Before using any of the partition operations listed in Partition, you should have a basic understanding of the following topics that explain how partitions work on NetWare®:
A disk can be divided into a maximum of four partitions, which is the same rule that NetWare follows with versions prior to NetWare 6.0. Starting with NetWare 6.0, the NetWare media manager abstracts NetWare partitions to include one additional level so that a single physical NetWare partition can contain an unlimited number of virtual NetWare partitions.
When you use the XML commands for Partition, each virtual NetWare partition appears as a real physical partition. Only when you are examining the disk by using a DOS-based partition management utility can you see that there is actually one physical partition.
NetWare supports multiple partition types. Some of these types can be managed by the XML commands in Partition, while other types are merely recognized by the listPartitions command.
The following partition types can be created and/or managed by XML commands:
This partition type is not actually a real partition. It is used in the listPartitions command to represent any unpartitioned free space that exists on a device.
This type of partition is used by the traditional NetWare file system. Traditional NetWare volumes contain one or more partitions (or pieces of partitions) of this type.
This type of partition is used by the NSS file system. NSS pools contain one or more partitions of this type.
This type of partition is used by the media manager to construct virtual RAID devices. A partition that is created with this type appears to the file system as a device that can be added into a software RAID configuration.
This type of partition is used by the iSCSI target software which exposes such partition as an iSCSI target.
All other partition types, such as DOS type 4 or type 6 partitions, and clustering SBD partitions show up in the partition list returned by the listPartitions command. However, these types cannot be managed in any other way using the XML commands.
A partition ID is a number that is automatically assigned to a partition by the media manager when a NetWare server is booted. The ID for a partition is not guaranteed to be the same number each time the server is booted.
The NetWare media manager maintains an in-memory database of all disk-related objects (including, but not limited to, adapters, devices, physical partitions, HotFix objects, and mirror objects). Every object in this database has a media manager ID that is assigned at boot time.
If a partition is used with mirroring, it has three different media manager objects that can be used to manage it:
A physical partition ID, which represents the raw physical partition
A logical HotFix partition ID
A logical mirror group partition ID
With NetWare 6.0, a HotFix (bad block redirection) area is also required in order to implement mirroring, so the media manager maintains a HotFix object for the partition as well. This HotFix object has a “logical” HotFix partition ID, which is unique and is different from the “physical” partition ID.
Each mirror group (group of partitions that are mirrored to each other) is also represented by another media manager object that has a “logical” mirror group partition ID.
If two partitions are mirrored to each other, both have unique and separate physical partition IDs and logical HotFix partition IDs, but they share a single logical mirror group partition ID.
When you create an NSS pool or a traditional NetWare volume, you must specify the ID of the partition to be added. For the XML commands, you should always use the most abstract ID of the partition. For example, if the partition does not support HotFix and mirroring, the most abstract ID is the physical partition ID.
However, if the partition has a HotFix and mirror group object, you should use the logical partition ID. (A single mirror group object can represent multiple physical partitions that are mirrored to each other. The only unique way to represent creating a pool or volume on the mirrored group of partitions is to specify the partition ID that represents the entire mirror group.)
In order to mirror two partitions together, both partitions must have HotFix and Mirror objects. Both partitions must also have identical data sizes. If a partition is too big or too small to mirror to another partition, the data size of the partition can be controlled by increasing or decreasing the size of the HotFix area so that the data sizes are identical. A partition's HotFix area can be from 200-245,760 sectors.
When you create a partition, you can create it in its own standalone mirror group so that it can be combined with other partitions at a later time. You can also create a partition and add it directly to an existing mirror group.
When you create a partition on a device that is marked as “shareable for clustering,” the partition inherits that state from the device. Operations that create and delete partitions check the “shareable for clustering” state of the device and require that the clustering software be loaded and operational before allowing the partition deletion or creation on such devices.
The ignoreShareState element can be specified on these operations to prevent the state from being checked for clustering.