Error Message

Sample output
 

# echo | format

AVAILABLE DISK SELECTIONS:
      0. c0t5000CCA0800E61ACd0
         /scsi_vhci/disk@g5000cca0800e61ac
         /dev/chassis/SYS/DBP/HDD0/disk
      1. c0t5000CCA0800F7B34d0  solaris
         /scsi_vhci/disk@g5000cca0800f7b34
         /dev/chassis/SYS/DBP/HDD1/disk
      2. c0t5000CCA0800E63B8d0  solaris
         /scsi_vhci/disk@g5000cca0800e63b8
         /dev/chassis/SYS/DBP/HDD2/disk
      3. c0t5000CCA0800E5234d0  solaris
         /scsi_vhci/disk@g5000cca0800e5234
         /dev/chassis/SYS/DBP/HDD3/disk
.
.
.
   1967. c31t500507680C2179C7d130
         /pci@310/pci@1/SUNW,qlc@0,1/fp@0,0/ssd@w500507680c2179c7,82
   1968. c31t500507680C2179C7d131
         /pci@310/pci@1/SUNW,qlc@0,1/fp@0,0/ssd@w500507680c2179c7,83

 

Multiple issues can lead to the format utility and other disk management tools to appear hung due to "disk in-use checking".

Tools/utilities such as clri, dcopy, dumpadm, format, fsdb, fssnap. metassist, mkfs, parted, swap and zpool can only be impacted.

When running the format utility against a large amount of LUNs (800+) in Solaris 11.3 or higher, the format command would hang due to disk in-use checks.

If the format command is hanging, this can result in Veritas Volume Manager (VxVM) & DMP related commands running slowly or hanging in some circumstances.
 

To check the impact of disk in-use checking, set the NOINUSE_CHECK environment variable to '1', then run the command which is hanging. 

Example:


# NOINUSE_CHECK=1 format

This will disable the disk in-use check for the format utility.

If safe to do so, measure the time taken for specific commands to run (i.e. echo | format) before & after setting the NOINUSE_CHECK environment variable

Example:
 

# NOINUSE_CHECK=1; export NOINUSE_CHECK

# time echo | format
Searching for disks...

real    1m12.610s
user    0m0.098s
sys     0m51.393s


Veritas does not recommend presenting thousands of LUNs to a single Solaris host. Users may encounter delays, hangs, command slowness as the number of paths and LUN count increases.

Where possible present larger LUNs, rather than multiple small LUNs.

In addition to the number of LUNs and paths presented to the host, ensure all disks are labelled with either a SMI or EFI Solaris disk label.

If Veritas Volume is used and the disks are to be managed by VxVM. ensure all disks are initialized with the "vxdisksetup" command. 

Confirm "vxdisk -e list" does not report any disks in an "online invalid" state.
 

Example:

# /etc/vx/bin/vxdisksetup -i disk-name