15 +485,6 @@
like the Z File System from &sun;.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry>
- <term><emphasis><xref linkend="vinum-vinum"/>,
- Vinum</emphasis></term>
- <listitem>
- <para>Describes how to use Vinum, a logical volume manager
- which provides device-independent logical disks, and
- software RAID-0, RAID-1 and RAID-5.</para>
- </listitem>
- </varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><emphasis><xref linkend="virtualization"/>,
Virtualization</emphasis></term>
diff --git a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/vinum/Makefile b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/vinum/Makefile
deleted file mode 100644
index b970524581..0000000000
--- a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/vinum/Makefile
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,15 +0,0 @@
-#
-# Build the Handbook with just the content from this chapter.
-#
-# $FreeBSD$
-#
-
-CHAPTERS= vinum/chapter.xml
-
-VPATH= ..
-
-MASTERDOC= ${.CURDIR}/../${DOC}.${DOCBOOKSUFFIX}
-
-DOC_PREFIX?= ${.CURDIR}/../../../..
-
-.include "../Makefile"
diff --git a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/vinum/chapter.xml b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/vinum/chapter.xml
deleted file mode 100644
index d6bd16c029..0000000000
--- a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/vinum/chapter.xml
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,1251 +0,0 @@
-<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
-<!--
- The Vinum Volume Manager
- By Greg Lehey (grog at lemis dot com)
-
- Added to the Handbook by Hiten Pandya <hmp@FreeBSD.org>
- and Tom Rhodes <trhodes@FreeBSD.org>
-
- For the FreeBSD Documentation Project
- $FreeBSD$
--->
-
-<chapter id="vinum-vinum">
- <chapterinfo>
- <authorgroup>
- <author>
- <firstname>Greg</firstname>
- <surname>Lehey</surname>
- <contrib>Originally written by </contrib>
- </author>
- </authorgroup>
- </chapterinfo>
-
- <title>The <devicename>vinum</devicename> Volume Manager</title>
-
- <sect1 id="vinum-synopsis">
- <title>Synopsis</title>
-
- <para>No matter the type of disks, there are always potential
- problems. The disks can be too small, too slow, or too
- unreliable to meet the system's requirements. While disks are
- getting bigger, so are data storage requirements. Often a file
- system is needed that is bigger than a disk's capacity. Various
- solutions to these problems have been proposed and
- implemented.</para>
-
- <para>One method is through the use of multiple, and sometimes
- redundant, disks. In addition to supporting various cards and
- controllers for hardware Redundant Array of Independent
- Disks <acronym>RAID</acronym> systems, the base &os; system
- includes the <devicename>vinum</devicename> volume manager, a
- block device driver that implements virtual disk drives and
- addresses these three problems. <devicename>vinum</devicename>
- provides more flexibility, performance, and reliability than
- traditional disk storage and implements
- <acronym>RAID</acronym>-0, <acronym>RAID</acronym>-1, and
- <acronym>RAID</acronym>-5 models, both individually and in
- combination.</para>
-
- <para>This chapter provides an overview of potential problems with
- traditional disk storage, and an introduction to the
- <devicename>vinum</devicename> volume manager.</para>
-
- <note>
- <para>Starting with &os; 5, <devicename>vinum</devicename>
- has been rewritten in order to fit into the <link
- linkend="geom">GEOM architecture</link>, while retaining the
- original ideas, terminology, and on-disk metadata. This
- rewrite is called <emphasis>gvinum</emphasis> (for <emphasis>
- GEOM vinum</emphasis>). While this chapter uses the term
- <devicename>vinum</devicename>, any command invocations should
- be performed with <command>gvinum</command>. The name of the
- kernel module has changed from the original
- <filename>vinum.ko</filename> to
- <filename>geom_vinum.ko</filename>, and all device nodes
- reside under <filename
- class="directory">/dev/gvinum</filename> instead of
- <filename class="directory">/dev/vinum</filename>. As of
- &os; 6, the original <devicename>vinum</devicename>
- implementation is no longer available in the code base.</para>
- </note>
- </sect1>
-
- <sect1 id="vinum-access-bottlenecks">
- <title>Access Bottlenecks</title>
-
- <para>Modern systems frequently need to access data in a highly
- concurrent manner. For example, large FTP or HTTP servers can
- maintain thousands of concurrent sessions and have multiple
- 100 Mbit/s connections to the outside world, well beyond
- the sustained transfer rate of most disks.</para>
-
- <para>Current disk drives can transfer data sequentially at up to
- 70 MB/s, but this value is of little importance in an
- environment where many independent processes access a drive, and
- where they may achieve only a fraction of these values. In such
- cases, it is more interesting to view the problem from the
- viewpoint of the disk subsystem. The important parameter is the
- load that a transfer places on the subsystem, or the time for
- which a transfer occupies the drives involved in the
- transfer.</para>
-
- <para>In any disk transfer, the drive must first position the
- heads, wait for the first sector to pass under the read head,
- and then perform the transfer. These actions can be considered
- to be atomic as it does not make any sense to interrupt
- them.</para>
-
- <para><anchor id="vinum-latency"/> Consider a typical transfer of
- about 10 kB: the current generation of high-performance
- disks can position the heads in an average of 3.5 ms. The
- fastest drives spin at 15,000 rpm, so the average
- rotational latency (half a revolution) is 2 ms. At
- 70 MB/s, the transfer itself takes about 150 μs,
- almost nothing compared to the positioning time. In such a
- case, the effective transfer rate drops to a little over
- 1 MB/s and is clearly highly dependent on the transfer
- size.</para>
-
- <para>The traditional and obvious solution to this bottleneck is
- <quote>more spindles</quote>: rather than using one large disk,
- use several smaller disks with the same aggregate storage
- space. Each disk is capable of positioning and transferring
- independently, so the effective throughput increases by a factor
- close to the number of disks used.</para>
-
- <para>The actual throughput improvement is smaller than the
- number of disks involved. Although each drive is capable of
- transferring in parallel, there is no way to ensure that the
- requests are evenly distributed across the drives. Inevitably
- the load on one drive will be higher than on another.</para>
-
- <indexterm>
- <primary>disk concatenation</primary>
- </indexterm>
- <indexterm>
- <primary>Vinum</primary>
- <secondary>concatenation</secondary>
- </indexterm>
-
- <para>The evenness of the load on the disks is strongly dependent
- on the way the data is shared across the drives. In the
- following discussion, it is convenient to think of the disk
- storage as a large number of data sectors which are addressable
- by number, rather like the pages in a book. The most obvious
- method is to divide the virtual disk into groups of consecutive
- sectors the size of the individual physical disks and store them
- in this manner, rather like taking a large book and tearing it
- into smaller sections. This method is called
- <emphasis>concatenation</emphasis> and has the advantage that
- the disks are not required to have any specific size
- relationships. It works well when the access to the virtual
- disk is spread evenly about its address space. When access is
- concentrated on a smaller area, the improvement is less marked.
- <xref linkend="vinum-concat"/> illustrates the sequence in
- which storage units are allocated in a concatenated
- organization.</para>
-
- <para>
- <figure id="vinum-concat">
- <title>Concatenated Organization</title>
-
- <graphic fileref="vinum/vinum-concat"/>
- </figure></para>
-
- <indexterm>
- <primary>disk striping</primary>
- </indexterm>
- <indexterm>
- <primary>Vinum</primary>
- <secondary>striping</secondary>
- </indexterm>
- <indexterm>
- <primary><acronym>RAID</acronym></primary>
- </indexterm>
-
- <para>An alternative mapping is to divide the address space into
- smaller, equal-sized components and store them sequentially on
- different devices. For example, the first 256 sectors may be
- stored on the first disk, the next 256 sectors on the next disk
- and so on. After filling the last disk, the process repeats
- until the disks are full. This mapping is called
- <emphasis>striping</emphasis> or
- <acronym>RAID-0</acronym>.</para>
-
- <para><acronym>RAID</acronym> offers various forms of fault
- tolerance, though <acronym>RAID-0</acronym> is somewhat
- misleading as it provides no redundancy. Striping requires
- somewhat more effort to locate the data, and it can cause
- additional I/O load where a transfer is spread over multiple
- disks, but it can also provide a more constant load across the
- disks. <xref linkend="vinum-striped"/> illustrates the
- sequence in which storage units are allocated in a striped
- organization.</para>
-
- <para>
- <figure id="vinum-striped">
- <title>Striped Organization</title>
-
- <graphic fileref="vinum/vinum-striped"/>
- </figure></para>
- </sect1>
-
- <sect1 id="vinum-data-integrity">
- <title>Data Integrity</title>
-
- <para>The final problem with disks is that they are unreliable.
- Although reliability has increased tremendously over the last
- few years, disk drives are still the most likely core component
- of a server to fail. When they do, the results can be
- catastrophic and replacing a failed disk drive and restoring
- data can result in server downtime.</para>
-
- <indexterm>
- <primary>disk mirroring</primary>
- </indexterm>
- <indexterm><primary>vinum</primary>
- <secondary>mirroring</secondary>
- </indexterm>
- <indexterm><primary><acronym>RAID</acronym>-1</primary>
- </indexterm>
-
- <para>One approach to this problem is
- <emphasis>mirroring</emphasis>, or
- <acronym>RAID-1</acronym>, which keeps two copies of the
- data on different physical hardware. Any write to the volume
- writes to both disks; a read can be satisfied from either, so if
- one drive fails, the data is still available on the other
- drive.</para>
-
- <para>Mirroring has two problems:</para>
-
- <itemizedlist>
- <listitem>
- <para>It requires twice as much disk storage as a
- non-redundant solution.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>Writes must be performed to both drives, so they take up
- twice the bandwidth of a non-mirrored volume. Reads do not
- suffer from a performance penalty and can even be
- faster.</para>
- </listitem>
- </itemizedlist>
-
- <indexterm><primary><acronym>RAID</acronym>-5</primary></indexterm>
-
- <para>An alternative solution is <emphasis>parity</emphasis>,
- implemented in <acronym>RAID</acronym> levels 2, 3, 4 and 5.
- Of these, <acronym>RAID-5</acronym> is the most interesting. As
- implemented in <devicename>vinum</devicename>, it is a variant
- on a striped organization which dedicates one block of each
- stripe to parity one of the other blocks. As implemented by
- <devicename>vinum</devicename>, a
- <acronym>RAID-5</acronym> plex is similar to a striped plex,
- except that it implements <acronym>RAID-5</acronym> by
- including a parity block in each stripe. As required by
- <acronym>RAID-5</acronym>, the location of this parity block
- changes from one stripe to the next. The numbers in the data
- blocks indicate the relative block numbers.</para>
-
- <para>
- <figure id="vinum-raid5-org">
- <title><acronym>RAID</acronym>-5 Organization</title>
-
- <graphic fileref="vinum/vinum-raid5-org"/>
- </figure></para>
-
- <para>Compared to mirroring, <acronym>RAID-5</acronym> has the
- advantage of requiring significantly less storage space. Read
- access is similar to that of striped organizations, but write
- access is significantly slower, approximately 25% of the read
- performance. If one drive fails, the array can continue to
- operate in degraded mode where a read from one of the remaining
- accessible drives continues normally, but a read from the
- failed drive is recalculated from the corresponding block from
- all the remaining drives.</para>
- </sect1>
-
- <sect1 id="vinum-objects">
- <title><devicename>vinum</devicename> Objects</title>
-
- <para>In order to address these problems,
- <devicename>vinum</devicename> implements a four-level hierarchy
- of objects:</para>
-
- <itemizedlist>
- <listitem>
- <para>The most visible object is the virtual disk, called a
- <emphasis>volume</emphasis>. Volumes have essentially the
- same properties as a &unix; disk drive, though there are
- some minor differences. For one, they have no size
- limitations.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>Volumes are composed of <emphasis>plexes</emphasis>,
- each of which represent the total address space of a
- volume. This level in the hierarchy provides redundancy.
- Think of plexes as individual disks in a mirrored array,
- each containing the same data.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>Since <devicename>vinum</devicename> exists within the
- &unix; disk storage framework, it would be possible to use
- &unix; partitions as the building block for multi-disk
- plexes. In fact, this turns out to be too inflexible as
- &unix; disks can have only a limited number of partitions.
- Instead, <devicename>vinum</devicename> subdivides a single
- &unix; partition, the <emphasis>drive</emphasis>, into
- contiguous areas called <emphasis>subdisks</emphasis>, which
- are used as building blocks for plexes.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>Subdisks reside on <devicename>vinum</devicename>
- <emphasis>drives</emphasis>, currently &unix; partitions.
- <devicename>vinum</devicename> drives can contain any
- number of subdisks. With the exception of a small area at
- the beginning of the drive, which is used for storing
- configuration and state information, the entire drive is
- available for data storage.</para>
- </listitem>
- </itemizedlist>
-
- <para>The following sections describe the way these objects
- provide the functionality required of
- <devicename>vinum</devicename>.</para>
-
- <sect2>
- <title>Volume Size Considerations</title>
-
- <para>Plexes can include multiple subdisks spread over all
- drives in the <devicename>vinum</devicename> configuration.
- As a result, the size of an individual drive does not limit
- the size of a plex or a volume.</para>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2>
- <title>Redundant Data Storage</title>
-
- <para><devicename>vinum</devicename> implements mirroring by
- attaching multiple plexes to a volume. Each plex is a
- representation of the data in a volume. A volume may contain
- between one and eight plexes.</para>
-
- <para>Although a plex represents the complete data of a volume,
- it is possible for parts of the representation to be
- physically missing, either by design (by not defining a
- subdisk for parts of the plex) or by accident (as a result of
- the failure of a drive). As long as at least one plex can
- provide the data for the complete address range of the volume,
- the volume is fully functional.</para>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2>
- <title>Which Plex Organization?</title>
-
- <para><devicename>vinum</devicename> implements both
- concatenation and striping at the plex level:</para>
-
- <itemizedlist>
- <listitem>
- <para>A <emphasis>concatenated plex</emphasis> uses the
- address space of each subdisk in turn. Concatenated
- plexes are the most flexible as they can contain any
- number of subdisks, and the subdisks may be of different
- length. The plex may be extended by adding additional
- subdisks. They require less <acronym>CPU</acronym>
- time than striped plexes, though the difference in
- <acronym>CPU</acronym> overhead is not measurable. On
- the other hand, they are most susceptible to hot spots,
- where one disk is very active and others are idle.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>A <emphasis>striped plex</emphasis> stripes the data
- across each subdisk. The subdisks must all be the same
- size and there must be at least two subdisks in order to
- distinguish it from a concatenated plex. The greatest
- advantage of striped plexes is that they reduce hot spots.
- By choosing an optimum sized stripe, about 256 kB,
- the load can be evened out on the component drives.
- Extending a plex by adding new subdisks is so complicated
- that <devicename>vinum</devicename> does not implement
- it.</para>
- </listitem>
- </itemizedlist>
-
- <para><xref linkend="vinum-comparison"/> summarizes the
- advantages and disadvantages of each plex organization.</para>
-
- <table id="vinum-comparison" frame="none">
- <title><devicename>vinum</devicename> Plex
- Organizations</title>
-
- <tgroup cols="5">
- <thead>
- <row>
- <entry>Plex type</entry>
- <entry>Minimum subdisks</entry>
- <entry>Can add subdisks</entry>
- <entry>Must be equal size</entry>
- <entry>Application</entry>
- </row>
- </thead>
-
- <tbody>
- <row>
- <entry>concatenated</entry>
- <entry>1</entry>
- <entry>yes</entry>
- <entry>no</entry>
- <entry>Large data storage with maximum placement
- flexibility and moderate performance</entry>
- </row>
-
- <row>
- <entry>striped</entry>
- <entry>2</entry>
- <entry>no</entry>
- <entry>yes</entry>
- <entry>High performance in combination with highly
- concurrent access</entry>
- </row>
- </tbody>
- </tgroup>
- </table>
- </sect2>
- </sect1>
-
- <sect1 id="vinum-examples">
- <title>Some Examples</title>
-
- <para><devicename>vinum</devicename> maintains a
- <emphasis>configuration database</emphasis> which describes the
- objects known to an individual system. Initially, the user
- creates the configuration database from one or more
- configuration files using &man.gvinum.8;.
- <devicename>vinum</devicename> stores a copy of its
- configuration database on each disk
- <emphasis>device</emphasis> under its control. This database is
- updated on each state change, so that a restart accurately
- restores the state of each
- <devicename>vinum</devicename> object.</para>
-
- <sect2>
- <title>The Configuration File</title>
-
- <para>The configuration file describes individual
- <devicename>vinum</devicename> objects. The definition of a
- simple volume might be:</para>
-
- <programlisting> drive a device /dev/da3h
- volume myvol
- plex org concat
- sd length 512m drive a</programlisting>
-
- <para>This file describes four <devicename>vinum</devicename>
- objects:</para>
-
- <itemizedlist>
- <listitem>
- <para>The <emphasis>drive</emphasis> line describes a disk
- partition (<emphasis>drive</emphasis>) and its location
- relative to the underlying hardware. It is given the
- symbolic name <emphasis>a</emphasis>. This separation of
- symbolic names from device names allows disks to be moved
- from one location to another without confusion.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>The <emphasis>volume</emphasis> line describes a
- volume. The only required attribute is the name, in this
- case <emphasis>myvol</emphasis>.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>The <emphasis>plex</emphasis> line defines a plex.
- The only required parameter is the organization, in this
- case <emphasis>concat</emphasis>. No name is necessary as
- the system automatically generates a name from the volume
- name by adding the suffix
- <emphasis>.p</emphasis><emphasis>x</emphasis>, where
- <emphasis>x</emphasis> is the number of the plex in the
- volume. Thus this plex will be called
- <emphasis>myvol.p0</emphasis>.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>The <emphasis>sd</emphasis> line describes a subdisk.
- The minimum specifications are the name of a drive on
- which to store it, and the length of the subdisk. No name
- is necessary as the system automatically assigns names
- derived from the plex name by adding the suffix
- <emphasis>.s</emphasis><emphasis>x</emphasis>, where
- <emphasis>x</emphasis> is the number of the subdisk in
- the plex. Thus <devicename>vinum</devicename> gives this
- subdisk the name <emphasis>myvol.p0.s0</emphasis>.</para>
- </listitem>
- </itemizedlist>
-
- <para>After processing this file, &man.gvinum.8; produces the
- following output:</para>
-
- <programlisting width="97">
- &prompt.root; gvinum -> <userinput>create config1</userinput>
- Configuration summary
- Drives: 1 (4 configured)
- Volumes: 1 (4 configured)
- Plexes: 1 (8 configured)
- Subdisks: 1 (16 configured)
-
- D a State: up Device /dev/da3h Avail: 2061/2573 MB (80%)
-
- V myvol State: up Plexes: 1 Size: 512 MB
-
- P myvol.p0 C State: up Subdisks: 1 Size: 512 MB
-
- S myvol.p0.s0 State: up PO: 0 B Size: 512 MB</programlisting>
-
- <para>This output shows the brief listing format of
- &man.gvinum.8;. It is represented graphically in <xref
- linkend="vinum-simple-vol"/>.</para>
-
- <para>
- <figure id="vinum-simple-vol">
- <title>A Simple <devicename>vinum</devicename>
- Volume</title>
-
- <graphic fileref="vinum/vinum-simple-vol"/>
- </figure></para>
-
- <para>This figure, and the ones which follow, represent a
- volume, which contains the plexes, which in turn contains the
- subdisks. In this example, the volume contains one plex, and
- the plex contains one subdisk.</para>
-
- <para>This particular volume has no specific advantage over a
- conventional disk partition. It contains a single plex, so it
- is not redundant. The plex contains a single subdisk, so
- there is no difference in storage allocation from a
- conventional disk partition. The following sections
- illustrate various more interesting configuration
- methods.</para>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2>
- <title>Increased Resilience: Mirroring</title>
-
- <para>The resilience of a volume can be increased by mirroring.
- When laying out a mirrored volume, it is important to ensure
- that the subdisks of each plex are on different drives, so
- that a drive failure will not take down both plexes. The
- following configuration mirrors a volume:</para>
-
- <programlisting> drive b device /dev/da4h
- volume mirror
- plex org concat
- sd length 512m drive a
- plex org concat
- sd length 512m drive b</programlisting>
-
- <para>In this example, it was not necessary to specify a
- definition of drive <emphasis>a</emphasis> again, since
- <devicename>vinum</devicename> keeps track of all objects in
- its configuration database. After processing this definition,
- the configuration looks like:</para>
-
- <programlisting width="97">
- Drives: 2 (4 configured)
- Volumes: 2 (4 configured)
- Plexes: 3 (8 configured)
- Subdisks: 3 (16 configured)
-
- D a State: up Device /dev/da3h Avail: 1549/2573 MB (60%)
- D b State: up Device /dev/da4h Avail: 2061/2573 MB (80%)
-
- V myvol State: up Plexes: 1 Size: 512 MB
- V mirror State: up Plexes: 2 Size: 512 MB
-
- P myvol.p0 C State: up Subdisks: 1 Size: 512 MB
- P mirror.p0 C State: up Subdisks: 1 Size: 512 MB
- P mirror.p1 C State: initializing Subdisks: 1 Size: 512 MB
-
- S myvol.p0.s0 State: up PO: 0 B Size: 512 MB
- S mirror.p0.s0 State: up PO: 0 B Size: 512 MB
- S mirror.p1.s0 State: empty PO: 0 B Size: 512 MB</programlisting>
-
- <para><xref linkend="vinum-mirrored-vol"/> shows the
- structure graphically.</para>
-
- <para>
- <figure id="vinum-mirrored-vol">
- <title>A Mirrored <devicename>vinum</devicename>
- Volume</title>
-
- <graphic fileref="vinum/vinum-mirrored-vol"/>
- </figure></para>
-
- <para>In this example, each plex contains the full 512 MB
- of address space. As in the previous example, each plex
- contains only a single subdisk.</para>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2>
- <title>Optimizing Performance</title>
-
- <para>The mirrored volume in the previous example is more
- resistant to failure than an unmirrored volume, but its
- performance is less as each write to the volume requires a
- write to both drives, using up a greater proportion of the
- total disk bandwidth. Performance considerations demand a
- different approach: instead of mirroring, the data is striped
- across as many disk drives as possible. The following
- configuration shows a volume with a plex striped across four
- disk drives:</para>
-
- <programlisting> drive c device /dev/da5h
- drive d device /dev/da6h
- volume stripe
- plex org striped 512k
- sd length 128m drive a
- sd length 128m drive b
- sd length 128m drive c
- sd length 128m drive d</programlisting>
-
- <para>As before, it is not necessary to define the drives which
- are already known to <devicename>vinum</devicename>. After
- processing this definition, the configuration looks
- like:</para>
-
- <programlisting width="92">
- Drives: 4 (4 configured)
- Volumes: 3 (4 configured)
- Plexes: 4 (8 configured)
- Subdisks: 7 (16 configured)
-
- D a State: up Device /dev/da3h Avail: 1421/2573 MB (55%)
- D b State: up Device /dev/da4h Avail: 1933/2573 MB (75%)
- D c State: up Device /dev/da5h Avail: 2445/2573 MB (95%)
- D d State: up Device /dev/da6h Avail: 2445/2573 MB (95%)
-
- V myvol State: up Plexes: 1 Size: 512 MB
- V mirror State: up Plexes: 2 Size: 512 MB
- V striped State: up Plexes: 1 Size: 512 MB
-
- P myvol.p0 C State: up Subdisks: 1 Size: 512 MB
- P mirror.p0 C State: up Subdisks: 1 Size: 512 MB
- P mirror.p1 C State: initializing Subdisks: 1 Size: 512 MB
- P striped.p1 State: up Subdisks: 1 Size: 512 MB
-
- S myvol.p0.s0 State: up PO: 0 B Size: 512 MB
- S mirror.p0.s0 State: up PO: 0 B Size: 512 MB
- S mirror.p1.s0 State: empty PO: 0 B Size: 512 MB
- S striped.p0.s0 State: up PO: 0 B Size: 128 MB
- S striped.p0.s1 State: up PO: 512 kB Size: 128 MB
- S striped.p0.s2 State: up PO: 1024 kB Size: 128 MB
- S striped.p0.s3 State: up PO: 1536 kB Size: 128 MB</programlisting>
-
- <para>
- <figure id="vinum-striped-vol">
- <title>A Striped <devicename>vinum</devicename>
- Volume</title>
-
- <graphic fileref="vinum/vinum-striped-vol"/>
- </figure></para>
-
- <para>This volume is represented in <xref
- linkend="vinum-striped-vol"/>. The darkness of the
- stripes indicates the position within the plex address space,
- where the lightest stripes come first and the darkest
- last.</para>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2>
- <title>Resilience and Performance</title>
-
- <para><anchor id="vinum-resilience"/>With sufficient hardware,
- it is possible to build volumes which show both increased
- resilience and increased performance compared to standard
- &unix; partitions. A typical configuration file might
- be:</para>
-
- <programlisting> volume raid10
- plex org striped 512k
- sd length 102480k drive a
- sd length 102480k drive b
- sd length 102480k drive c
- sd length 102480k drive d
- sd length 102480k drive e
- plex org striped 512k
- sd length 102480k drive c
- sd length 102480k drive d
- sd length 102480k drive e
- sd length 102480k drive a
- sd length 102480k drive b</programlisting>
-
- <para>The subdisks of the second plex are offset by two drives
- from those of the first plex. This helps to ensure that
- writes do not go to the same subdisks even if a transfer goes
- over two drives.</para>
-
- <para><xref linkend="vinum-raid10-vol"/> represents the
- structure of this volume.</para>
-
- <para>
- <figure id="vinum-raid10-vol">
- <title>A Mirrored, Striped <devicename>vinum</devicename>
- Volume</title>
-
- <graphic fileref="vinum/vinum-raid10-vol"/>
- </figure></para>
- </sect2>
- </sect1>
-
- <sect1 id="vinum-object-naming">
- <title>Object Naming</title>
-
- <para><devicename>vinum</devicename> assigns default names to
- plexes and subdisks, although they may be overridden.
- Overriding the default names is not recommended as it does not
- bring a significant advantage and it can cause
- confusion.</para>
-
- <para>Names may contain any non-blank character, but it is
- recommended to restrict them to letters, digits and the
- underscore characters. The names of volumes, plexes, and
- subdisks may be up to 64 characters long, and the names of
- drives may be up to 32 characters long.</para>
-
- <para><devicename>vinum</devicename> objects are assigned device
- nodes in the hierarchy <filename
- class="directory">/dev/gvinum</filename>. The configuration
- shown above would cause <devicename>vinum</devicename> to create
- the following device nodes:</para>
-
- <itemizedlist>
- <listitem>
- <para>Device entries for each volume. These are the main
- devices used by <devicename>vinum</devicename>. The
- configuration above would include the devices
- <filename class="devicefile">/dev/gvinum/myvol</filename>,
- <filename class="devicefile">/dev/gvinum/mirror</filename>,
- <filename class="devicefile">/dev/gvinum/striped</filename>,
- <filename class="devicefile">/dev/gvinum/raid5</filename>
- and <filename
- class="devicefile">/dev/gvinum/raid10</filename>.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>All volumes get direct entries under
- <filename class="directory">/dev/gvinum/</filename>.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>The directories
- <filename class="directory">/dev/gvinum/plex</filename>, and
- <filename class="directory">/dev/gvinum/sd</filename>, which
- contain device nodes for each plex and for each subdisk,
- respectively.</para>
- </listitem>
- </itemizedlist>
-
- <para>For example, consider the following configuration
- file:</para>
-
- <programlisting> drive drive1 device /dev/sd1h
- drive drive2 device /dev/sd2h
- drive drive3 device /dev/sd3h
- drive drive4 device /dev/sd4h
- volume s64 setupstate
- plex org striped 64k
- sd length 100m drive drive1
- sd length 100m drive drive2
- sd length 100m drive drive3
- sd length 100m drive drive4</programlisting>
-
- <para>After processing this file, &man.gvinum.8; creates the
- following structure in <filename
- class="directory">/dev/gvinum</filename>:</para>
-
- <programlisting> drwxr-xr-x 2 root wheel 512 Apr 13
-16:46 plex
- crwxr-xr-- 1 root wheel 91, 2 Apr 13 16:46 s64
- drwxr-xr-x 2 root wheel 512 Apr 13 16:46 sd
-
- /dev/vinum/plex:
- total 0
- crwxr-xr-- 1 root wheel 25, 0x10000002 Apr 13 16:46 s64.p0
-
- /dev/vinum/sd:
- total 0
- crwxr-xr-- 1 root wheel 91, 0x20000002 Apr 13 16:46 s64.p0.s0
- crwxr-xr-- 1 root wheel 91, 0x20100002 Apr 13 16:46 s64.p0.s1
- crwxr-xr-- 1 root wheel 91, 0x20200002 Apr 13 16:46 s64.p0.s2
- crwxr-xr-- 1 root wheel 91, 0x20300002 Apr 13 16:46 s64.p0.s3</programlisting>
-
- <para>Although it is recommended that plexes and subdisks should
- not be allocated specific names,
- <devicename>vinum</devicename> drives must be named. This makes
- it possible to move a drive to a different location and still
- recognize it automatically. Drive names may be up to 32
- characters long.</para>
-
- <sect2>
- <title>Creating File Systems</title>
-
- <para>Volumes appear to the system to be identical to disks,
- with one exception. Unlike &unix; drives,
- <devicename>vinum</devicename> does not partition volumes,
- which thus do not contain a partition table. This has
- required modification to some disk utilities, notably
- &man.newfs.8;, so that it does not try to interpret the last
- letter of a <devicename>vinum</devicename> volume name as a
- partition identifier. For example, a disk drive may have a
- name like <filename class="devicefile">/dev/ad0a</filename>
- or <filename class="devicefile">/dev/da2h</filename>. These
- names represent the first partition
- (<devicename>a</devicename>) on the first (0) IDE disk
- (<devicename>ad</devicename>) and the eighth partition
- (<devicename>h</devicename>) on the third (2) SCSI disk
- (<devicename>da</devicename>) respectively. By contrast, a
- <devicename>vinum</devicename> volume might be called
- <filename class="devicefile">/dev/gvinum/concat</filename>,
- which has no relationship with a partition name.</para>
-
- <para>In order to create a file system on this volume, use
- &man.newfs.8;:</para>
-
- <screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>newfs /dev/gvinum/concat</userinput></screen>
- </sect2>
- </sect1>
-
- <sect1 id="vinum-config">
- <title>Configuring <devicename>vinum</devicename></title>
-
- <para>The <filename>GENERIC</filename> kernel does not contain
- <devicename>vinum</devicename>. It is possible to build a
- custom kernel which includes <devicename>vinum</devicename>, but
- this is not recommended. The standard way to start
- <devicename>vinum</devicename> is as a kernel module.
- &man.kldload.8; is not needed because when &man.gvinum.8;
- starts, it checks whether the module has been loaded, and if it
- is not, it loads it automatically.</para>
-
-
- <sect2>
- <title>Startup</title>
-
- <para><devicename>vinum</devicename> stores configuration
- information on the disk slices in essentially the same form as
- in the configuration files. When reading from the
- configuration database, <devicename>vinum</devicename>
- recognizes a number of keywords which are not allowed in the
- configuration files. For example, a disk configuration might
- contain the following text:</para>
-
- <programlisting width="119">volume myvol state up
-volume bigraid state down
-plex name myvol.p0 state up org concat vol myvol
-plex name myvol.p1 state up org concat vol myvol
-plex name myvol.p2 state init org striped 512b vol myvol
-plex name bigraid.p0 state initializing org raid5 512b vol bigraid
-sd name myvol.p0.s0 drive a plex myvol.p0 state up len 1048576b driveoffset 265b plexoffset 0b
-sd name myvol.p0.s1 drive b plex myvol.p0 state up len 1048576b driveoffset 265b plexoffset 1048576b
-sd name myvol.p1.s0 drive c plex myvol.p1 state up len 1048576b driveoffset 265b plexoffset 0b
-sd name myvol.p1.s1 drive d plex myvol.p1 state up len 1048576b driveoffset 265b plexoffset 1048576b
-sd name myvol.p2.s0 drive a plex myvol.p2 state init len 524288b driveoffset 1048841b plexoffset 0b
-sd name myvol.p2.s1 drive b plex myvol.p2 state init len 524288b driveoffset 1048841b plexoffset 524288b
-sd name myvol.p2.s2 drive c plex myvol.p2 state init len 524288b driveoffset 1048841b plexoffset 1048576b
-sd name myvol.p2.s3 drive d plex myvol.p2 state init len 524288b driveoffset 1048841b plexoffset 1572864b
-sd name bigraid.p0.s0 drive a plex bigraid.p0 state initializing len 4194304b driveoff set 1573129b plexoffset 0b
-sd name bigraid.p0.s1 drive b plex bigraid.p0 state initializing len 4194304b driveoff set 1573129b plexoffset 4194304b
-sd name bigraid.p0.s2 drive c plex bigraid.p0 state initializing len 4194304b driveoff set 1573129b plexoffset 8388608b
-sd name bigraid.p0.s3 drive d plex bigraid.p0 state initializing len 4194304b driveoff set 1573129b plexoffset 12582912b
-sd name bigraid.p0.s4 drive e plex bigraid.p0 state initializing len 4194304b driveoff set 1573129b plexoffset 16777216b</programlisting>
-
- <para>The obvious differences here are the presence of
- explicit location information and naming, both of which are
- allowed but discouraged, and the information on the states.
- <devicename>vinum</devicename> does not store information
- about drives in the configuration information. It finds the
- drives by scanning the configured disk drives for partitions
- with a <devicename>vinum</devicename> label. This enables
- <devicename>vinum</devicename> to identify drives correctly
- even if they have been assigned different &unix; drive
- IDs.</para>
-
- <sect3 id="vinum-rc-startup">
- <title>Automatic Startup</title>
-
- <para><emphasis>Gvinum</emphasis> always features an
- automatic startup once the kernel module is loaded, via
- &man.loader.conf.5;. To load the
- <emphasis>Gvinum</emphasis> module at boot time, add
- <literal>geom_vinum_load="YES"</literal> to
- <filename>/boot/loader.conf</filename>.</para>
-
- <para>When <devicename>vinum</devicename> is started with
- <command>gvinum start</command>,
- <devicename>vinum</devicename> reads the configuration
- database from one of the <devicename>vinum</devicename>
- drives. Under normal circumstances, each drive contains
- an identical copy of the configuration database, so it
- does not matter which drive is read. After a crash,
- however, <devicename>vinum</devicename> must determine
- which drive was updated most recently and read the
- configuration from this drive. It then updates the
- configuration, if necessary, from progressively older
- drives.</para>
- </sect3>
- </sect2>
- </sect1>
-
- <sect1 id="vinum-root">
- <title>Using <devicename>vinum</devicename> for the Root
- File System</title>
-
- <para>For a machine that has fully-mirrored file systems using
- <devicename>vinum</devicename>, it is desirable to also
- mirror the root file system. Setting up such a configuration
- is less trivial than mirroring an arbitrary file system
- because:</para>
-
- <itemizedlist>
- <listitem>
- <para>The root file system must be available very early
- during the boot process, so the
- <devicename>vinum</devicename> infrastructure must
- already be available at this time.</para>
- </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>The volume containing the root file system also
- contains the system bootstrap and the kernel. These must
- be read using the host system's native utilities, such as
- the BIOS, which often cannot be taught about the details
- of <devicename>vinum</devicename>.</para>
- </listitem>
- </itemizedlist>
-
- <para>In the following sections, the term <quote>root
- volume</quote> is generally used to describe the
- <devicename>vinum</devicename> volume that contains the root
- file system.</para>
-
- <sect2>
- <title>Starting up <devicename>vinum</devicename> Early
- Enough for the Root File System</title>
-
- <para><devicename>vinum</devicename> must be available early
- in the system boot as &man.loader.8; must be able to load
- the vinum kernel module before starting the kernel. This
- can be accomplished by putting this line in
- <filename>/boot/loader.conf</filename>:</para>
-
- <programlisting>geom_vinum_load="YES"</programlisting>
-
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2>
- <title>Making a <devicename>vinum</devicename>-based Root
- Volume Accessible to the Bootstrap</title>
-
- <para>The current &os; bootstrap is only 7.5 KB of code and
- does not understand the internal
- <devicename>vinum</devicename> structures. This means that it
- cannot parse the <devicename>vinum</devicename> configuration
- data or figure out the elements of a boot volume. Thus, some
- workarounds are necessary to provide the bootstrap code with
- the illusion of a standard <literal>a</literal> partition
- that contains the root file system.</para>
-
- <para>For this to be possible, the following requirements must
- be met for the root volume:</para>
-
- <itemizedlist>
- <listitem>
- <para>The root volume must not be a stripe or
- <acronym>RAID</acronym>-5.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>The root volume must not contain more than one
- concatenated subdisk per plex.</para>
- </listitem>
- </itemizedlist>
-
- <para>Note that it is desirable and possible to use multiple
- plexes, each containing one replica of the root file system.
- The bootstrap process will only use one replica for finding
- the bootstrap and all boot files, until the kernel mounts the
- root file system. Each single subdisk within these plexes
- needs its own <literal>a</literal> partition illusion, for
- the respective device to be bootable. It is not strictly
- needed that each of these faked <literal>a</literal>
- partitions is located at the same offset within its device,
- compared with other devices containing plexes of the root
- volume. However, it is probably a good idea to create the
- <devicename>vinum</devicename> volumes that way so the
- resulting mirrored devices are symmetric, to avoid
- confusion.</para>
-
- <para>In order to set up these <literal>a</literal>
- partitions for each device containing part of the root
- volume, the following is required:</para>
-
- <procedure>
- <step>
- <para>The location, offset from the beginning of the device,
- and size of this device's subdisk that is part of the root
- volume needs to be examined, using the command:</para>
-
- <screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>gvinum l -rv root</userinput></screen>
-
- <para><devicename>vinum</devicename> offsets and sizes are
- measured in bytes. They must be divided by 512 in order
- to obtain the block numbers that are to be used by
- <command>bsdlabel</command>.</para>
- </step>
-
- <step>
- <para>Run this command for each device that participates in
- the root volume:</para>
-
- <screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>bsdlabel -e <replaceable>devname</replaceable></userinput></screen>
-
- <para><replaceable>devname</replaceable> must be either the
- name of the disk, like <devicename>da0</devicename> for
- disks without a slice table, or the name of the
- slice, like <devicename>ad0s1</devicename>.</para>
-
- <para>If there is already an <literal>a</literal>
- partition on the device from a
- pre-<devicename>vinum</devicename> root file system, it
- should be renamed to something else so that it remains
- accessible (just in case), but will no longer be used by
- default to bootstrap the system. A currently mounted root
- file system cannot be renamed, so this must be executed
- either when being booted from a <quote>Fixit</quote>
- media, or in a two-step process where, in a mirror, the
- disk that is not been currently booted is manipulated
- first.</para>
-
- <para>The offset of the <devicename>vinum</devicename>
- partition on this device (if any) must be added to the
- offset of the respective root volume subdisk on this
- device. The resulting value will become the
- <literal>offset</literal> value for the new
- <literal>a</literal> partition. The
- <literal>size</literal> value for this partition can be
- taken verbatim from the calculation above. The
- <literal>fstype</literal> should be
- <literal>4.2BSD</literal>. The
- <literal>fsize</literal>, <literal>bsize</literal>,
- and <literal>cpg</literal> values should be chosen
- to match the actual file system, though they are fairly
- unimportant within this context.</para>
-
- <para>That way, a new <literal>a</literal> partition will
- be established that overlaps the
- <devicename>vinum</devicename> partition on this device.
- <command>bsdlabel</command> will only allow for this
- overlap if the <devicename>vinum</devicename> partition
- has properly been marked using the
- <literal>vinum</literal> fstype.</para>
- </step>
-
- <step>
- <para>A faked <literal>a</literal> partition now exists
- on each device that has one replica of the root volume.
- It is highly recommendable to verify the result using a
- command like:</para>
-
- <screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>fsck -n /dev/<replaceable>devname</replaceable>a</userinput></screen>
- </step>
- </procedure>
-
- <para>It should be remembered that all files containing control
- information must be relative to the root file system in the
- <devicename>vinum</devicename> volume which, when setting up
- a new <devicename>vinum</devicename> root volume, might not
- match the root file system that is currently active. So in
- particular, <filename>/etc/fstab</filename> and
- <filename>/boot/loader.conf</filename> need to be taken care
- of.</para>
-
- <para>At next reboot, the bootstrap should figure out the
- appropriate control information from the new
- <devicename>vinum</devicename>-based root file system, and act
- accordingly. At the end of the kernel initialization process,
- after all devices have been announced, the prominent notice
- that shows the success of this setup is a message like:</para>
-
- <screen>Mounting root from ufs:/dev/gvinum/root</screen>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2>
- <title>Example of a <devicename>vinum</devicename>-based Root
- Setup</title>
-
- <para>After the <devicename>vinum</devicename> root volume has
- been set up, the output of <command>gvinum l -rv
- root</command> could look like:</para>
-
- <screen>...
-Subdisk root.p0.s0:
- Size: 125829120 bytes (120 MB)
- State: up
- Plex root.p0 at offset 0 (0 B)
- Drive disk0 (/dev/da0h) at offset 135680 (132 kB)
-
-Subdisk root.p1.s0:
- Size: 125829120 bytes (120 MB)
- State: up
- Plex root.p1 at offset 0 (0 B)
- Drive disk1 (/dev/da1h) at offset 135680 (132 kB)</screen>
-
- <para>The values to note are <literal>135680</literal> for the
- offset, relative to partition
- <filename class="devicefile">/dev/da0h</filename>. This
- translates to 265 512-byte disk blocks in
- <command>bsdlabel</command>'s terms. Likewise, the size of
- this root volume is 245760 512-byte blocks. <filename
- class="devicefile">/dev/da1h</filename>, containing the
- second replica of this root volume, has a symmetric
- setup.</para>
-
- <para>The bsdlabel for these devices might look like:</para>
-
- <screen>...
-8 partitions:
-# size offset fstype [fsize bsize bps/cpg]
- a: 245760 281 4.2BSD 2048 16384 0 # (Cyl. 0*- 15*)
- c: 71771688 0 unused 0 0 # (Cyl. 0 - 4467*)
- h: 71771672 16 vinum # (Cyl. 0*- 4467*)</screen>
-
- <para>It can be observed that the <literal>size</literal>
- parameter for the faked <literal>a</literal> partition
- matches the value outlined above, while the
- <literal>offset</literal> parameter is the sum of the offset
- within the <devicename>vinum</devicename> partition
- <literal>h</literal>, and the offset of this partition
- within the device or slice. This is a typical setup that is
- necessary to avoid the problem described in <xref
- linkend="vinum-root-panic"/>. The entire
- <literal>a</literal> partition is completely within the
- <literal>h</literal> partition containing all the
- <devicename>vinum</devicename> data for this device.</para>
-
- <para>In the above example, the entire device is dedicated to
- <devicename>vinum</devicename> and there is no leftover
- pre-<devicename>vinum</devicename> root partition.</para>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2>
- <title>Troubleshooting</title>
-
- <para>The following list contains a few known pitfalls and
- solutions.</para>
-
- <sect3>
- <title>System Bootstrap Loads, but System Does Not
- Boot</title>
-
- <para>If for any reason the system does not continue to boot,
- the bootstrap can be interrupted by pressing
- <keycap>space</keycap> at the 10-seconds warning. The
- loader variable <literal>vinum.autostart</literal> can be
- examined by typing <command>show</command> and manipulated
- using <command>set</command> or
- <command>unset</command>.</para>
-
- <para>If the <devicename>vinum</devicename> kernel module was
- not yet in the list of modules to load automatically, type
- <command>load geom_vinum</command>.</para>
-
- <para>When ready, the boot process can be continued by typing
- <command>boot -as</command> which
- <option>-as</option> requests the kernel to ask for the
- root file system to mount (<option>-a</option>) and make the
- boot process stop in single-user mode (<option>-s</option>),
- where the root file system is mounted read-only. That way,
- even if only one plex of a multi-plex volume has been
- mounted, no data inconsistency between plexes is being
- risked.</para>
-
- <para>At the prompt asking for a root file system to mount,
- any device that contains a valid root file system can be
- entered. If <filename>/etc/fstab</filename> is set up
- correctly, the default should be something like
- <literal>ufs:/dev/gvinum/root</literal>. A typical
- alternate choice would be something like
- <literal>ufs:da0d</literal> which could be a
- hypothetical partition containing the
- pre-<devicename>vinum</devicename> root file system. Care
- should be taken if one of the alias
- <literal>a</literal> partitions is entered here, that it
- actually references the subdisks of the
- <devicename>vinum</devicename> root device, because in a
- mirrored setup, this would only mount one piece of a
- mirrored root device. If this file system is to be mounted
- read-write later on, it is necessary to remove the other
- plex(es) of the <devicename>vinum</devicename> root volume
- since these plexes would otherwise carry inconsistent
- data.</para>
- </sect3>
-
- <sect3>
- <title>Only Primary Bootstrap Loads</title>
-
- <para>If <filename>/boot/loader</filename> fails to load, but
- the primary bootstrap still loads (visible by a single dash
- in the left column of the screen right after the boot
- process starts), an attempt can be made to interrupt the
- primary bootstrap by pressing
- <keycap>space</keycap>. This will make the bootstrap stop
- in <link linkend="boot-boot1">stage two</link>. An attempt
- can be made here to boot off an alternate partition, like
- the partition containing the previous root file system that
- has been moved away from <literal>a</literal>.</para>
- </sect3>
-
- <sect3 id="vinum-root-panic">
- <title>Nothing Boots, the Bootstrap
- Panics</title>
-
- <para>This situation will happen if the bootstrap had been
- destroyed by the <devicename>vinum</devicename>
- installation. Unfortunately, <devicename>vinum</devicename>
- accidentally leaves only 4 KB at the beginning of its
- partition free before starting to write its
- <devicename>vinum</devicename> header information. However,
- the stage one and two bootstraps plus the bsdlabel require 8
- KB. So if a <devicename>vinum</devicename> partition was
- started at offset 0 within a slice or disk that was meant to
- be bootable, the <devicename>vinum</devicename> setup will
- trash the bootstrap.</para>
-
- <para>Similarly, if the above situation has been recovered,
- by booting from a <quote>Fixit</quote> media, and the
- bootstrap has been re-installed using
- <command>bsdlabel -B</command> as described in <xref
- linkend="boot-boot1"/>, the bootstrap will trash the
- <devicename>vinum</devicename> header, and
- <devicename>vinum</devicename> will no longer find its
- disk(s). Though no actual <devicename>vinum</devicename>
- configuration data or data in <devicename>vinum</devicename>
- volumes will be trashed, and it would be possible to recover
- all the data by entering exactly the same
- <devicename>vinum</devicename> configuration data again, the
- situation is hard to fix. It is necessary to move the
- entire <devicename>vinum</devicename> partition by at least
- 4 KB, in order to have the <devicename>vinum</devicename>
- header and the system bootstrap no longer collide.</para>
- </sect3>
- </sect2>
- </sect1>
-</chapter>