Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ginosko!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!cs.utexas.edu!mailrus!sharkey!cfctech!fmeed1!hpuinda!hpfcse!hpuflfa!ronw
From: ronw@hpuflfa.HP.COM (Ron Williams)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp
Subject: Re: HP-UX problems and suggestions (s800)
Message-ID: <140008@hpuflfa.HP.COM>
Date: 28 Sep 89 17:15:34 GMT
References: <1717@zen.co.uk>
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, SSR-Ft. Lauderdale
Lines: 46

> 1) The information stored in "/etc/disktab" for the 7963
> disk drive results in newfs(1M) correctly displaying that
> the drive has 304MB of disk space (297108 1K blocks in section 2).
> The device driver in the kernel contains the same information in
> hp7959_sizes: section 2 has 1188432 256-byte blocks.
> 
> Yet once the disk has been formatted and mounted, bdf(1) reports only
> 278MB available.  This leaves almost 10% of the physical disk space
> unavailable, which is unacceptable for a drive of this capacity,
> especially as larger drives (e.g., 7937s) have a much lower percentage
> unavailable.  Please make the device drivers do what the numbers say
> they should, and access the whole disk.  (See UK PICS call reference
> E1319345.)  Alternatively, please explain to me where the extra space
> went, and offer suggestions on how I could reclaim some of it (I have
> tried to make sense of the messages printed up during the formatting
> process, but I can't make any combination of the numbers displayed
> "fill in" the missing amount).


Note that 'bdf' only reports the space available to *REGULAR* users, i.e.
does not count the "minfree" space (default 10%) that is reserved for 'root'.
You can use 'tunefs' to modify "minfree" even to 0 if that's what you want.
Note also that performance of the file system typically begins to suffer
as the capacity exceeds 85% full. Also the manpage for 'tunefs' indicates that
setting "minfree" to 0 can cause up to a 3X performance hit.

> 2) disksecn(1M) fails to recognise the names of any disk
> drives, including all the examples in the manual.  I understand this
> is a known problem.

As I understand the response I got from the same question, this was a "feature"
that was intentionally added at 3.0. The *hand waving* included some discussion
as to "we don't know what the user override parameters might be for block size
etc. and therefore may print-out invalid information". I agree with you that it
should work! Its the only real source of on-line information about the *FIXED*
disc partitions in HP-UX/800. However, you can manually look in /etc/disktab
and manually feed the parameters to 'disksecn' and still get the desired data
but there is a significant chance for error. I assume that a fairly simple
script could be written to automate it, scanning /etc/disktab, selecting info,
feed to 'disksecn' by redirecting STDIN.....


Ron Williams       HP Ft. Lauderdale       ronw@hpfcse
------------       TEL: T-938-2278         {hpfcse}!hpuflfa!ronw
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                   AREA CODE: 305          HPDESK: Ron Williams / HP3179/07