From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: James Sefton Subject: Re: Kernel Oops (bCache hangs on registering 3rd device) Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2012 16:02:57 +0000 (UTC) Message-ID: References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: Sender: linux-bcache-owner-u79uwXL29TY76Z2rM5mHXA@public.gmane.org To: linux-bcache-u79uwXL29TY76Z2rM5mHXA@public.gmane.org List-Id: linux-bcache@vger.kernel.org Joseph Glanville writes: > >> > >> Though not a fix, a workaround could be to use LVM rather than partitions. > >> > >> LVM ontop of bcache works quite nicely you just need to add the > >> following to /etc/lvm.conf > >> > >> types = [ "bcache", 16 ] > >> > >> Also check your filter line to ensure that /dev/bcacheX will be scanned as a > > PV. > >> > >> Once you have done that you can create a volume group as usual: > >> > >> vgcreate vg0 /dev/bcache0 > >> > >> And then any number of LVs: > >> > >> lvcreate -n root -L50G vg0 > >> > >> In my opinion this is considerably better than partitions. > >> > >> Joseph. > >> > > > > I wish I could do that but the cache devices are being exposed to virtual > > machines as virtual disks and so the clients could easily repartition them back > > which would then reproduce the conflicting block device numbers. > > > > I am also not sure how well LVM might cope if the PV's (etc..) were detected > > both in the host operating system and within a guest. > > > > What kind of guests are these? > > If I am correct this is some sort of VPS environment, probably Xen or KVM? > > In that case if you pass through a logical volume and you properly > adjust the filter in the host OS to only scan the bcache devices and > not traverse recursively this works perfectly. > The guest OS will be able to partition the logical volume and the > guest will not be able the see the underlying volume group. > > > Joseph. > Hi Joseph, Again, thank you for putting in the time to help me. Yes, it is KVM. I don't think I had thought about it the way you describe. (Passing an LV to KVM instead of the bcache device) I will certainly give it a try. Sounds like it could solve all my problems. I will drop a reply here if it works. Thanks again, James