Tom,

I too ran into this error.  The "*" didn't work for me either.

As for the other error, I believe that there is some modulus arithmetic
error when dsmfmt calculates storage space.  Try to specify a size
slightly lower that 2G and it will probably work.

Bob Price


>----------
>From:  Tom La Porte[SMTP:tlaporte AT DREAMWORKS DOT COM]
>Sent:  Wednesday, August 07, 1996 8:02 PM
>To:    Multiple recipients of list ADSM-L
>Subject:       Re: AIX Servers:  Use SMIT or DSMFMT for logical volumes?
>
>Interesting that this should come up on today's list digest. Yesterday
>we began to set up an ADSM server on our SP2, and we were preparing all
>of our DASD, which we had hoped to allocate in 2GB file chunks (we had
>prepared the disks by formatting them into 2GB partitions). dsmfmt,
>however, refused to format anything larger than 1000MB.
>
>We tried everything listed in the Administrator's Reference -- we tried
>specifying in kilobytes and megabytes, with the same result, and we
>tried using an asterisk (*) as our file size, and were prompted with an
>"invalid file size specification error." Error no. 27 (or maybe it was
>no. 28) was reported each time we tried to dsmfmt with a size larger
>than 1000 MB, but we had no way of determining what that error code
>was.
>
>Has anyone ever seen this problem? Does the asterisk as a file size
>specifier actually work?
>
>Thanks. -- Tom
>
>Thomas A. La Porte
>DreamWorks SKG                            Voice: 818-733-6328
>100 Universal Plaza, Bldg. 601            Fax:   818-733-6318
>Universal City, CA 91608                  <tlaporte AT dreamworks DOT com>
>
>>
>> Date:    Tue, 6 Aug 1996 09:12:31 PDT
>> From:    "Andrew M. Raibeck" <araibeck AT VNET.IBM DOT COM>
>> Subject: Re: AIX Servers:  Use SMIT or DSMFMT for logical volumes?
>>
>> Micheal Tramont had questions about using DSMFMT vs. SMIT to create ADSM
>> volumes.
>>
>> Just to clear up a possible point of confusion: DSMFMT does not create raw
>> volumes, as SMIT does. Rather, DSMFMT creates and formats regular JFS files
>> for ADSM to use.
>>
>> Unless there is a compelling reason to use raw volumes, I *strongly*
>>recommend
>> that you use JFS volumes. Raw volumes provide little to no benefit.
>>The usual
>> argument for raw volumes is performance. But since we cache database and
>> recovery log pages in memory, raw volumes generally don't offer much of a
>> performance benefit. The downside to raw volumes is that they don't
>>enjoy the
>> same file system level of protection that JFS offers.
>>
>> As far as how to allocate the volumes goes: ADSM does not support volumes
>> that are 2 GB or larger. Thus your volumes must be LESS THAN 2 GB
>>(support of
>> volumes 2 GB and greater is a known requirement).
>>
>> It is probably better to allocate a smaller number of larger volumes rather
>> than a large number of small volumes. This is because for each volume that
>> ADSM mounts (database, recovery log, storage pool), a separate process or
>> thread is created, which does consume some of the system's resources. As I
>> mentioned above, the only caveat is that each volume must be less than
>>2 GB.
>>
>> Andy Raibeck
>> ADSM Level 2 Support
>> 408-256-0130
>