Sympathy with volume group problems

[Bruce Johnson]

We also had what sounds like a similar varyon/varyoff problem. Don't 
know of any fix besides the install-from-scratch once there is a volume
group that you are not allowed to trash.  That is, the Device
Configuration Database apparently developed a conflict so the vg could
not be varyon'd until it was first varyoff'd, despite the fact that it
was not active. It is like needing car insurance before you can get a
driver's license while needing a license before you can get insurance.

After talking to Austin about my particular problem, it turned out (of
course) that it was my own doing because I had brought up the machine
without the disks that belonged to that volume group.  No problem on
many other workstations, but under AIX 3, I guess one must honor the
export/import volume group options in order to physically remove/insert
these disks and not screw up the database.  In other words, the machine
must be told explicitly to mark the disks or file systems or whatever
for export as a security issue, preventing somebody from physically moving
disks to other machines and bypassing internal security.  I am sure someone
on the net can provide more detail than I can, but a guess (especially
with AIX changes of things like /etc/passwd) is that IBM is interested in
providing more security than ordinary UNIX for inroads into the government
markets.

At any rate, reading the Info stuff on ODM and ODME has not made me any wiser
on how to manually fix the database.  I would be very grateful if someone
could provide me with a pointer for this.


--
				Bruce Johnson
			  Chemistry Dept, Rice Univ
			    johnson at horta.rice.edu