partedUtil : Error: Read-only file system during write

Hi,

Plateform : One machine with 8 hard drives in Raid 5 => 1 LUN of 2To, vSphere 5.0.0 Upd1

We want to deploy a Oracle RAC 10g. For this purpose we follow this document : https://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/solutions/oracle/Oracle_Databases_VMware_RAC_Deployment_Guide.pdf

In the prerequisites, we need to have several datastores.

In the vSphere client, we can't create several datastores : only one of 2To (default) or, if we delete the default one, we can create a smaller, but the remaining space isn't available anymore.

So we decide to create manually the several datastores, by following this document : Manually creating a VMFS volume using vmkfstools -C (1009829)

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1009829

The command we want to do is this one :

vmkfstools -C vmfs5 -b 1m -S NewDatastore /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.60901234567890123456789012345678:1

In this document, we have to make a partition for each datastore we want to create.

Layout of the disks

~ # ls -lah /vmfs/devices/disks/

drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root          512 Jun 26 12:13 .

drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root          512 Jun 26 12:13 ..

-rw-------    1 root     root         1.9T Jun 26 12:13 naa.600605b00581fb6018c09f852081693a

-rw-------    1 root     root         4.0M Jun 26 12:13 naa.600605b00581fb6018c09f852081693a:1

-rw-------    1 root     root         4.0G Jun 26 12:13 naa.600605b00581fb6018c09f852081693a:2

-rw-------    1 root     root 50.0G Jun 26 12:13 naa.600605b00581fb6018c09f852081693a:3

-rw-------    1 root     root 250.0M Jun 26 12:13 naa.600605b00581fb6018c09f852081693a:5

-rw-------    1 root     root 250.0M Jun 26 12:13 naa.600605b00581fb6018c09f852081693a:6

-rw-------    1 root     root 110.0M Jun 26 12:13 naa.600605b00581fb6018c09f852081693a:7

-rw-------    1 root     root 286.0M Jun 26 12:13 naa.600605b00581fb6018c09f852081693a:8

lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           36 Jun 26 12:13 vml.0200000000600605b00581fb6018c09f852081693a536572766552 -> naa.600605b00581fb6018c09f852081693a

lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           38 Jun 26 12:13 vml.0200000000600605b00581fb6018c09f852081693a536572766552:1 -> naa.600605b00581fb6018c09f852081693a:1

lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           38 Jun 26 12:13 vml.0200000000600605b00581fb6018c09f852081693a536572766552:2 -> naa.600605b00581fb6018c09f852081693a:2

lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           38 Jun 26 12:13 vml.0200000000600605b00581fb6018c09f852081693a536572766552:3 -> naa.600605b00581fb6018c09f852081693a:3

lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           38 Jun 26 12:13 vml.0200000000600605b00581fb6018c09f852081693a536572766552:5 -> naa.600605b00581fb6018c09f852081693a:5

lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           38 Jun 26 12:13 vml.0200000000600605b00581fb6018c09f852081693a536572766552:6 -> naa.600605b00581fb6018c09f852081693a:6

lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root 38 Jun 26 12:13 vml.0200000000600605b00581fb6018c09f852081693a536572766552:7 -> naa.600605b00581fb6018c09f852081693a:7

lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           38 Jun 26 12:13 vml.0200000000600605b00581fb6018c09f852081693a536572766552:8 -> naa.600605b00581fb6018c09f852081693a:8

Edit disk settings with fdisk => Failure.

~ # fdisk -u /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.600605b00581fb6018c09f852081693a

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT

fdisk: Sorry, can't handle GPT partitions, use partedUtil

Edit disk settings with partedUtil.

~ # partedUtil getptbl "/vmfs/devices/disks/naa.600605b00581fb6018c09f852081693a"

gpt

254458 255 63 4087881728

1 64 8191 C12A7328F81F11D2BA4B00A0C93EC93B systemPartition 128

5 8224 520191 EBD0A0A2B9E5443387C068B6B72699C7 linuxNative 0

6 520224 1032191 EBD0A0A2B9E5443387C068B6B72699C7 linuxNative 0

7 1032224 1257471 9D27538040AD11DBBF97000C2911D1B8 vmkDiagnostic 0

8 1257504 1843199 EBD0A0A2B9E5443387C068B6B72699C7 linuxNative 0

2 1843200 10229759 EBD0A0A2B9E5443387C068B6B72699C7 linuxNative 0

3 10229760 115087359 AA31E02A400F11DB9590000C2911D1B8 vmfs 0

~ #

we tried to create a partition with partedUtil.

~ # partedUtil setptbl "/vmfs/devices/disks/naa.600605b00581fb6018c09f852081693a" gpt "9 115087360 157030400 AA31E02A400F11DB9590000C2911D1B8 0"

gpt

0 0 0 0

9 115087360 157030400 AA31E02A400F11DB9590000C2911D1B8 0

Error: Read-only file system during write on /dev/disks/naa.600605b00581fb6018c09f852081693a

SetPtableGpt: Unable to commit to disk

Questions :

Why the disk is in Read/only mode ?

How can we change that ?

Do you have any advice ?

Thanks.

Regards.

Ludovic.

PS : Plz, forgive my english, i'm french