[parisc-linux] partitioning on HPUX

[parisc-linux] partitioning on HPUX

[Alex deVries]

Can anyone here describe how HPUX does partitioning?  We're going to
have to look at this at some point for interoperability with HPUX
filesystems.

- Alex

Re: [parisc-linux] partitioning on HPUX

[Steven Pritchard]

Alex deVries said:
> Can anyone here describe how HPUX does partitioning?  We're going to
> have to look at this at some point for interoperability with HPUX
> filesystems.

As I understand it, HP-UX doesn't really do partitioning.  You have a
choice of either using a whole disk for a file system, or you can use
the logical volume manager.  From what I've seen, most of the people
who use LVM also use VxFS (or JFS, a journalling filesystem).  It
would probably be easiest then to just try to support HFS (HP's
version of UFS, I think) using a whole disk.

Steve
-- 
steve@silug.org           | Linux Users of Central Illinois
(217)698-1694             | Meetings the 4th Tuesday of every month
Steven Pritchard          | http://www.luci.org/ for more info

Re: [parisc-linux] partitioning on HPUX

[Rich Rauenzahn]

Are you talking about the logical volume manager (LVM) (similar to
Veritas's)?  That's the disk allocation scheme used most these days.

Rich

----- Original Message -----
From: Alex deVries <adevries@thepuffingroup.com>
To: <parisc-linux@thepuffingroup.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 10, 1999 11:19 PM
Subject: [parisc-linux] partitioning on HPUX


>
> Can anyone here describe how HPUX does partitioning?  We're going to
> have to look at this at some point for interoperability with HPUX
> filesystems.
>
> - Alex
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
> To unsubscribe: send e-mail to parisc-linux-request@thepuffingroup.com
with
> `unsubscribe' as the subject.
>

Re: [parisc-linux] partitioning on HPUX

[Rich Rauenzahn]

Yes -- I agree.  Most who use LVM will be using VxFS, so just onlu
supporting whole disk HFS for now is probably the best.

> As I understand it, HP-UX doesn't really do partitioning.  You have a
> choice of either using a whole disk for a file system, or you can use
> the logical volume manager.  From what I've seen, most of the people
> who use LVM also use VxFS (or JFS, a journalling filesystem).  It
> would probably be easiest then to just try to support HFS (HP's
> version of UFS, I think) using a whole disk.
>
> Steve
> --
> steve@silug.org           | Linux Users of Central Illinois
> (217)698-1694             | Meetings the 4th Tuesday of every month
> Steven Pritchard          | http://www.luci.org/ for more info

Re: [parisc-linux] partitioning on HPUX

[John David Anglin]

> Alex deVries said:
> > Can anyone here describe how HPUX does partitioning?  We're going to
> > have to look at this at some point for interoperability with HPUX
> > filesystems.
> 
> As I understand it, HP-UX doesn't really do partitioning.  You have a
> choice of either using a whole disk for a file system, or you can use
> the logical volume manager.  From what I've seen, most of the people
> who use LVM also use VxFS (or JFS, a journalling filesystem).  It
> would probably be easiest then to just try to support HFS (HP's
> version of UFS, I think) using a whole disk.

On hpux 9.x and later (?), partitioning was supported using Software
Disk Striping (SDS).  See sdsadmin(1M).

Dave
-- 
J. David Anglin                                  dave.anglin@nrc.ca
National Research Council of Canada              (613) 990-0752 (FAX: 952-6605)

Re: [parisc-linux] partitioning on HPUX

[Grant Grundler]

Alex deVries wrote:
> 
> Can anyone here describe how HPUX does partitioning?  We're going to
> have to look at this at some point for interoperability with HPUX
> filesystems.

Besides LVM (with JxFS), HP-UX also supports "Hard Partitioning".
The partition information is encoded in both the kernel and /etc/disktab.
As the note in /etc/disktab says, it's use is strongly discouraged.
The driver behavior is similar to "Soft Partitioning" used on PC's
except that the information is hard coded in an OS table instead
of reading it off reserved sectors on the disk.

Having once supported HP-UX SCSI disk drivers, I can only second the
reccomendation already made to only support "whole disk" file systems.
The whole hard partioning thing was a mess. Eventually, if someone
really needs to partition a disk, some support for LVM could be added
(and hopefully with a better user interface).

grant

ps. "man -k sds" on my 10.20 box reports "sds: nothing appropriate".
I tried it on several in-house timeshare machines and got the same result.
I think this was pre-LVM mirroring/striping support. LVM was pushed
heavily around the 10.X introduction 3 to 4 years ago to replace
the older mirroring/striping. 


> - Alex
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe: send e-mail to parisc-linux-request@thepuffingroup.com with
> `unsubscribe' as the subject.
> 

Grant Grundler
Enterprise Systems Technology Lab
+1.408.447.7253

Re: [parisc-linux] partitioning on HPUX

[Stan Sieler]

Re:
 
> Yes -- I agree.  Most who use LVM will be using VxFS, so just onlu
> supporting whole disk HFS for now is probably the best.

Is that supported by surveys/counts?  
On HP-UX, we use LVM with HFS, but never VxFS,
because the partition changing tools are free with LVM but are  
separate charged products for VxFS.

Additionally, check the bug reports...VxFS is fraught with problems
compare to HFS.  So, at this point, with problems and cost, we're 
staying on HFS.   The majority of customers we deal with are also
on HFS, for the same reasons.
 
> > As I understand it, HP-UX doesn't really do partitioning.  You have a

It used to, but that was dropped (as of 11.0?).

> > would probably be easiest then to just try to support HFS (HP's
> > version of UFS, I think) using a whole disk.

-- 
Stan Sieler                                          sieler@allegro.com
                                     http://www.allegro.com/sieler.html

Re: [parisc-linux] partitioning on HPUX

[Alex deVries]

Grant Grundler wrote:

> Having once supported HP-UX SCSI disk drivers, I can only second the
> reccomendation already made to only support "whole disk" file systems.
> The whole hard partioning thing was a mess. Eventually, if someone
> really needs to partition a disk, some support for LVM could be added
> (and hopefully with a better user interface).

Most Linux distributions really expect some sort of partitioning, so
it's easier to just inherit an existing one. 

Usually there's a native partitioning format to follow, but by not
having one we're forced to choose one.  The obvious one is DOS, because
it's been done many times over.  I'd be happier doing something a little
more sane like SGI though.

Oh, and at some point we'll do LVM, but that'll mean merging it in with
the existing Linux LVM tools.

- Alex

Re: [parisc-linux] partitioning on HPUX

[Alan Cox]

> Most Linux distributions really expect some sort of partitioning, so
> it's easier to just inherit an existing one. 

We get all the existing ones for free.

> Oh, and at some point we'll do LVM, but that'll mean merging it in with
> the existing Linux LVM tools.

It depends how smart the HP LVM is and if its documented enough. LVM is
just a variant on the raid striping problem so its not a lot of code to
support until you want to do clever stuff like live resizing