When Veritas loses contact (e.g., if a fiber cable is removed between a server and a storage array) with an active device, Veritas will place the device in the failed state, which will be reported as “failed was: cXtXdX” in the vxdisk(1m) output:
$ vxdisk list
DEVICE TYPE DISK GROUP STATUS
c0t0d0s2 auto:none - - online invalid
c0t1d0s2 auto:none - - online invalid
c1t1d0s2 auto:cdsdisk c1t1d0 oradg online
c1t2d0s2 auto:cdsdisk - - online
c1t3d0s2 auto:cdsdisk - - online
c1t4d0s2 auto:cdsdisk - - online
c1t5d0s2 auto:cdsdisk - - online
c1t6d0s2 auto:cdsdisk - - online
- - c1t2d0 oradg failed was:c1t2d0s2
- - c1t3d0 oradg failed was:c1t3d0s2
- - c1t4d0 oradg failed was:c1t4d0s2
- - c1t5d0 oradg failed was:c1t5d0s2
- - c1t6d0 oradg failed was:c1t6d0s2
When situations like this arise, the vxreattach(1m) utility can be used to reconnect Veritas to lost devices:
$ vxreattach
$ vxdisk list
DEVICE TYPE DISK GROUP STATUS
c0t0d0s2 auto:none - - online invalid
c0t1d0s2 auto:none - - online invalid
c1t1d0s2 auto:cdsdisk c1t1d0 oradg online
c1t2d0s2 auto:cdsdisk c1t2d0 oradg online
c1t3d0s2 auto:cdsdisk c1t3d0 oradg online
c1t4d0s2 auto:cdsdisk c1t4d0 oradg online
c1t5d0s2 auto:cdsdisk c1t5d0 oradg online
c1t6d0s2 auto:cdsdisk c1t6d0 oradg online
Prior to running vxreattach(1m), the problem that caused Veritas to lose contact with the devices should be corrected (e.g., the fiber cable should be reconnected to the server), or vxreattach(1m) should be invoked with the “-c” (check if a reattach is possible) option to see if a reattach is possible. vxreattach(1m) is a cool utility, and should go into every storage adminstrators utility belt.