Creating a VxFS File System

Always specify vxfs as the file system type to take advantage of the Quick I/O, Storage Rollback, online administration, fast recovery of the VxFS file system, and superior reliability features.

The GUI lets you add a file system on a new volume during the volume creation process. See the VERITAS Volume Manager User's Guide - VERITAS Enterprise Administrator for a detailed comparison of the layout choices and more detailed procedures on creating each volume layout type.

Usage Notes

• See the mkfs(1M) and mkfs_vxfs(1M) manual pages for more information about the options and variables available for use with the mkfs command.
• See the mount(1M) and mount_vxfs(1M) manual pages for more information about mount settings.
• In the GUI, you must specify a file system mount point if the file system is to be mounted at startup.
• If you select the Add to file system table checkbox in the GUI, the file system table file will be automatically updated when the file system is mounted.
• When specifying a mount point in the GUI, you must use an absolute path name (that is, it must begin with /).

  To create a VxFS file system on an existing volume using the command line

Use the mkfs command to create a VxFS file system on an existing volume as follows:

where:

• vxfs is the file system type
• generic_options are the options common to most file systems
• specific_options are options specific to the VxFS file system
• special is the full path name of the raw character device or VxVM volume on which to create the file system (for example, /dev/vx/rdsk/PRODdg/db01)
• size is the size of the new file system (optional)

If you do not specify size, the file system will be as large as the underlying volume.

Example

To create a VxFS file system that supports files larger than 2GB on the newly created db01 volume:

The -o largefiles specific option allows you to create files larger than 2 GB.

The mkfs command displays output similar to the following:

You can now mount the newly created file system. See Mounting a File System.

  To add a new file system to an existing volume using the GUI

1. Select the volume to contain the file system.
2. Choose Actions > File System > New File System.
3. Complete the New File System dialog box as follows:

   File System Type:	Select the file system type from the pull-down menu.
   Create Options:	Specify the allocation size and block size if you do not want to use the default. To specify whether large files (files greater than or equal to 2 GB) will be supported, click New File System Details. Select either largefiles or nolargefiles.
   Compress (checkbox):	If your platform supports file compression, then you can select Compress to compress the files on your file system
   Mount Options:	Enter the mount point for the file system, if you want the file system mounted at system startup. Select the Create mount point checkbox if you want the system to create the mount point if it does not already exist. Select the Read only and Honor setuid checkboxes, as required. Select the Add to file system table and Mount at boot checkboxes to update the system table file and mount the file system at system startup. To update the system table file and not mount the file system at system startup, select Add to file sytem table checkbox and leave the Mount at Boot checkbox unselected. To specify mount options, click Mount File System Details and specify the appropriate options in the Mount Details dialog box.

4. After you provide all necessary information in the dialog box, click OK.

Support for Large File Systems and Large Files

In conjunction with VxVM, VxFS can support file systems up to 8 exabytes in size. For large database configurations, this eliminates the need to use multiple file systems because of the size limitations of the underlying physical devices.

Changes implemented with the VxFS Version 6 disk layout have greatly expanded file system scalability, including support for large files. You can create or mount file systems with or without large files by specifying either the largefiles or nolargefiles option in mkfs or mount commands. If you specify the nolargefiles option, a file system cannot contain files 2 GB or larger.

Usage Notes

• See the mount_vxfs(1M) and mkfs_vxfs(1M) manual pages for detailed information on mounting and creating file systems.
• See the fsadm_vxfs(1M) manual pages for detailed information about large files.

  To enable large files on a file system that was created without the largefiles option

Use the fsadm command as follows:

Multi-volume Support

The multi-volume support feature enabled by Version 6 disk layout allows several volumes to be represented by a single logical object, known as a volume set. The vxvset command can be used to create and administer volume sets in VERITAS Volume Manager.

VxFS's multi-volume support feature can be used with volume sets. There are two VxFS commands associated with multi-volume support:

• fsapadm - VxFS allocation policy administration utility
• fsvoladm - VxFS device administration utility

For more information about volume sets and multi-volume support, see the VERITAS File System Administrator's Guide.