The GENERIC kernel does not contain
      vinum.  It is possible to build a
      custom kernel which includes vinum, but
      this is not recommended.  The standard way to start
      vinum is as a kernel module.
      kldload(8) is not needed because when gvinum(8)
      starts, it checks whether the module has been loaded, and if it
      is not, it loads it automatically.
vinum stores configuration
	information on the disk slices in essentially the same form as
	in the configuration files.  When reading from the
	configuration database, vinum
	recognizes a number of keywords which are not allowed in the
	configuration files.  For example, a disk configuration might
	contain the following text:
volume myvol state up volume bigraid state down plex name myvol.p0 state up org concat vol myvol plex name myvol.p1 state up org concat vol myvol plex name myvol.p2 state init org striped 512b vol myvol plex name bigraid.p0 state initializing org raid5 512b vol bigraid sd name myvol.p0.s0 drive a plex myvol.p0 state up len 1048576b driveoffset 265b plexoffset 0b sd name myvol.p0.s1 drive b plex myvol.p0 state up len 1048576b driveoffset 265b plexoffset 1048576b sd name myvol.p1.s0 drive c plex myvol.p1 state up len 1048576b driveoffset 265b plexoffset 0b sd name myvol.p1.s1 drive d plex myvol.p1 state up len 1048576b driveoffset 265b plexoffset 1048576b sd name myvol.p2.s0 drive a plex myvol.p2 state init len 524288b driveoffset 1048841b plexoffset 0b sd name myvol.p2.s1 drive b plex myvol.p2 state init len 524288b driveoffset 1048841b plexoffset 524288b sd name myvol.p2.s2 drive c plex myvol.p2 state init len 524288b driveoffset 1048841b plexoffset 1048576b sd name myvol.p2.s3 drive d plex myvol.p2 state init len 524288b driveoffset 1048841b plexoffset 1572864b sd name bigraid.p0.s0 drive a plex bigraid.p0 state initializing len 4194304b driveoff set 1573129b plexoffset 0b sd name bigraid.p0.s1 drive b plex bigraid.p0 state initializing len 4194304b driveoff set 1573129b plexoffset 4194304b sd name bigraid.p0.s2 drive c plex bigraid.p0 state initializing len 4194304b driveoff set 1573129b plexoffset 8388608b sd name bigraid.p0.s3 drive d plex bigraid.p0 state initializing len 4194304b driveoff set 1573129b plexoffset 12582912b sd name bigraid.p0.s4 drive e plex bigraid.p0 state initializing len 4194304b driveoff set 1573129b plexoffset 16777216b
The obvious differences here are the presence of
	  explicit location information and naming, both of which are
	  allowed but discouraged, and the information on the states.
	  vinum does not store information
	  about drives in the configuration information.  It finds the
	  drives by scanning the configured disk drives for partitions
	  with a vinum label.  This enables
	  vinum to identify drives correctly
	  even if they have been assigned different UNIX® drive
	  IDs.
Gvinum always features an
	    automatic startup once the kernel module is loaded, via
	    loader.conf(5).  To load the
	    Gvinum module at boot time, add
	    geom_vinum_load="YES" to
	    /boot/loader.conf.
When vinum is started with
	    gvinum start,
	    vinum reads the configuration
	    database from one of the vinum
	    drives.  Under normal circumstances, each drive contains
	    an identical copy of the configuration database, so it
	    does not matter which drive is read.  After a crash,
	    however, vinum must determine
	    which drive was updated most recently and read the
	    configuration from this drive.  It then updates the
	    configuration, if necessary, from progressively older
	    drives.
All FreeBSD documents are available for download at https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/doc/
Questions that are not answered by the
    documentation may be
    sent to <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org>.
    Send questions about this document to <freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.org>.