Howto guide to moving disks or LUN from one server to another without losing any data. This guide is related to disks or LUN which are configured under LVM.

In Unix or Linux infra, it’s pretty common scenarios when you have to move disks or storage LUNs from one server to another server with data on them intact. This is something that is happening in clusters automatically i.e. handled by cluster services. When the primary node goes down, cluster services move disk or luns from primary to the secondary node and make secondary node available for use.

We are going to see how to do this manually using commands. This howto guide gives you an insight into what cluster services do in the background to move data across nodes in case of failures. We will be using LVM (Logical Volume Manager) as our disk manager in this guide since its most widely used volume manager next to VxVM (Veritas Volume Manager).

Steps flow goes like this :

1. Stop disk access on server1
2. Remove disk / LUN from server1
3. Present disk / LUN to server2
4. Identify new disk / LUN on server2
5. Import it into LVM
6. Make it available to use on server2

Let’s see these steps one by one in detail with commands and their outputs. We will be moving mount point /data from server1 to server2. /data is mounted on /dev/vg01/lvol1.

1. Stop disk access on server1

Firstly, you have stopped all user/app access to the related mount points. In our case its /data. You can check if anyone accessing mount point and can kill it using fuser command.

# fuser -cu /data         #TO VIEW USERS
/data:   223412c(user1)
# fuser -cku /data        #TO KILL USERS
# fuser -cu /data

Once you are sure no one is accessing mount point, go ahead and unmount it.

# umount /data

2. Remove disk / LUN from server1

Now, we need to remove disk or LUN from LVM of server1 so that it can be detached from the server gracefully. For this, we will be using vgexport command so that configuration backup can be imported on the destination server.

# vgchange -a n /dev/vg01
Volume group "/dev/vg01" has been successfully changed.
# vgexport -v -m /tmp/vg01.map vg01
Beginning the export process on Volume Group "/dev/vg01". 
vgexport:Volume Group “/dev/vg01” has been successfully removed.

To export VG, you need to de-activate the volume group first and then export VG with a map file. Transfer this map file to server2 with FTP or sftp so that it can be used while importing VG there.

Now, your VG vanishes from server1 i.e. related disk / LUN is no more associated with LVM of server1. Since VG ix exported only, data is intact on disk / LUN physically.

3. Present disk / LUN to server2

Now, you need to physically remove the disk from server1 and physically attach it to server2. If it’s a LUN then remove the mapping of LUN with server1 and map it to server2. You will require to do zoning at the storage level and WWN of both servers.

At this stage, your disk / LUN is removed from server1 and now available/visible to server2. But, it’s not yet known to LVM of server2.

4. Identify new disk / LUN on server2

To identify this newly presented/mapped disk/LUN on server2, you need to scan hardware or FC. Once you get disk number for it (identified in the kernel) proceed with the next steps of LVM.

Read here : Howto scan new lun / disk in Linux & HPUX

5. Import it in LVM

Now, we have disk / LUN identified on server2 along with the VG map file from server1. Using this file and disk name, proceed with importing VG in server2.

# vgimport -v -m /tmp/vg01.map /dev/vg01 list_of_disk
vgimport: Volume group “/dev/vg01” has been successfully created.
Warning: A backup of this volume group may not exist on this machine.
Please remember to take a backup using the vgcfgbackup command after activating the volume group.
# vgchange -a y vg01
Volume group “/dev/vg01” has been successfully changed.
# vgcfgbackup /dev/vg01
Volume Group configuration for /dev/vg01 has been saved in /etc/lvmconf/vg01.conf

First, import VG with vgimport command. In place of the list_of_disk argument in the above example, you have to give your disk name. You can use any VG name here. It’s not mandatory that you have to use VG name same as the first server. After successful import, activate that VG with vgchange.

6. Make it available to use on server2

At this stage, you disk / LUN is available in LVM of server2 with all data on them intact. To make it available for use we need to mount it on the directory. Use mount command:

# mount /dev/vg01/lvol1 /data2

Add entry in /etc/fstab as well to make sure mount point gets mounted at boot too.