Managing Evms Devices; Understanding Disk Segmentation; Segment Managers - Novell LINUX ENTERPRISE SERVER 10 SP3 - STORAGE ADMINISTRATION GUIDE 2-23-2010 Administration Manual

Managing EVMS Devices

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This section describes how to initialize a disk for EVMS management by adding a segment
management container to manage the partitions that you later add to the disk.
Section 4.1, "Understanding Disk Segmentation," on page 35
Section 4.2, "Initializing Disks," on page 36
Section 4.3, "Removing the Segment Manager from a Device," on page 38
Section 4.4, "Creating Disk Segments (or Partitions)," on page 38
Section 4.5, "Configuring Mount Options for Devices," on page 39
Section 4.6, "What's Next," on page 41

4.1 Understanding Disk Segmentation

In EVMS, you initialize a disk by assigning a segment manager to it. The segment manager creates
metadata for the disk and exposes its free space so you can subdivide it into one or multiple
segments (also called partitions).
Section 4.1.1, "Segment Managers," on page 35
Section 4.1.2, "Disk Segments," on page 36

4.1.1 Segment Managers

The most commonly used segment manager is the DOS Segment Manager. The following table
describes the segment managers available in EVMS.
EVMS Segment Managers
Table 4-1
Segment Manager Description
DOS The standard MS-DOS* disk partitioning scheme. It is the most commonly used
partitioning scheme for Linux, NetWare
and UnixWare*.
GPT (Globally Unique A partitioning scheme used for IA-64 platforms, as defined in the Intel*
Identifier (GUID) Extensible Firmware Interface (EIF) Specification. It is not compatible with
Partitioning Table) DOS, Windows, or OS/2 systems.
The GUID is also known as Universally Unique Identifier (UUID). The GPT
combines time and space descriptors to create this unique 128-bit tag for the
disk and its segments.
S/390 A partitioning scheme used exclusively for System/390 mainframes.
Cluster A partitioning scheme for high-availability clusters. It provides a GUID for the
disk, creates an EVMS container for the shared cluster devices, and specifies a
node ID for the node that owns the device and the cluster ID.
BSD A partitioning scheme for BSD UNIX*.
®
, Windows*, OS/2*, BSD, Solaris* X86,
Managing EVMS Devices
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