#101683: Solaris Volume Manager (SVM) State Databases May Disappear After Reboot on Systems Equipped With MAT3073N, MAT3147N, MAT3300N, ST373207LC or ST314670LC Drives (formerly Document ID: 57776)

Sun(sm) Alert Notification

Sun Alert ID: 101683 (formerly 57776)
Synopsis: Solaris Volume Manager (SVM) State Databases May Disappear After Reboot on Systems Equipped With MAT3073N, MAT3147N, MAT3300N, ST373207LC or ST314670LC Drives
Category: Data Loss, Availability
Product: Solaris 9 Operating System, Solaris 10 Operating System
BugIDs: 6244431
Avoidance: Workaround, Patch
State: Resolved
Date Released: 25-Apr-2005, 18-Aug-2005
Date Closed: 18-Aug-2005
Date Modified: 13-May-2005, 24-Jun-2005, 26-Jul-2005, 15-Aug-2005, 18-Aug-2005, 27-Oct-2005

1. Impact

Solaris Volume Manager (SVM) configurations with 8 or more SVM state database replicas (metadbs) spread across one or more MAT3073N, MAT3147N, MAT3300N, ST373207LC or ST314670LC disk(s), may be unavailable after a reboot (including those used to mirror the root disk). As a result, the system is rendered unbootable.

2. Contributing Factors

This issue can occur in the following releases:

SPARC Platform

Solaris 9 without patch 116669-10
Solaris 10 without patch 120537-01

x86 Platform

Solaris 9 without patch 113994-33
Solaris 10 without patch 120538-01

Note: Solstice Disksuite (SDS) 4.x is not affected by this issue; hence, Solaris 7 and Solaris 8 with SDS 4.x installed are not affected.

The described issue only occurs on systems that have SVM configured with 8 or more SVM state database replicas (metadbs) spread across one or more MAT3073N, MAT3147N, MAT3300N, ST373207LC or ST314670LC disk drives. Other drive models may also be affected by this issue.

To determine if a system has SVM configured with 8 or more SVM state database replicas, the following command can be used:

    # /usr/sbin/metadb
    flags           first blk       block count
     a        u         16              8192            /dev/dsk/c1t1d0s0
     a        u         8208            8192            /dev/dsk/c1t1d0s0
     a        u         16400           8192            /dev/dsk/c1t1d0s0
     a        u         24592           8192            /dev/dsk/c1t1d0s0
     a        u         16              8192            /dev/dsk/c1t13d0s7
     a        u         8208            8192            /dev/dsk/c1t13d0s7
     a        u         16400           8192            /dev/dsk/c1t13d0s7
     a        u         24592           8192            /dev/dsk/c1t13d0s7

The metadb(1M) command above shows 8 database replicas.

To determine if the database replicas are on a MAT3073N, MAT3147N, MAT3300N, ST373207LC or ST314670LC drive, the following command can be used:

    # /usr/bin/iostat -En    
    .
    .
    c1t1d0           Soft Errors: 1 Hard Errors: 0 Transport Errors: 0 
    Vendor: <name>  Product: MAT3073N        Revision: 0602 Serial No:  
    Size: 73.54GB <73543163392 bytes>
    Media Error: 0 Device Not Ready: 0 No Device: 0 Recoverable: 0 
    Illegal Request: 1 Predictive Failure Analysis: 0 
    c1t13d0          Soft Errors: 0 Hard Errors: 0 Transport Errors: 0 
    Vendor: <name>  Product: MAT3147N SUN146G Revision: 0602 Serial No: 0422C00003 
    Size: 146.80GB <146800115712 bytes>
    .
    .

3. Symptoms

If the described issue occurs, the following error will be seen on the console upon bootup:

    metadb: <hostname>: there are no existing databases

If the root disk was under control of SVM, the system will not boot at all, resulting in a panic:

    Cannot open mirrored root device, error 19
    Cannot remount root on /pseudo/md@0:0,3,blk fstype ufs
    panic[cpu0]/thread=180e000: vfs_mountroot: cannot remount root
    000000000180b960 genunix:vfs_mountroot+2b8 (18a8000, 0, 185e6f8, 30000e9fc40, 1859ce8, 4)
    %l0-3: 0000000000000000 0000000000000003 00000000018a1530 00000000018a1530
    %l4-7: 000000000185b800 00000000011cac00 00000000018a8000 0000000001834340
    000000000180ba20 genunix:main+88 (1813c98, 1011c00, 1834340, 18a5000, 0, 1813800)
    %l0-3: 000000000180e000 0000000000000001 000000000180c000 0000000001835200
    %l4-7: 0000000070002000 0000000000000000 000000000181ba48 0000000000000000
    syncing file systems... done

Solution Summary

Top

4. Relief/Workaround

To work around the described issue, do not configure SVM database replicas on systems equipped with MAT3073N, MAT3147N, MAT3300N, ST373207LC or ST314670LC disk drives. If SVM database replicas are configured on one of these drives, the number of replicas configured must be less than 8.

5. Resolution

This issue is addressed in the following releases:

SPARC Platform

Solaris 9 with patch 116669-10 or later
Solaris 10 with patch 120537-01 or later

x86 Platform

Solaris 9 with patch 113994-33 or later
Solaris 10 with patch 120538-01 or later

Change History

13-May-2005:

Updated Relief/Workaround Section

24-Jun-2005:

Updated Contributing Factors and Relief/Workaround sections

26-Jul-2005:

Updated Relief/Workaround section

15-Aug-2005:

Updated Contributing Factors and Resolution sections

18-Aug-2005:

State: Resolved
Updated Contributing Factors and Resolution sections

27-Oct-2005:

Updated Impact, Contributing Factors, and Relief/Workaround sections

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