SUMMARY: Booting from the root mirror using DiskSuite PLUS FOLLOW UP QUESTION

Thanks to the many replies I got on this!

First off, Solaris 9 comes with Disksuite in the OS so no need to install any additional
packages for it.

With Disksuite, You need n+1 state database replicas where n is half the total number of replicas
for the system to be able to boot up in multiuser mode.

With only 2 disks in the system, the original boot disk and the mirror, this can't
be achieved. 

So, there is a flag you can put in your /etc/system file which will tell the machine
to boot up even though there are only 50% state database replicas.

Here is the line to add to /etc/system

set md:mirrored_root_flag=1

After putting this line in my /etc/system I shut the system down and pulled the original boot
disk out and booted from the mirror and it came up in multi user mode just like it was 
supposed to. 

After putting the original boot disk back in and booting from it, the system came up ok
once again. I do notice now however from the metastat command that it's wanting me to 
issue a metareplace of the state database replicas from the original boot disk that I pulled
for my test even though the original boot disk is back in the system.

It would be nice if Disksuite would have recognized that the original boot disk is there
and that there are two copies of the state database replica there and fix/resync it on its own.

Since this is the original boot disk can I just execute the commands

# metareplace -e d8 c0t0d0s3   (c0t0d0 is the boot disk)
# metareplace -e d5 c0t0d0s1  
# metareplace -e d0 c0t0d0s0

According to the metareplace man page the -e does the resync automatically??????

Here's the disk assignments from the format command

AVAILABLE DISK SELECTIONS:
       0. c0t0d0 <SUN72G cyl 14087 alt 2 hd 24 sec 424>  <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Original Boot disk
          /pci@1d,700000/scsi@4/sd@0,0
       1. c0t8d0 <SUN72G cyl 14087 alt 2 hd 24 sec 424>  <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Boot Mirror
          /pci@1d,700000/scsi@4/sd@8,0

Here is how I have the 2 disks sliced up

Part      Tag    Flag     Cylinders         Size            Blocks
  0       root    wm       0 -  3018       14.65GB    (3019/0/0)   30721344
  1       swap    wu    3019 -  4629        7.82GB    (1611/0/0)   16393536
  2     backup    wm       0 - 14086       68.35GB    (14087/0/0) 143349312
  3        var    wm    4630 -  5636        4.89GB    (1007/0/0)   10247232
  4 unassigned    wm    5637 -  5638        9.94MB    (2/0/0)         20352
  5 unassigned    wm       0                0         (0/0/0)             0
  6 unassigned    wm       0                0         (0/0/0)             0
  7 unassigned    wm       0                0         (0/0/0)             0

partition> 

Here is the output from my metastat command and you will see some submirrors have a
"needs maintenantce" flag.

And my metastat output

# metastat
d8: Mirror
    Submirror 0: d6
      State: Needs maintenance 
    Submirror 1: d7
      State: Okay         
    Pass: 1
    Read option: roundrobin (default)
    Write option: parallel (default)
    Size: 10247232 blocks (4.9 GB)

d6: Submirror of d8
    State: Needs maintenance 
    Invoke: metareplace d8 c0t0d0s3 <new device>
    Size: 10247232 blocks (4.9 GB)
    Stripe 0:
        Device     Start Block  Dbase        State Reloc Hot Spare
        c0t0d0s3          0     No     Maintenance   Yes 


d7: Submirror of d8
    State: Okay         
    Size: 10247232 blocks (4.9 GB)
    Stripe 0:
        Device     Start Block  Dbase        State Reloc Hot Spare
        c0t8d0s3          0     No            Okay   Yes 


d5: Mirror
    Submirror 0: d3
      State: Needs maintenance 
    Submirror 1: d4
      State: Okay         
    Pass: 1
    Read option: roundrobin (default)
    Write option: parallel (default)
    Size: 16393536 blocks (7.8 GB)

d3: Submirror of d5
    State: Needs maintenance 
    Invoke: metareplace d5 c0t0d0s1 <new device>
    Size: 16393536 blocks (7.8 GB)
    Stripe 0:
        Device     Start Block  Dbase        State Reloc Hot Spare
        c0t0d0s1          0     No     Maintenance   Yes 


d4: Submirror of d5
    State: Okay         
    Size: 16393536 blocks (7.8 GB)
    Stripe 0:
        Device     Start Block  Dbase        State Reloc Hot Spare
        c0t8d0s1          0     No            Okay   Yes 


d0: Mirror
    Submirror 0: d1
      State: Needs maintenance 
    Submirror 1: d2
      State: Okay         
    Pass: 1
    Read option: roundrobin (default)
    Write option: parallel (default)
    Size: 30721344 blocks (14 GB)

d1: Submirror of d0
    State: Needs maintenance 
    Invoke: metareplace d0 c0t0d0s0 <new device>
    Size: 30721344 blocks (14 GB)
    Stripe 0:
        Device     Start Block  Dbase        State Reloc Hot Spare
        c0t0d0s0          0     No     Maintenance   Yes 


d2: Submirror of d0
    State: Okay         
    Size: 30721344 blocks (14 GB)
    Stripe 0:
        Device     Start Block  Dbase        State Reloc Hot Spare
        c0t8d0s0          0     No            Okay   Yes 


Device Relocation Information:
Device   Reloc  Device ID
c0t8d0   Yes    id1,sd@SSEAGATE_ST373307LSUN72G_3HZ68NAX000074173FY8
c0t0d0   Yes    id1,sd@SSEAGATE_ST373307LSUN72G_3HZ6NA8500007424CC3V


David Martini
LLNL
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