Creating a DB2 home file system for a partitioned database system (Solaris)

As part of setting up your partitioned database system on Solaris Operating System, you need to create a DB2® home file system. Then you must NFS export the home file system and mount it from each computer participating in the partitioned database system.

Before you begin

It is recommended that you create a home file system that is as large as the content on the DB2 database product DVD. You can use the following command to check the size, shown in KB:

du -sk DVD mounting point

A DB2 instance will require at least 50 MB of space. If you do not have enough free space, you can mount the DB2 database product DVD from each participating computer as an alternative to copying the contents to disk.

You must have root authority to create a file system.

About this task

There are a number of ways to create a local file system on a Solaris Operating System. If you want to use a product such as Veritas to create the file system, refer to the product's documentation.

Procedure

To create, NFS export, and NFS mount the DB2 home file system, perform the following steps:

Create the DB2 home file system.
1. On the primary computer (ServerA), select a disk partition or configure one using the format command.
  When using the format command, ensure that the disk partitions being used do not overlap. Overlapping partitions can cause data corruption or file system failures. Ensure you have correctly entered the command, as mistakes can cause serious problems.
2. Using a utility like newfs or mkfs, create a file system on this partition.
  The file system should be large enough to contain the necessary DB2 database files as well as other files not related to the DB2 software. A minimum of 300 MB is recommended.
3. Locally mount the file system you have just created and add an entry to the /etc/vfstab file so that this file system is mounted each time the system is rebooted.
  For example:
```
/dev/dsk/c1t0d2s2   /dev/rdsk/c1t0d2s2  /db2home  ufs  2  yes   -
```
Export the DB2 home file system.
1. To automatically export an NFS file system on Solaris at boot time, add an entry to the /etc/dfs/dfstab file.
  Be sure to include all of the host names of the participating computers as well as all of the names that a given computer might be known as. Also, ensure that each computer has root authority on the exported file system by using the "root" option.
  In the following example, an entry for a four computer partitioned database system is added to the /etc/dfs/dfstab file. The participating computers, ServerB, ServerC, and ServerD, are given permission to mount the file system /db2home, which will be used as the DB2 home file system.
```
share -F nfs -o \
rw=ServerB.torolab.ibm.com,\
root=ServerB.torolab.ibm.com \

rw=ServerC.torolab.ibm.com, \ 
root=ServerC.torolab.ibm.com\

rw=ServerD.torolab.ibm.com,\ 
root=ServerD.torolab.ibm.com \
-d "homes" /db2home
```
  If a computer is known by more than one hostname, all aliases must be included in the /etc/dfs/dfstab file. For example, if ServerB was also known by the name ServerB-tokenring , the entry in the /etc/dfs/dfstab for ServerB would appear as follows:
```
rw=ServerB.torolab.ibm.com:ServerB-tokenring.torolab.ibm.com,\
root=ServerB.torolab.ibm.com:ServerB-tokenring.torolab.ibm.com \
```
2. On each of the participating computers, add an entry to the /etc/vfstab file to NFS mount the file system automatically at boot time.
  As in the following example, when you specify the mount point options, ensure that the file system is mounted at boot time, is read-write, is mounted hard, includes the bg (background) option, and that suid programs can be run properly:
```
ServerA:/db2home - /db2home  nfs  -  yes   rw,hard,intr,bg,suid
```
Mount the DB2 home file system from each participating computer.
On each of the participating computers in the partitioned database environment, enter the following commands:
```
mkdir /db2home
mount /db2home
```
If the mount command fails, use the showmount command to check the status of the NFS server. For example:
```
showmount -e ServerA
```
This showmount command should list the file systems that are exported from the computer named ServerA. If this command fails, the NFS server may not have been started. To start the server manually, run the following commands as root on the NFS server:
```
/usr/lib/nfs/mountd
/usr/lib/nfs/nfsd -a 16
```
These commands are run automatically at boot time if there are any entries in the /etc/dfs/dfstab file. After starting the NFS server, export the NFS file system again by running the following command:
```
sh /etc/dfs/dfstab
```

Results

By performing these steps, you have completed the following tasks:

On a single computer in the partitioned database environment, you have created a file system to be used as the instance and home directory.
You have exported this file system via NFS.
You have mounted the exported file system on each participating computer.