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HA Fileserver configuration recommendation sought.

linux-lvm Gary Mansell 9 participants 20 messages Nov 19, 2004 – Nov 23, 2004

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#0 lore raw

Dear all,

I currently run RHAS3.0 on a Dell PE2650 which is directly attached to an EMC FC4500 2TB HW RAID 5 unit via two QLA2310F Fibre Channel cards. I have EMC's Powerpath software installed to give me multiple paths to the disk subsytem in case of controller or cable failure.

This configuration has served me well but is now about to be End Of Life'd by Dell and I need to grow the storage. There is obviously quite a price premium to pay for this sort of kit so I was hoping to find a cheaper solution for the future.

I have seen the Nexsan ATABEAST which is a 16TB ATA array with dual fibre channel controllers. It seems to be well liked and is reasonably priced but my concern is how to achieve multiple paths to the disk. How would you recommend achieving a highly available configuration with this sort of disk subsystem?

Also, am I correct in thinking that the maximum filesystem size with RHEL 3.0 is 2TB? Is it possible to get over this limitation with LVM or some other method?

Any advice gladly received.

Thanks in advance

Gary Mansell

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#1 lore raw

I use the ATABoy 2x (dual active/active FC) with great success. I use md to create a failover path (see mdadm) on newer kernels (2.6.9) and I have multiple 3.2T LUNS (multiple ataboys). I use LVM2 to partition some of the LUNs with great success.

Too, if this is a heavily beat file server, I would highly recommend using the 2.6.8+ kernel and grab what ever patches you can for knfsd and networking. Also look at proc/sys/vm/vfs_cache_pressure et al.

Best of Luck.

Quoted 63 lines · Gary Mansell

Dear all,

I currently run RHAS3.0 on a Dell PE2650 which is directly attached to an EMC FC4500 2TB HW RAID 5 unit via two QLA2310F Fibre Channel cards. I have EMC's Powerpath software installed to give me multiple paths to the disk subsytem in case of controller or cable failure.

This configuration has served me well but is now about to be End Of Life'd by Dell and I need to grow the storage. There is obviously quite a price premium to pay for this sort of kit so I was hoping to find a cheaper solution for the future.

I have seen the Nexsan ATABEAST which is a 16TB ATA array with dual fibre channel controllers. It seems to be well liked and is reasonably priced but my concern is how to achieve multiple paths to the disk. How would you recommend achieving a highly available configuration with this sort of disk subsystem?

Also, am I correct in thinking that the maximum filesystem size with RHEL 3.0 is 2TB? Is it possible to get over this limitation with LVM or some other method?

Any advice gladly received.

Thanks in advance

Gary Mansell --

This e-mail and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed.
If you have received this e-mail in error please notify the sender immediately and delete this e-mail from your system. Please note that any views
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______________________________________________________________________
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#2 lore raw

On Fri, Nov 19, 2004 at 09:27:47AM -0800, Chris Croswhite alleged:

Quoted 4 lines

I use the ATABoy 2x (dual active/active FC) with great success. I use md to create a failover path (see mdadm) on newer kernels (2.6.9) and I have multiple 3.2T LUNS (multiple ataboys). I use LVM2 to partition some of the LUNs with great success.

How do you solve the problem of lvm2 seeing 3 duplicate PVs (2 paths and 1 md device)? Are you using the filter in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf?

Signature · 2 lines
Garrick Staples, Linux/HPCC Administrator
University of Southern California
#3 lore raw
Quoted 3 lines

How do you solve the problem of lvm2 seeing 3 duplicate PVs (2 paths and 1 md device)? Are you using the filter in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf?

Filter, only look at the md devices.

#4 lore raw
In reply to Chris Croswhite
Quoted 5 lines

I use the ATABoy 2x (dual active/active FC) with great success. I use md to create a failover path (see mdadm) on newer kernels (2.6.9) and I have multiple 3.2T LUNS (multiple ataboys). I use LVM2 to partition some of the LUNs with great success.

I tried using LVM2 on a 2.6.9 kernel to stripe together four 1T LUNs from two 3 Ware 9000 SATA raid controllers to make ~4T file system, but experienced file corruption under heavy I/O loads. In copying large directories into the file system (via tar+rsh/ssh or rsync+rsh/ssh), I'd get files that seemed to have blocks exchanged with a different file. I saw this using XFS, Reiserfs, and EXT3 as the file system in the LVM2 stripe. Some tests I made of a similar configuration using 'md' instead of LVM2 were more successful, but I didn't put quite the I/O load on that configuration.

David S.

Quoted 1 line
#5 lore raw
In reply to Gary Mansell

I have the results I obtained while experimenting with > 2T filesystems on RHEL 3 and FC 2 at the following URL:

http://dcs.nac.uci.edu/~strombrg/nbd.html

It mostly covers NBD and ENBD, but I believe you'll find some things relevant to what you're looking for in it as well - EG there is some md and LVM coverage.

Another alternative is Lustre. It is a filesystem which purports to be able to aggregate the disks of multiple storage computers into one or more gigantic filesystems. It isn't stable for us, but it may be someday. :) The Lustre vendor claims to be able to break not just the 2T barrier, but also the 16T barrier. We do have a lustre filesystem of over 16T set up now, but it remains to be seen what will happen when we actually put over 16T of -data- in it.

Another option may be the "LBD" patches. I haven't tried them, nor even studied about them.

Quoted 60 lines · Gary Mansell

Dear all,

I currently run RHAS3.0 on a Dell PE2650 which is directly attached to an EMC FC4500 2TB HW RAID 5 unit via two QLA2310F Fibre Channel cards. I have EMC's Powerpath software installed to give me multiple paths to the disk subsytem in case of controller or cable failure.

This configuration has served me well but is now about to be End Of Life'd by Dell and I need to grow the storage. There is obviously quite a price premium to pay for this sort of kit so I was hoping to find a cheaper solution for the future.

I have seen the Nexsan ATABEAST which is a 16TB ATA array with dual fibre channel controllers. It seems to be well liked and is reasonably priced but my concern is how to achieve multiple paths to the disk. How would you recommend achieving a highly available configuration with this sort of disk subsystem?

Also, am I correct in thinking that the maximum filesystem size with RHEL 3.0 is 2TB? Is it possible to get over this limitation with LVM or some other method?

Any advice gladly received.

Thanks in advance

Gary Mansell --

This e-mail and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed.
If you have received this e-mail in error please notify the sender immediately and delete this e-mail from your system. Please note that any views
or opinions presented in this e-mail are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Ricardo (save for reports and other
documentation formally approved and signed for release to the intended recipient). Only Directors or Duly Authorised Officers are authorised to
enter into legally binding obligations on behalf of Ricardo unless the obligation is contained within a Ricardo Purchase Order.

Ricardo may monitor outgoing and incoming e-mails and other telecommunications on its e-mail and telecommunications systems. By replying to
this e-mail you give consent to such monitoring. The recipient should check e-mail and any attachments for the presence of viruses. Ricardo accepts no liability for any damage caused by any virus transmitted by this e-mail. "Ricardo" means Ricardo plc and its subsidiary companies.

Ricardo plc is a public limited company registered in England with registered number 00222915.
The registered office of Ricardo plc is Bridge Works,Shoreham-by Sea, West Sussex, BN43 5FG.
_______________________________________________
linux-lvm mailing list
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read the LVM HOW-TO at http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/

#6 lore raw
Quoted 11 lines

Another alternative is Lustre. It is a filesystem which purports to be able to aggregate the disks of multiple storage computers into one or more gigantic filesystems. It isn't stable for us, but it may be someday. :) The Lustre vendor claims to be able to break not just the 2T barrier, but also the 16T barrier. We do have a lustre filesystem of over 16T set up now, but it remains to be seen what will happen when we actually put over 16T of -data- in it.

Another option may be the "LBD" patches. I haven't tried them, nor even studied about them.

You can use PVFS2 (http://www.pvfs.org/pvfs2/) to aggregate disks from multiple servers into on big file system. Though PVFS2 is specifically designed for parallel applications, and may not be suited for your
purposes. You can sort-of do it with AFS (http://www.openafs.org),
with mutiple file servers servicing the same name space. AFS is again
rather different from an "ordinary" file system, however. I know you
can do it with IBM's GPFS (http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/clusters/software/gpfs.html);
we use GPFS here on two servers attached to an IBM SAN to create a
6.5T file system. But if you decide to take a run at GPFS, don't
blame me.

David S.

Quoted 1 line
#7 lore raw
Quoted 10 lines · David S.

You can use PVFS2 (http://www.pvfs.org/pvfs2/) to aggregate disks from multiple servers into on big file system. Though PVFS2 is specifically designed for parallel applications, and may not be suited for your
purposes. You can sort-of do it with AFS (http://www.openafs.org),
with mutiple file servers servicing the same name space. AFS is again
rather different from an "ordinary" file system, however. I know you
can do it with IBM's GPFS (http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/clusters/software/gpfs.html);
we use GPFS here on two servers attached to an IBM SAN to create a
6.5T file system. But if you decide to take a run at GPFS, don't
blame me.

Does PVFS2 have posix semantics these days?

My understanding is that IBM will only support GPFS on IBM hardware...

#8 lore raw

On Fri, Nov 19, 2004 at 04:13:45PM -0800, Dan Stromberg alleged:

Quoted 12 lines · David S.
Quoted 10 lines

You can use PVFS2 (http://www.pvfs.org/pvfs2/) to aggregate disks from multiple servers into on big file system. Though PVFS2 is specifically designed for parallel applications, and may not be suited for your
purposes. You can sort-of do it with AFS (http://www.openafs.org),
with mutiple file servers servicing the same name space. AFS is again
rather different from an "ordinary" file system, however. I know you
can do it with IBM's GPFS (http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/clusters/software/gpfs.html);
we use GPFS here on two servers attached to an IBM SAN to create a
6.5T file system. But if you decide to take a run at GPFS, don't
blame me.

Quoted 1 line

Does PVFS2 have posix semantics these days?

No. I was at the pvfs2 BOF and SC04 last week and this is one of their selling points... much greater scalibity and performance by throwing out half of POSIX.

Quoted 1 line

My understanding is that IBM will only support GPFS on IBM hardware...

Nor is it really FOSS.

Ultimately, it seems to me that GFS over clustered LVM is the way to go; though all the bits don't seem to be quite in place just yet.

Signature · 2 lines
Garrick Staples, Linux/HPCC Administrator
University of Southern California
#9 lore raw
Quoted 4 lines · Garrick Staples
Quoted 1 line

Does PVFS2 have posix semantics these days?

No. I was at the pvfs2 BOF and SC04 last week and this is one of their selling points... much greater scalibity and performance by throwing out half of POSIX.

Thanks for the info!

Quoted 3 lines
Quoted 1 line

My understanding is that IBM will only support GPFS on IBM hardware...

Nor is it really FOSS.

I see. Is it kind of like the Sun Java or Mozilla licenses?

Quoted 2 lines

Ultimately, it seems to me that GFS over clustered LVM is the way to go; though all the bits don't seem to be quite in place just yet.

What's this "clustered LVM" thing? Is it the same as (or built upon) NBD/ENBD? Does it have the 2 terabyte or 16 terabyte limits? Google just turns up some mailing list hits at the top - is there a "stable" release of CLVM yet?

Thanks!

#10 lore raw

On Fri, Nov 19, 2004 at 05:36:26PM -0800, Dan Stromberg alleged:

Quoted 5 lines
Quoted 3 lines
Quoted 1 line

My understanding is that IBM will only support GPFS on IBM hardware...

Nor is it really FOSS.

I see. Is it kind of like the Sun Java or Mozilla licenses?

Last I checked, which has been while now, it was binary-only download; built for only a few specific RH kernels.

Checking now, it's up on developerworks with a BSD license, but I don't actually see any released files.

I'm half-way sure someone is going to correct me here :)

Quoted 7 lines
Quoted 2 lines

Ultimately, it seems to me that GFS over clustered LVM is the way to go; though all the bits don't seem to be quite in place just yet.

What's this "clustered LVM" thing? Is it the same as (or built upon) NBD/ENBD? Does it have the 2 terabyte or 16 terabyte limits? Google just turns up some mailing list hits at the top - is there a "stable" release of CLVM yet?

Cluster extensions for LVM. Given shared storage, a few configs, and running clvmd, you can activate LVs on multiple machines at once. This is great for GFS, where it replaces the gfs "pools".

http://sources.redhat.com/cluster/

As I said, not all of the right bits seem to be in place yet. But I expect RHE4 to be very capable in this department.

Signature · 2 lines
Garrick Staples, Linux/HPCC Administrator
University of Southern California
#11 lore raw
Quoted 8 lines · Garrick Staples
Quoted 7 lines
Quoted 2 lines

Ultimately, it seems to me that GFS over clustered LVM is the way to go; though all the bits don't seem to be quite in place just yet.

What's this "clustered LVM" thing? Is it the same as (or built upon) NBD/ENBD? Does it have the 2 terabyte or 16 terabyte limits? Google just turns up some mailing list hits at the top - is there a "stable" release of CLVM yet?

Quoted 8 lines

Cluster extensions for LVM. Given shared storage, a few configs, and running clvmd, you can activate LVs on multiple machines at once. This is great for GFS, where it replaces the gfs "pools".

http://sources.redhat.com/cluster/

As I said, not all of the right bits seem to be in place yet. But I expect RHE4 to be very capable in this department.

Last I heard:

Sistina (prior to the Redhat purchase) had a roadmap for GFS, which included bringing it up to, but not surpassing, the 16 terabyte limit.

Since the Redhat purchase, my understanding is that this previous roadmap has been scrapped, and there are no longer any immediate plans to raise the GFS filesystem size limit from 2 terabytes to 16 terabytes
- in which case, you can pretty much just use NFS, unless you're stuck with small disks or low density servers. :)

I'd -really-like- to find out this isn't true.

#12 lore raw
Quoted 5 lines · Dan Stromberg

Since the Redhat purchase, my understanding is that this previous roadmap has been scrapped, and there are no longer any immediate plans to raise the GFS filesystem size limit from 2 terabytes to 16 terabytes
- in which case, you can pretty much just use NFS, unless you're stuck with small disks or low density servers. :)

As far as I understand it, right now RHEL3's 2.4 kernel is the cause of the 2TB hard limit. Once everything moves to RHEL4/2.6, you should be able to get significantly higher than the current limit, especially on AMD64 hardware.

I could be completely wrong, though.

Signature · 2 lines
David Aquilina, RHCE
[email protected]
#13 lore raw
In reply to Dan Stromberg
Quoted 5 lines · Dan Stromberg

Last I heard:

Sistina (prior to the Redhat purchase) had a roadmap for GFS, which included bringing it up to, but not surpassing, the 16 terabyte limit.

Plans were always to go way past 16TB, requires 64bit hardware architectures and the 2.6 kernel to push the limits.

Quoted 9 lines

Since the Redhat purchase, my understanding is that this previous roadmap has been scrapped, and there are no longer any immediate plans to raise the GFS filesystem size limit from 2 terabytes to 16 terabytes
- in which case, you can pretty much just use NFS, unless you're stuck with small disks or low density servers. :)

I'd -really-like- to find out this isn't true.

For the 2.6 kernel, GFS should be able to go to 16TB on 32bit machines. On 64 bit machines, the theoretical limit is something like 8 exabytes. If anyone wants to pony up that amount of storage, we would be more than happy to give it a go. In the meantime, smaller sizes are going to be validated. So, plans have not been scrapped or even changed much from Sistina to Red Hat.

Quoted 7 lines

______________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________
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https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-lvm
read the LVM HOW-TO at http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/

#14 lore raw
Quoted 9 lines · Kevin Anderson
Quoted 5 lines · Dan Stromberg

Last I heard:

Sistina (prior to the Redhat purchase) had a roadmap for GFS, which included bringing it up to, but not surpassing, the 16 terabyte limit.

Plans were always to go way past 16TB, requires 64bit hardware architectures and the 2.6 kernel to push the limits.

I see. Thank you for clearing that I'm.

I'm now guessing that the person who told me this was restricting his vision to 32 bit hardware.

Quoted 7 lines
Quoted 7 lines

Since the Redhat purchase, my understanding is that this previous roadmap has been scrapped, and there are no longer any immediate plans to raise the GFS filesystem size limit from 2 terabytes to 16 terabytes
- in which case, you can pretty much just use NFS, unless you're stuck with small disks or low density servers. :)

Quoted 8 lines
Quoted 2 lines

I'd -really-like- to find out this isn't true.

For the 2.6 kernel, GFS should be able to go to 16TB on 32bit machines. On 64 bit machines, the theoretical limit is something like 8 exabytes. If anyone wants to pony up that amount of storage, we would be more than happy to give it a go. In the meantime, smaller sizes are going to be validated. So, plans have not been scrapped or even changed much from Sistina to Red Hat.

Would would GFS on kernel 2.6 do with a bunch of 32 bit machines with disks attached to them, but a 64 bit client?

Is GFS for kernel 2.6 ready at this point? Or nearly so?

Thanks for the great info. :)

Quoted 14 lines
Quoted 7 lines

______________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________
linux-lvm mailing list
[email protected]
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-lvm
read the LVM HOW-TO at http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/

_______________________________________________
linux-lvm mailing list
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https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-lvm
read the LVM HOW-TO at http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/

#15 lore raw

Re: [linux-lvm] Re: lvextend error on XFS

Quoted 45 lines
Quoted 19 lines · Frank J. Buchholz
Quoted 19 lines
Quoted 16 lines · Frank J. Buchholz

Hello,

I recently attempted to extend my logical volume. First I added an additional physical volume to an existing volume group. This worked fine.

vgextend Volume00 /dev/sba
lvextend -L+100G /dev/Volume00/LogVol00

However when it came time to run the lvextend command I received a number of device-mapper errors. While I was trying to determine what the errors were I noticed that the filesystem that sits on the logical volume being extended was no longer available. I attempted to umount the filesystem however the command froze. I then rebooted the system without mounting the filesystem in question and manually mounted the filesystem. XFS reported back that it could not locate the superblock.

Quoted 4 lines
Quoted 2 lines

I have done lvextend followed by xfs_growfs many times without any problems. Have you checked for hardware errors?

Unfortunately the timing is far too coincidental to be a hardware error.

Since you had just added another disk, it may not be so coincidental after all.

Quoted 6 lines

Just after typing the following command and recieving the following error lvm> lvextend -L+1G /dev/Volume00/LogVol00
Extending logical volume LogVol00 to 2.93 TB
device-mapper ioctl cmd 9 failed: Invalid argument
Couldn't load device 'Volume00-LogVol00'.
Problem reactivating LogVol00

The last line would explain why the filesystem went offline. Something went wrong just after the LV had been extended, and was about to be reactivated.

Quoted 5 lines

I then noticed that the filesystem on LogVol00 was no longer available and when I ran xfs_repair it stated the following:

# xfs_repair /dev/Volume00/LogVol00 Phase 1 - find and verify superblock...
superblock read failed, offset 0, size 524288, ag 0, rval 0
Quoted 10 lines
Quoted 1 line

fatal error -- Invalid argument

What does "dmesg" have to say about this?

I had a problem once with some strange errors from a disk. It turned out the cable wasn't plugged in properly.

Signature · 2 lines
M�ns Rullg�rd
mru inprovide com

Hello M�ns
I now realize how I created this problem, I just don't know how to fix it.

I mistakingly added /dev/sba as the physical volume to a volume group that contained /dev/sba1, the one partition on sba. These are essentially one in the same. So when I executed the lvextend command device-mapper had an error. I'm honestly surprised it did anything, especially write over the superblock on the filesystem.

Any direction on how I can recover from within LVM? I never was able to execute the xfs_grow so I'm hoping the data in the filesystem still exists.

Thanks,
Frank

#16 lore raw

Re: [linux-lvm] Re: lvextend error on XFS

Quoted 5 lines · Frank J. Buchholz
Quoted 5 lines
Quoted 5 lines

I then noticed that the filesystem on LogVol00 was no longer available and when I ran xfs_repair it stated the following:

# xfs_repair /dev/Volume00/LogVol00 Phase 1 - find and verify superblock...
superblock read failed, offset 0, size 524288, ag 0, rval 0
Quoted 8 lines
Quoted 2 lines
Quoted 1 line

fatal error -- Invalid argument

Hello M�ns
I now realize how I created this problem, I just don't know how to fix it.

I mistakingly added /dev/sba as the physical volume to a volume group that contained /dev/sba1, the one partition on sba. These are essentially one in the same. So when I executed the lvextend command device-mapper had an error. I'm honestly surprised it did anything, especially write over the superblock on the filesystem.

Any direction on how I can recover from within LVM? I never was able to execute the xfs_grow so I'm hoping the data in the filesystem still exists.

try
xfs_repair -n -o /dev/Volume00/LogVol00
Then remove the -n

(man xfs_repair)

David

#17 lore raw

Re: [linux-lvm] Re: lvextend error on XFS

Quoted 24 lines · David Greaves
Quoted 8 lines · Frank J. Buchholz
Quoted 8 lines
Quoted 6 lines

I then noticed that the filesystem on LogVol00 was no longer available and when I ran xfs_repair it stated the following:

# xfs_repair /dev/Volume00/LogVol00 Phase 1 - find and verify superblock...
superblock read failed, offset 0, size 524288, ag 0, rval 0

fatal error -- Invalid argument

Quoted 6 lines

Hello M�ns
I now realize how I created this problem, I just don't know how to fix it.

I mistakingly added /dev/sba as the physical volume to a volume group that contained /dev/sba1, the one partition on sba. These are essentially one in the same. So when I executed the lvextend command device-mapper had an error. I'm honestly surprised it did anything, especially write over the superblock on the filesystem.

Any direction on how I can recover from within LVM? I never was able to execute the xfs_grow so I'm hoping the data in the filesystem still exists.

try
xfs_repair -n -o /dev/Volume00/LogVol00
Then remove the -n

(man xfs_repair)

Quoted 7 lines

David

_______________________________________________
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https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-lvm
read the LVM HOW-TO at http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/

Unfortunately I've already tried this. Here are the results.

# xfs_repair -n -o assume_xfs /dev/Volume00/LogVol00
Phase 1 - find and verify superblock...
superblock read failed, offset 0, size 524288, ag 0, rval 0

fatal error -- Invalid argument

I've discussed on the XFS list and they recommended I try to repair this via LVM.

Given that I never ran xfs_growfs, is it possible to reduce the logical volume back to the original size and then remove the physical volume that caused the problem? Is there someway to recover back using a previous .vg file in /etc/lvm/archive?

Thanks,
Frank

#18 lore raw
In reply to Dan Stromberg
Quoted 12 lines · Dan Stromberg
Quoted 10 lines · David S.

You can use PVFS2 (http://www.pvfs.org/pvfs2/) to aggregate disks from multiple servers into on big file system. Though PVFS2 is specifically designed for parallel applications, and may not be suited for your
purposes. You can sort-of do it with AFS (http://www.openafs.org),
with mutiple file servers servicing the same name space. AFS is again
rather different from an "ordinary" file system, however. I know you
can do it with IBM's GPFS (http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/clusters/software/gpfs.html);
we use GPFS here on two servers attached to an IBM SAN to create a
6.5T file system. But if you decide to take a run at GPFS, don't
blame me.

Quoted 1 line

Does PVFS2 have posix semantics these days?

It has a kernel interface, so it supports the familiar open(2), lseek(2), read(2), write(2), ... calls. It doesn't provide POSIX semantics.

Quoted 3 lines

My understanding is that IBM will only support GPFS on IBM hardware...

Our SAN is from IBM, and our servers and most of our clients are IBM-branded commodity x86 hardware. IBM will support GPFS on non-IBM commodity hardware if you pay it enough. But you'd have to really enjoy pain to pay for GPFS.

David S.

Quoted 1 line
#19 lore raw
Quoted 4 lines · David S.
Quoted 1 line

Does PVFS2 have posix semantics these days?

It has a kernel interface, so it supports the familiar open(2), lseek(2), read(2), write(2), ... calls. It doesn't provide POSIX semantics.

What's different then? Are stat and friends still there and non- neutered? Or are we talking more along the lines of just minor things (to my current application) like sync/fsync differences?

Quoted 8 lines
Quoted 3 lines

My understanding is that IBM will only support GPFS on IBM hardware...

Our SAN is from IBM, and our servers and most of our clients are IBM-branded commodity x86 hardware. IBM will support GPFS on non-IBM commodity hardware if you pay it enough. But you'd have to really enjoy pain to pay for GPFS.

Why is GPFS painful? Do you have an order-of-magnitude guesstimate of how much you'd have to pay IBM to support GPFS on non-IBM hardware?

Thanks!