NAME
format — format an HP SCSI disk array LUN
DESCRIPTION
format
formats one LUN of the HP SCSI disk array associated with device file,
device_file.
The format will usually be a soft or zeroing format, in which the
controller writes zeroes to the data area and parity area, if any,
of the LUN.
NOTE:
The above should always be true of a sub-LUN, but the controller might
decide, based on certain conditions, to do a full format of a regular
LUN, which consists of sending a mode select and a media initialization
command to the physical drive(s) in question, followed by zeroing the
data and parity area, if any. The conditions which will cause a full
format to be done are as follows:
- 1.
The controller received a Mode Select command which requires a drive
sector size change.
- 2.
The controller received a Mode Select command which changed a parameter
in the Format Device Page (0x03).
- 3.
The LUN contains one or more failed drives. In this case only a certain
subset of the drives containing the failed drives will be formatted.
- 4.
Either the FmtData or the CmpLst bit in the Format Unit CDB is set.
RETURN VALUE
format
returns the following values:
- 0
Successful completion.
- -1
Command failed.
DIAGNOSTICS AND ERRORS
Errors can originate from problems with:
SCSI
(device level) communications
Error messages generated by format:
- usage: format <special>
An error in command syntax has occurred.
Enter command again with all required arguments, in the order shown.
- format: device busy
To ensure that
format
does not modify a disk array
that is being used by another process,
format
attempts to obtain exclusive access to the disk array.
If the disk array is already opened by another process
(for example, LVM — the Logical Volume Manager),
a "device busy
" error message is returned by the driver.
To eliminate the "device busy
" condition, determine what process has the device open.
In the case of LVM,
it is necessary to deactivate the volume group containing the array
before formatting array
LUNs (see
vgchange(1M)).
- format: LUN # too big
The LUN number, which is derived from the device file name, is out of range.
- format: LUN does not exist
The addressed LUN
is not configured, and thus is not known to the array controller.
- format: Not a raw file
Utilities must be able to open the device file for raw access.
- format: Not an HP SCSI disk array
The device being addressed is not an HP SCSI disk array.
SCSI (device level) communication errors:
Sense data associated with the failed operation is printed.
Error messages generated by system calls:
format
uses the following system calls:
malloc(),
free(),
stat(),
open(),
close(),
read(),
write(),
and
ioctl().
Documentation for these
HP-UX
system calls contains information about the specific error conditions
associated with each call.
format
does not alter the value of
errno.
The interpretation of
errno
for printing purposes is performed by the system utility
strerror().
EXAMPLES
To format the HP SCSI disk array LUN
/dev/rdsk/c2t0d0
on a Series 800:
WARNING
The
format
command will destroy all user data on the addressed
LUN.
DEPENDENCIES
The HP C2425 and HP C2427 disk arrays are only supported on Series 700 systems running HP-UX version 9.0X.
The HP C2430 disk array is supported on Series 700 and 800 systems
running HP-UX versions 9.0X and 10.0X.
AUTHOR
format
was developed by HP.
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