Create multipath partitions for RHEL 7

In this example we create disks for a RHEL 7 Database server which is installed on an
IBM Power 8 Server. To provision disks on a Linux server, you obviously need to create
volumes on your storage device first. Because we are provisioning disks on an
RHEL7 server with an IBM Virtual IO Server the disks are multipath from within RHEL.
 
Used commands:
- fdisk
-mpathconf
- multipath
- kpartx
- pvs, vgs, lvs
- lvcreate
- mks.xfs
- blkid

Created disks:
- 1 disk 100GB for the database
- 2 disks 100GB for the transaction logs

Easiest way to make the disks available in the OS is to reboot the Linux server.
You can also use below command to refresh the SCSI host adapters if you cannot
reboot your server (in this example for host0 and host1)

for i in 0 1;do echo "- - -" > /sys/class/scsi_host/host$i/scan ;done

When the disks are present and shown in fdisk -l, you can create the partitions with
fdisk.

fdisk /dev/sdx
Make sure to create a new (n) primary partition and change the partition's system id (t)
to Linux LVM (8e). In this case the newly created disks are recognized as sdb, sdc and
sdd.
fdisk /dev/sdb
fdisk /dev/sdc
fdisk /dev/sdd

To make sure multipath is enabled, issue the command mpathconf.

mpathconf
Output should be something like:

[root@vmlnx001 ~]# mpathconf

multipath is enabled
find_multipaths is enabled
user_friendly_names is enabled
dm_multipath module is loaded
multipathd is running

To show all disks and corresponding multipath, issue the multipath command with the -l
parameter.
multipath -l

To create multipath devicemappings, use the kpartx command. this will create
devicemappings from the previously created partition tables.

kpartx -a -v /dev/mapper/mpathb
kpartx -a -v /dev/mapper/mpathc
kpartx -a -v /dev/mapper/mpathd

To refresh the multipath configuration, issue the multipath command with the -r
parameter.
multipath -r

Next you will be able to create the physical volumes for the multipath devices
withthe pvcreate command.
pvcreate /dev/mapper/mpathb1
pvcreate /dev/mapper/mpathc1
pvcreate /dev/mapper/mpathd1

To show the newly created physical volumes use the pvs command.
[root@vmlnx001 ~]# pvs
  PV                  VG        Fmt  Attr PSize  PFree
  /dev/mapper/mpatha3 rhel      lvm2 a-- 18.99g  0
  /dev/mapper/mpathb1 vgdb  lvm2 a-- 100.00g  0
  /dev/mapper/mpathc1 vglog  lvm2 a-- 100.00g  0
  /dev/mapper/mpathd1 vglog  lvm2 a--  100.00g  0

To create volume groups from the previously created physical volumes, use the
vgcreate command. For the database volume group I use 1 disk and for the Log volume
group 2.
vgcreate vgdb /dev/mapper/mpathb1
vgcreate vglog /dev/mapper/mpathc1 /dev/mapper/mpathd1

To show the newly created volumegroups use the vgs command.

[root@vmlnx001 ~]# vgs
  VG        #PV #LV #SN Attr   VSize   VFree
  rhel  1   2   0 wz--n-  18.99g    0
  vgdb  2   1   0 wz--n-  99.99g    0
  vglog  2   1   0 wz--n- 199.99g    0
In this case I create one logical volume with the complete size of the volume group
(100%FREE).
lvcreate -n lvdb -l 100%FREE vgdb
lvcreate -n lvlog -l 100%FREE vglog

You can also create multiple logical volumes by specifying the size, replace 100%FREE
for 50G to create a 50GB logical volume.
lvcreate -l 50G -n lvlog vglog

You can also use a lower percentage like 50%vg instead of the sizein GB.
lvcreate -l 50%VG -n lvlog vglog

To check which logical volume exists in a volumegroup, use the command lvs.
[root@vmlnx001 ~]# lvs vglog
  LV  VG  Attr  LSize Pool Origin Data% Meta% Move Log Cpy%Sync Convert
  lvlog  vglog -wi-a----- 199.99g

After creating physical volumes, adding them to a volume group and creating logical
volumes in this volumegroup, you need to create a filesystem on this logical volume. 
This could take a while depending on the size of this logical volume.
mkfs.xfs /dev/vgdb/lvdb
mkfs.xfs /dev/vglog/lvlog

If the logical volume has a filesystem, you want it to be present in the server, mounted
on a directory (mount point).
With the command blkid you can find the UUID for the filesystems.

blkid
/dev/mapper/vgdb-lvdb: UUID="e016679a-2872-4012-8848-507f5b0e5fee"
TYPE="xfs"
/dev/mapper/vglog-lvlog: UUID="03948c72-18f5-4b1c-9c9d-a4c3837de358"
TYPE="xfs"

Once the mountpoints are created, you can add the entries in the fstab file.
mkdir db
mkdir log

[root@vmsaps001 ~]# vi /etc/fstab

#
# /etc/fstab
# Created by anaconda on Mon Oct 16 13:04:28 2017
#
# Accessible filesystems, by reference, are maintained under '/dev/disk'
# See man pages fstab(5), findfs(8), mount(8) and/or blkid(8) for more info
#
/dev/mapper/rhel-root   /                       xfs     defaults        0 0
UUID=69e21ae4-1b06-47b1-8be8-133d3d9bf4ee /boot                   xfs     defaults        0 0
/dev/mapper/rhel-swap   swap                    swap    defaults        0 0
UUID=e016679a-2872-4012-8848-507f5b0e5fee /db                   xfs     defaults        0 0
UUID=03948c72-18f5-4b1c-9c9d-a4c3837de358 /log                   xfs     defaults        0 0

How to Add a New Disk to an Existing Linux Server

As system administrators, we would have got requirements wherein we need to
configure raw hard disks to the existing servers as part of upgrading server
capacity or sometimes disk replacement in case of disk failure.

In this article, I will take you through the steps by which we can add the new raw
hard disk to an existing Linux server such as RHEL/CentOS or Debian/Ubuntu.

Important: Please note that the purpose of this article is to show only how to
create a new partition and doesn’t include partition extension or any other
switches.
I am using fdisk utility to do this configuration.
I have added a hard disk of 20GB capacity to be mounted as a /data partition.
fdisk is a command line utility to view and manage hard disks and partitions on
Linux systems.

# fdisk -l

This will list the current partitions and configurations.

Find Linux Partition Details
After attaching the hard disk of 20GB capacity, the fdisk -l will give the below
output

Important: Please note that the purpose of this article is to show only how to
create a new partition and doesn’t include partition extension or any other
switches.
I am using fdisk utility to do this configuration.
I have added a hard disk of 20GB capacity to be mounted as a /data partition.
fdisk is a command line utility to view and manage hard disks and partitions on
Linux systems.

# fdisk -l

This will list the current partitions and configurations.

Find Linux Partition Details
After attaching the hard disk of 20GB capacity, the fdisk -l will give the below
output

Save the changes and exit.

Save Partition Changes

Now format the disk with mkfs command.

# mkfs.ext4 /dev/xvdc1
Format New Partition

Once formatting has been completed, now mount the partition as shown below.

# mount /dev/xvdc1 /data

Make an entry in /etc/fstab file for permanent mount at boot time.

/dev/xvdc1 /data ext4 defaults 0 0

Conclusion