These are some of the L3 level unix interview questions…

1. How do you replace a failed boot disk under meta in solaris? Step by step
explanation?

2. How do you remove meta only for the root slice? remaining slices should run under
meta?

3. what you would do if you want to replace a slice using metareplace option?

4. what is the significance of 51% state database replicas in SVM?

5. what are the common errors you find in Solaris Volume manager?

6. You have a boot disk under svm, the machine fails to boot and remains in ok
prompt? what could be the possible reason?

7. metastat -p shows a metavolume needs replacement. Metavolume is a single way

mirror only. Actually you find disk and metavolumes are ok and I/O is happening to
the filesystems… how will you remove the metareplace message that comes out of
metastat.

8. How to create a shared disk group in VxVM?

9. What is the difference between private and public regions in Veritas Volume
manager?

10. what would you do if the private region of a particular disk group is full? What are
the design considerations for the size of private region in Vxvm disk group?

11. How to replace a corrupt private region? in vxvm 3.5 and greater versions…

12. How would you convert a volume from gen to fsgen? why should you do that?

13. How can you unencapsulate a boot disk in VxVM?

14. How to identify multiple paths for a disk.

15. What is the difference between Vxdmp and EMC powerpath?

16. vxdisk -o alldgs list o/p shows some disk groups in braces… What does that
signify?

17. what are the various layouts that are available in VxVM?

18.What is a layered volume? how to create it using vxmake?

19.How to quickly mirror a volume, if the volume is empty?

20. How to grow a volume?

21. What is the difference between failing and failed disks?

22. How to replace a failed disk in Veritas?

23. Plex is in a disabled state. How will you recover? what are the steps to follow?
24.what is the difference between detached and disassociate state of plexes?

25. Whats the boot process of VxVM?

26. Whats the difference between SVM and VxVM? What would you recommend to
your clients? why?

27.What are the various clusters you have worked on?

28. Which cluster is better VCS or Sun cluster?

29. Compare and contrast VCS and Sun Cluster.

30.how will you start VCS service? What are the configuration files in VCS?

31. How would switch a service group?

32. How would you freeze a service group?

33. What is a Split brain scenario ?

1) What file do you modify to change the mail aliases (Provide the full
path) ?
2) What command do you run after modifying the aliases file make the
changes active?
3) How do you enable logging on a UFS file system?
4) What commands can you use to dynamically add scsi disks to a sun
system?
5) How do you install package to a specific directory? e.g like to
install wget in /home/vin/wget rather than the default one "/usr". ----
This was not answered by me.
6) What command shows what modules are loaded into the Kernel?
7) What command increases the priority of a process and all sub
processes on a solaris system?
8) What command in Solaris, do you use to setup aliases for devices?
9) How do you watch network traffic on interface qfe3?
10 ) What command shows TCP/IP parameter settings?
11) How do you set Network cards to 100 full interactively &
permanently?
12) What tools in Solaris help you diagnose harware failures?
13) How do you determine by how much a Veritas Volume can be expanded?
14) How do you grow a Veritas VXVM volume?
15) Where is the dump from a system crash normally kept? Can we
customize it?
16) How do you determine Volume Status in Veritas VxVM?
17) Why would you deport a diskgroup in VxVM?
18) How do you create additional state databases in solaris volume
manager? -- This was the tough one..!!
19) Does Solaris Volume Manager have soft partitioning?
20) How do you clear volume information from a solaris volume manager
disk?
21) How do you shutdown a Veritas Cluster Server, leaving the
applications running from the command line?
22) How do you speed up processing of a process and All it's child
processes? -- This was quite tricky..!!

1. Name the mandatory disk group in VxVM 3.5 ? How will you configure VxVM in 3.5 ?
ANS: rootdg is the mandatory disk group in VxVM 3.5, vxinstall is the command to configure
VxVM, It will create the disk groups, initializes the disks and adds them to the group.

2. How will you create private and shared disk group using VxVM ?
ANS: For Private DG:
Command: vxdg init

For Shared DG:

Command: vxdg -s init < disk1 disk2 disk3 >

3. Which are the different layouts for volumes in VxVM ?

ANS: mirror, stripe, concat (default one), raid5, stripe-mirror, mirror-stripe.

4. What is the basic difference between private disk group and shared disk group ?
ANS: Private DG: The DG which is only visible for the host on which you have created it, if the
host is a part of cluster, the private DG will not be visible to the other cluster nodes.
Shared DG: The DG which is sharable and visible to the other cluster nodes.

5. How will you add new disk to the existing disk group ?
ANS: Run vxdiskadm command, which will open menu driven program to do various disk
operations, select add disks option or you can use another command vxdiskadd.

6. How will you grow/shrink the volume/file system ? What is the meaning of growby and growto
options ? What is the meaning on shrinkto and shrinkby options ?
ANS: vxassist command is used to do all volume administration, following is the description and
syntax.

Growby option: This is will grow your file system by adding new size to the existing file system.

Growto option: This will grow your file system as per the new size. This WILL NOT ADD new size
to the existing one.

Shrinkby option: This will shrink your file system by reducing new size from existing file system.

Shrinkto option: This will shrink your file system as per the new size. This WILL NOT REDUCE
the file system by reducing new size.

Command:
vxassist -g [growto, growby, shrinkto, shrinkby] length

7. How will you setup and unsetup disks explicitly using VxVM ?
ANS: You can use /etc/vx/bin/vxdiskunsetup to unsetup the disk, and /etc/vx/vxdisksetup to setup
the disk.

8. How will you list the disks, which are in different disk groups ?
ANS: vxdisk list is the command will list the disks from the DG which is currently imported, you
can check the same using vxprint command too. vxdisk -o alldgs list command list all the disks
which are in different dg's.

9. What is the private region in VxVM ?

ANS: Private region stores the structured VxVM information, it also stores the disk ID and disk
geometry. In short words it has metadata of the disk.

10. If, vxdisk list command gives you disks status as "error", what steps you will follow to make
the respective disks online ?
ANS: If you faced this issue because of fabric disconnection then simply do vxdisk scandisks,
otherwise unsetup the disk using using /etc/vx/bin/vxdiskunsetup and setup the disks again using
/etc/vx/bin/vxdisksetup, this will definitely help! [ /etc/vx/bin/vxdiskunsetup will remove the private region from the disk and destroys data, backup the data before using this option]