rendev Command

Purpose

Renames a device.

Syntax

rendev -l Name  -n NewName [-u]

Description

The rendev command enables devices to be renamed. The device to be renamed, is specified with the -l flag, and the new desired name is specified with the -n flag.

The new desired name must not exceed 15 characters in length. If the name has already been used or is present in the /dev directory, the operation fails. If the name formed by appending the new name after the character r is already used as a device name, or appears in the /dev directory, the operation fails.

If the device is in the Available state, the rendev command must unconfigure the device before renaming it. This is similar to the operation performed by the rmdev –l Name command. If the unconfigure operation fails, the renaming will also fail. If the unconfigure succeeds, the rendev command will configure the device, after renaming it, to restore it to the Available state. The –u flag may be used to prevent the device from being configured again after it is renamed.
Note: Disk drive devices that are members of the root volume group, or that will become members of the root volume group (by means of LVM or install procedures), must not be renamed. Renaming such disk drives may interfere with the ability to recover from certain scenarios, including boot failures.

Some devices may have special requirements on their names in order for other devices or applications to use them. Using the rendev command to rename such a device may result in the device being unusable.

Note: To protect the configuration database, the rendev command cannot be interrupted once it has started. Trying to stop this command before completion, could result in a corrupted database.

Flags

Item Description
-l Name Specifies the device, indicated by the Name parameter, to be renamed in the customized devices object.
-n NewName Specifies the new name, indicated by the NewName parameter, to be assigned to the device.
-u Optional flag, which indicates that the device is not to be configured after it is renamed.

Examples

  1. To rename disk hdisk5 to hdisk2, enter:
    rendev -l hdisk5 -n hdisk2
  2. To rename disk hdisk3 to ootvg, enter:
    rendev -l hdisk3 -n ootvg
The second command fails because ootvg appended to r results in the name rootvg, which conflicts with the rootvg volume group name.