Force FORMAT NOWAIT

Products

• VM:Secure for z/VM

Issue/Introduction

VM:Secure force FORMAT NOWAIT ?

I was looking for an EXIT that would allow me to require when a user is deleted or a minidisk deleted that FORMAT be required. People don't like waiting and rather than make them wait, I want to force NOWAIT.

Apparently under SLES12, if an MDISK was previously used in a volume group, and the MDISK is reallocated to a new server, Linux finds the usable space and adds it into the volume group. This causes some problems and requires a lot of cleanup.

Environment

Release:
Component: VMX

Resolution

 
 
We don’t have an exit that will allow you to add NOWAIT except in the COMMAND user exit. There you could trap everything and add NOWAIT (DELENTRY, DELMDISK etc). 
 
You can, however, control who can add/delete/move minidisks without formatting via the GRANT (or REJECT) NOFORMAT and make certain disks are formatted by putting in a WITHHOLD NOFORMAT for any
roups/users you don't want to skip formatting. 
The command will fail if you specify the NOFORMAT option.   FORMAT is the default for minidisk related activities (DELMDISK, DELENTRY, ADDENTRY etc.).