Solaris mirroring can some1 explain to ex-Windows guy how to get that done?

Question

i looked through the forum and have seen some advices but am not very comfortable with sending commands i know nothing about.
can someone pls break it down to exact steps needed to mirror a drive in x86 box please? i failed to achieve anything with SVC utility as i don't know what to choose on those so called wizard screens - they are not intuitive for someone coming from windows platform or maybe its just me.
i have two identical 147GB drives in x86 machine. Solaris 10 downloaded and installed on one of them few days ago.
need help please.

Answer 1

Hello folks,
In my case the following are output of format command. Do the "format"to identify the disks in your system and replace disks in the steps with the help of that output.
bash-3.00# format
Searching for disks...done
AVAILABLE DISK SELECTIONS:
0. c1t0d0 <SUN146G cyl 14087 alt 2 hd 24 sec 848>
/pci@9,600000/SUNW,qlc@2/fp@0,0/ssd@w5000cca004195269,0
1. c1t1d0 <SUN146G cyl 14087 alt 2 hd 24 sec 848>
/pci@9,600000/SUNW,qlc@2/fp@0,0/ssd@w5000cca00419ab5d,0
Please folllow the below steps for mirroring.
1) Important precaution:
Copy /etc/vfstab and /etc/system
cp -p /etc/system /etc/system.orig
cp -p /etc/vfstab /etc/vfstab.orig
2) Create a small slice of 25 Mbyte (10 Mbyte is also fine) for storing volume databases on the "rootdisk" and label the disk.
Take slice 7
using format command ( Please let me know if you need more explanation)
3) The VTOC (volume table of contents) on the root disk and root mirror must be the same. Copy the VTOC using prtvtoc and fmthard.
# prtvtoc /dev/rdsk/c1t0d0s2 | fmthard -s - /dev/rdsk/c1t1d0s2
5) Create metadatabases on the small slice created on rootdisk:
# metadb -f -a -c3 /dev/dsk/c1t0d0s7
# metadb -a -c3 /dev/dsk/c1t1d0s7
6) Now we can create a mirror for each and every slice in the partition table.
For root or / partition:
# metainit -f d10 1 1 /dev/dsk/c1t0d0s0
# metainit d20 1 1 /dev/dsk/     c1t1d0s0
(create a md d0 and attach one submirror)
# metainit d0 -m d10
(set up system files for root (/) metadevice, that is,
changes to /etc/system and /etc/vfstab)
# metaroot d0
# lockfs -fa (clear improper file locks on all mounted UFS file systems)
7) Naming convention for other metadisks follow. (Note for those who are new to this software: We will not do metaroot and lockfs steps on other file systems.) The submirrors will be named d10, d20, and so on.
In d10, 1 is the submirror number, and 0 is the slice number.
If we have swap on partition/slice 1, we would do this:
# metainit -f d11 1 1 /dev/dsk/c1t0d0s1
# metainit d21 1 1 /dev/dsk/c1t1d0s1
# metainit d1 -m d11
For /var
# metainit -f d12 1 1 /dev/dsk/c1t0d0s3
# metainit d22 1 1 /dev/dsk/c1t1d0s3
# metainit d2 -m d12
8) Repeat for as many file systems you have on your boot disk.
9) Make changes to your /etc/vfstab. The md entry for root will already be updated by the metaroot command.
A sample copy of /etc/vfstab looks like this:
#device device mount FS fsck mount mount
#to mount to fsck point type pass at boot options
fd - /dev/fd fd - no -
/proc - /proc proc - no -
/dev/md/dsk/d1 - - swap - no -
/dev/md/dsk/d0 /dev/md/rdsk/d0 / ufs 1 no -
/dev/md/dsk/d2 /dev/md/rdsk/d2 /var ufs 1 no -
/devices - /devices devfs - no -
ctfs - /system/contract ctfs - no -
objfs - /system/object objfs - no -
swap - /tmp tmpfs - yes -
10) Configure your dump device using dumpadm.
11) Make the following entry in the /etc/system file, in the mdd info section:
set md:mirrored_root_flag=1
12) Execute:
sync; sync; init 6
13) Once the system comes up, attach the other submirror:
# metattach d0 d20
(Note: It's "metattach" and not "metaattach")
# metattach d1 d21
# metattach d1 d22
14) To see whether the FS syncing is done or not, do this:
metastat | grep progress
Once syncing is finished,please reboot the machine once more. Now the disks will be mirrored.
Thanks,
Sal.