RE: [linux-lvm] Core questions from a LVM neophyte...

RE: [linux-lvm] Core questions from a LVM neophyte...

[Barry, Christopher]

I'm up Andy - after a bunch of hacking/compiling/hacking cycles. (conflicts with ext3).

Thanks so much for your help!

--
Christopher Barry
Manager of Information Systems
InfiniCon Systems
http://www.infiniconsys.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Andy Francke [mailto:afrancke@cisco.com]
Sent: Monday, March 10, 2003 6:04 PM
To: linux-lvm@sistina.com
Subject: RE: [linux-lvm] Core questions from a LVM neophyte...


> Will this work against 2.4.20?

The 2.4.19 device-mapper ioctl patch applied cleanly to my 2.4.20 kernel,
and that's what I've been using.

Andy


_______________________________________________
linux-lvm mailing list
linux-lvm@sistina.com
http://lists.sistina.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-lvm
read the LVM HOW-TO at http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/

RE: [linux-lvm] Core questions from a LVM neophyte...

[Andy Francke]

> I'm up Andy - after a bunch of hacking/compiling/hacking cycles.
> (conflicts with ext3).
>
> Thanks so much for your help!
> read the LVM HOW-TO at http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/

Glad it worked out. I hope that one day this will all be much, much easier -
guess that's life on the bleeding edge.

Andy

Re: [linux-lvm] Core questions from a LVM neophyte...

[Kevin P. Fleming]

Andy Francke wrote:
>>I'm up Andy - after a bunch of hacking/compiling/hacking cycles.
>>(conflicts with ext3).
>>
>>Thanks so much for your help!
>>read the LVM HOW-TO at http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/
> 
> 
> Glad it worked out. I hope that one day this will all be much, much easier -
> guess that's life on the bleeding edge.
> 
> Andy

And on the real bleeding edge, with 2.5.X this is all very much easier. 
LVM2's device-mapper and XFS are in the stock kernel, and are simple to 
configure in and use. I converted my primary server a little over a week 
ago and have only had some minor issues to deal with. Not for everyone, 
certainly, but it does make the whole MD/LVM/XFS situation far easier to 
deal with.

RE: [linux-lvm] Core questions from a LVM neophyte...

[Barry, Christopher]

Stephen,
	What do you want it for - backups? Why not samba over GigE?

--
Christopher Barry
Manager of Information Systems
InfiniCon Systems
http://www.infiniconsys.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Stephen Perkins [mailto:perkins@netmass.com]
Sent: Monday, March 10, 2003 4:14 PM
To: linux-lvm@sistina.com
Subject: RE: [linux-lvm] Core questions from a LVM neophyte...


Hi all,
 
> 	I have built a very cool NAS box, and want to use LVM2 
> on it. My machine is as follows:
> 
> Tyan Thunder i7500 w/ 2-2.4GHz XEON processors.
> 2GB RAM
> 3ware Escalade 7500-12 IDE RAID controller
> 12-160GB Maxtor IDE HDs
> System on a separate 20GB Maxtor HD
> Floppy, slimline CDROM, and a DVDRW drive.
> All in a 12-bay chassis from 
> http://www.rackmountpro.com/productpage.cfm?> prodid=1460
> 
> This 
> config gives me 1.8TB of RAID 5 for under 
> $8K - not too shabby.

This is a superb value and I'm very interested in your proposed "how-to"
site.

I am wanting to deploy some larger virtualized storage in a mixed
Linux/W2K environment.    Is anybody out there exporting virtualized
volumes to Win2K boxes?  If so, how?  I checked HyperSCSI and they do
not appear to have a Win2K client (although a beta is supposed to be
coming soon).  I have not yet found target information for Linux along
with a known interoperable Win2K initiator.  Anybody doing it?

Disk performance is not so much an issue for me since the disk arrays
will be replacing large tape libraries.  Even with pathetic performance,
they should behave much faster than large AIT libraries.  

Question 1:  Is it possible today to:

Have a large IDE RAID5 array that is virtualized through LVM and then
exported to a Dynamic Disk on Win2K over a LAN (not necessarily WAN)?

I believe iSCSI and HyperSCSI would both work... However I have not
found the approporiate interoperable software drivers.

Question 2: The system that is described above is a linux system with
direct attached storage.  It is a SPOF.  Any inexpensive solutions that
would allow the Linux portion to be clustered for active/pasive
failover?  Is FC the only alternative here?

TIA,

- Steve

RE: [linux-lvm] Core questions from a LVM neophyte...

[Stephen Perkins]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 3417 bytes --]


I'm interested in a block level export.  The exported space will be used
as the disk part of an Hierarchical Storage Manager that is backed up by
qualstar tape libraries.  We have several such systems and I would like
to try to consolidate the disk portions of each into a "SAN" like
environment.  At the same time, we are also looking at more customer
disk based storage.  I have several storage servers (hopefully running
Linux soon but running W2K now) that need access to large areas of
storage.  I would like to carve and export virtualized chunks for this
as well.  

The main reason for the block level export is that the software we use
does not support "NAS" type network disks.  They only support "locally
attached" drives.  iSCSI would at least appear as a local SCSI disk.

For management purposes, I would like to have a single way to export
everything.  This may or may not be feasible at present.

- Steve

> Stephen,
> 	What do you want it for - backups? Why not samba over GigE?
> 
> --
> Christopher Barry
> Manager of Information Systems
> InfiniCon Systems
> http://www.infiniconsys.com
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Stephen Perkins [mailto:perkins@netmass.com]
> Sent: Monday, March 10, 2003 4:14 PM
> To: linux-lvm@sistina.com
> Subject: RE: [linux-lvm] Core questions from a LVM neophyte...
> 
> 
> Hi all,
>  
> > 	I have built a very cool NAS box, and want to use LVM2 
> > on it. My machine is as follows:
> > 
> > Tyan Thunder i7500 w/ 2-2.4GHz XEON processors.
> > 2GB RAM
> > 3ware Escalade 7500-12 IDE RAID controller
> > 12-160GB Maxtor IDE HDs
> > System on a separate 20GB Maxtor HD
> > Floppy, slimline CDROM, and a DVDRW drive.
> > All in a 12-bay chassis from 
> > http://www.rackmountpro.com/productpage.cfm?> prodid=1460
> > 
> > This 
> > config gives me 1.8TB of RAID 5 for under 
> > $8K - not too shabby.
> 
> This is a superb value and I'm very interested in your 
> proposed "how-to"
> site.
> 
> I am wanting to deploy some larger virtualized storage in a mixed
> Linux/W2K environment.    Is anybody out there exporting virtualized
> volumes to Win2K boxes?  If so, how?  I checked HyperSCSI and they do
> not appear to have a Win2K client (although a beta is supposed to be
> coming soon).  I have not yet found target information for Linux along
> with a known interoperable Win2K initiator.  Anybody doing it?
> 
> Disk performance is not so much an issue for me since the disk arrays
> will be replacing large tape libraries.  Even with pathetic 
> performance,
> they should behave much faster than large AIT libraries.  
> 
> Question 1:  Is it possible today to:
> 
> Have a large IDE RAID5 array that is virtualized through LVM and then
> exported to a Dynamic Disk on Win2K over a LAN (not necessarily WAN)?
> 
> I believe iSCSI and HyperSCSI would both work... However I have not
> found the approporiate interoperable software drivers.
> 
> Question 2: The system that is described above is a linux system with
> direct attached storage.  It is a SPOF.  Any inexpensive 
> solutions that
> would allow the Linux portion to be clustered for active/pasive
> failover?  Is FC the only alternative here?
> 
> TIA,
> 
> - Steve
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> linux-lvm mailing list
> linux-lvm@sistina.com
> http://lists.sistina.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-lvm
> read the LVM HOW-TO at http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/
> 

[-- Attachment #2: smime.p7s --]
[-- Type: application/x-pkcs7-signature, Size: 3786 bytes --]

RE: [linux-lvm] Core questions from a LVM neophyte...

[Barry, Christopher]

Will this work against 2.4.20?

--
Christopher Barry
Manager of Information Systems
InfiniCon Systems
http://www.infiniconsys.com
office: 610.233.4747
direct: 610.233.4870
cell:   267.879.8321


-----Original Message-----
From: Andy Francke [mailto:afrancke@cisco.com]
Sent: Monday, March 10, 2003 5:51 PM
To: linux-lvm@sistina.com
Subject: RE: [linux-lvm] Core questions from a LVM neophyte...


> OK, so I RTFM'd and have the LVM2 patch created against the
> vanilla kernel.org 2.4.20. Sorry for asking such a dumb question.
> Also, just got the latest xfs patch from sgi too, and am awaiting
> your instructions on what to change before applying either.
> read the LVM HOW-TO at http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/

Here's the patch for the devmapper patch. Navigate to whatever directory
contains "linux-2.4.19-devmapper-ioctl.patch" on your system (likely
/usr/src/kernel-patches/all/device-mapper). Uudecode and unzip the patch
attached (inline) - you will then want to patch your devmapper patch file by
running:

"patch -p0 < linux-2.4.19-devmapper-ioctl-patch.patch"

Make a copy of your linux-2.4.19-devmapper-ioctl.patch first so you can do a
before and after diff - the net result should be the deletion of several
lines following "BH_Inode" and the changing of a few line count numbers
above to compensate.

Now both devmapper and the XFS patches will apply cleanly. Do the XFS
patches first.

RE: [linux-lvm] Core questions from a LVM neophyte...

[Andy Francke]

> Will this work against 2.4.20?

The 2.4.19 device-mapper ioctl patch applied cleanly to my 2.4.20 kernel,
and that's what I've been using.

Andy

RE: [linux-lvm] Core questions from a LVM neophyte...

[Barry, Christopher]

Andy,
OK, so I RTFM'd and have the LVM2 patch created against the vanilla kernel.org 2.4.20. Sorry for asking such a dumb question. Also, just got the latest xfs patch from sgi too, and am awaiting your instructions on what to change before applying either.

Patiently Yours,

--
Christopher Barry
Manager of Information Systems
InfiniCon Systems
http://www.infiniconsys.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Barry, Christopher 
Sent: Monday, March 10, 2003 1:30 PM
To: linux-lvm@sistina.com
Subject: RE: [linux-lvm] Core questions from a LVM neophyte...


Andy,

Cool! I wanted to use 2.4.20, but had trouble finding the correct patches for it. Could you send to me - or better, post - the XFS patch you hacked to work? I'll pull down 2.4.20 now as a package from debian.org (it likely has some fixes from vanilla). Also, if you have a link to the 2.4.20 device-mapper patch, that would be appreciated as well.

As far as make-kpkg goes, it's fairly easy, and very slick. I use it all the time, however this is the first time I've used it to apply patches. I recommend it highly.

And yes, I do get the same 'resource collision' error, which I have not even bothered to research yet. But otherwise, the Tyan board is sweet. Once I get this up and running, my plan is to create a how-to site with pictures of the construction, links to vendors, and configuration info so others can get a great big storage device for minimal cost too.

Thanks,

--
Christopher Barry
Manager of Information Systems
InfiniCon Systems
http://www.infiniconsys.com


-----Original Message-----
From: Andy Francke [mailto:afrancke@cisco.com]
Sent: Monday, March 10, 2003 11:44 AM
To: linux-lvm@sistina.com
Subject: RE: [linux-lvm] Core questions from a LVM neophyte...


> Thanks for the quick reply. It seems that my patching was
> incorrect. I did not get the device-mapper option in menuconfig.
> Not sure if you are aware of Debian's make-kpkg program, but here
> is the command I used to construct my (apparently not very well)
> patched kernel:
>
> make-kpkg --added_patches=xfs,device-mapper --config=menuconfig
> kernel_image modules
>
> If anyone sees an error in this please let me know. If I was to
> bypass the make-kpkg method of adding patches, what would be the
> command to apply the patches directly?
> read the LVM HOW-TO at http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/

Hi Christopher,

I constructed the "baby brother" of your NAS box a few months ago (great
minds think alike - or it was just a coincidence :)):
- Tyan 2721 ThunderPro i7500 w/single 2.4 CPU
- 1GB RAM
- 3ware 7500-8
- 4 Maxtor 80GB drives
- 9 drive hotswap case (looks just like yours, only 3U)

I am running Debian 2.4.20 unstable + XFS + LVM2

I had a hell of a time getting XFS and device-mapper to apply (because I am
new to Linux and because I am naturally leery of manually editing things to
make them work). Specifically, XFS and device-mapper did NOT apply cleanly -
they both touched the same area of fs.h (as I recall). Since they were each
interested in extending the same enum list, I simply modified the XFS patch
to make it work. If anybody on this list is interested in seeing the
required change, I would be happy to forward it so that XFS and LVM2 will
play better on 2.4 in their stock configurations.

I don't use make-kpkg (in part because I don't understand it). If you go to
your kernel source tree and run /usr/src/kernel-patches/all/apply/<patch
name> you will be manually patching your tree. Be sure to tar your vanilla
tree first - I made all sorts of mistakes while attempting to patch and I
wanted to be able to revert at a moment's notice. I'm glad I got the 2.4
Xeon rather than using some older CPU & MB because I had to rebuild so many
times!

Now I am happy (apart from a weird error at Linux boot that I have variously
seen attributed to the i7500 chipset - do you see "PCI: Device 00:1f.1 not
available because of resource collisions" in your boot messages?) Also,
there are the multiple mysterious "invalidate: busy buffer" messages, but I
gather from searching the LVM lists that this is a known issue, not an
error, and may be safely ignored.

Andy


_______________________________________________
linux-lvm mailing list
linux-lvm@sistina.com
http://lists.sistina.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-lvm
read the LVM HOW-TO at http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/

_______________________________________________
linux-lvm mailing list
linux-lvm@sistina.com
http://lists.sistina.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-lvm
read the LVM HOW-TO at http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/

RE: [linux-lvm] Core questions from a LVM neophyte...

[Andy Francke]

> OK, so I RTFM'd and have the LVM2 patch created against the
> vanilla kernel.org 2.4.20. Sorry for asking such a dumb question.
> Also, just got the latest xfs patch from sgi too, and am awaiting
> your instructions on what to change before applying either.
> read the LVM HOW-TO at http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/

Here's the patch for the devmapper patch. Navigate to whatever directory
contains "linux-2.4.19-devmapper-ioctl.patch" on your system (likely
/usr/src/kernel-patches/all/device-mapper). Uudecode and unzip the patch
attached (inline) - you will then want to patch your devmapper patch file by
running:

"patch -p0 < linux-2.4.19-devmapper-ioctl-patch.patch"

Make a copy of your linux-2.4.19-devmapper-ioctl.patch first so you can do a
before and after diff - the net result should be the deletion of several
lines following "BH_Inode" and the changing of a few line count numbers
above to compensate.

Now both devmapper and the XFS patches will apply cleanly. Do the XFS
patches first.

begin 644 linux-2.4.19-devmapper-ioctl-patch.patch.bz2
M0EIH.3%!629366D)1^4``&M?@`(P0'__^'1US(J_]]_@0`(57-E;:"40@)M)
M/!-":/48@,30R&FGH02IHT*>C%)^E-'J&F0`!H``&AS``3``$P`````$HD-`
MD]E";4PU#T!#"80Q#&DQ72Q:-8G@7O!HA4W1"R_*W)WQB1?91$8E6'?-^G!L
MW"9L1CZ\F5V(I#=;E"'?'62X+X707/GEOOHJJ5JJYHW0JZI8NE'&@2=HVRNG
M.BMU;%\]:7)5/9SW8.28V@R[13%G0<HHFA4I"QB"ZH<-K[%TX^T\PE3("S.%
M%+!&!!$$YTA]):Q)Q*@;9B$]PEK9N<'9RK2&8'(IL%-8\&!2?*C85H#X\8AZ
M0JH-"42_),2R#(EA&Z$2;6]TY[A<$0G,A08KF*U7Q)7+"Q`C$)R-F%(591GV
M`4`][,R_-:'P(WB&QGCF<^)BZ]>G<AQX\K_+TVMZI(%)SHF_EOB.>I(_>:0D
M<UD,1_+M%52M&8HSUD*4!<X\S/+!A&4"(.X"3VD/B\\ME7-<K:4&,<6+6LDO
MX-C@&E&!P]S@4%G",N!E*6&U,"JUXXB&!]KVBI@8#IK00/$)J2,?(VZBT*+-
M5&@K1V&$%S0&5"-<`F/SEB""4H&[6W')[T&&45ZC+9IW$54#)JNC>*F+(8DN
MK2"NE+%#LBYP/@HD6VP=9[V&R%%3[Y\L-.+1*F+I)?0UY'`J$RY`=597DH&$
BB!*^R,W@TAK?"3528P1:E2R19889,O^+N2*<*$@TA*/R@```

RE: [linux-lvm] Core questions from a LVM neophyte...

[Barry, Christopher]

Andy,

Cool! I wanted to use 2.4.20, but had trouble finding the correct patches for it. Could you send to me - or better, post - the XFS patch you hacked to work? I'll pull down 2.4.20 now as a package from debian.org (it likely has some fixes from vanilla). Also, if you have a link to the 2.4.20 device-mapper patch, that would be appreciated as well.

As far as make-kpkg goes, it's fairly easy, and very slick. I use it all the time, however this is the first time I've used it to apply patches. I recommend it highly.

And yes, I do get the same 'resource collision' error, which I have not even bothered to research yet. But otherwise, the Tyan board is sweet. Once I get this up and running, my plan is to create a how-to site with pictures of the construction, links to vendors, and configuration info so others can get a great big storage device for minimal cost too.

Thanks,

--
Christopher Barry
Manager of Information Systems
InfiniCon Systems
http://www.infiniconsys.com


-----Original Message-----
From: Andy Francke [mailto:afrancke@cisco.com]
Sent: Monday, March 10, 2003 11:44 AM
To: linux-lvm@sistina.com
Subject: RE: [linux-lvm] Core questions from a LVM neophyte...


> Thanks for the quick reply. It seems that my patching was
> incorrect. I did not get the device-mapper option in menuconfig.
> Not sure if you are aware of Debian's make-kpkg program, but here
> is the command I used to construct my (apparently not very well)
> patched kernel:
>
> make-kpkg --added_patches=xfs,device-mapper --config=menuconfig
> kernel_image modules
>
> If anyone sees an error in this please let me know. If I was to
> bypass the make-kpkg method of adding patches, what would be the
> command to apply the patches directly?
> read the LVM HOW-TO at http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/

Hi Christopher,

I constructed the "baby brother" of your NAS box a few months ago (great
minds think alike - or it was just a coincidence :)):
- Tyan 2721 ThunderPro i7500 w/single 2.4 CPU
- 1GB RAM
- 3ware 7500-8
- 4 Maxtor 80GB drives
- 9 drive hotswap case (looks just like yours, only 3U)

I am running Debian 2.4.20 unstable + XFS + LVM2

I had a hell of a time getting XFS and device-mapper to apply (because I am
new to Linux and because I am naturally leery of manually editing things to
make them work). Specifically, XFS and device-mapper did NOT apply cleanly -
they both touched the same area of fs.h (as I recall). Since they were each
interested in extending the same enum list, I simply modified the XFS patch
to make it work. If anybody on this list is interested in seeing the
required change, I would be happy to forward it so that XFS and LVM2 will
play better on 2.4 in their stock configurations.

I don't use make-kpkg (in part because I don't understand it). If you go to
your kernel source tree and run /usr/src/kernel-patches/all/apply/<patch
name> you will be manually patching your tree. Be sure to tar your vanilla
tree first - I made all sorts of mistakes while attempting to patch and I
wanted to be able to revert at a moment's notice. I'm glad I got the 2.4
Xeon rather than using some older CPU & MB because I had to rebuild so many
times!

Now I am happy (apart from a weird error at Linux boot that I have variously
seen attributed to the i7500 chipset - do you see "PCI: Device 00:1f.1 not
available because of resource collisions" in your boot messages?) Also,
there are the multiple mysterious "invalidate: busy buffer" messages, but I
gather from searching the LVM lists that this is a known issue, not an
error, and may be safely ignored.

Andy


_______________________________________________
linux-lvm mailing list
linux-lvm@sistina.com
http://lists.sistina.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-lvm
read the LVM HOW-TO at http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/

RE: [linux-lvm] Core questions from a LVM neophyte...

[Barry, Christopher]

Thanks for the quick reply. It seems that my patching was incorrect. I did not get the device-mapper option in menuconfig. Not sure if you are aware of Debian's make-kpkg program, but here is the command I used to construct my (apparently not very well) patched kernel:

make-kpkg --added_patches=xfs,device-mapper --config=menuconfig kernel_image modules

If anyone sees an error in this please let me know. If I was to bypass the make-kpkg method of adding patches, what would be the command to apply the patches directly?

PS I do not have an /etc/lvm/config. I do have /etc/lvm/lvm.conf - is that what you meant? It looks like the default is to allow all /dev/. I think I have a mispatched kernel - that's my guess.


Thanks again,

--
Christopher Barry
Manager of Information Systems
InfiniCon Systems
http://www.infiniconsys.com


-----Original Message-----
From: Joe Thornber [mailto:joe@fib011235813.fsnet.co.uk]
Sent: Monday, March 10, 2003 10:46 AM
To: linux-lvm@sistina.com
Subject: Re: [linux-lvm] Core questions from a LVM neophyte...


On Mon, Mar 10, 2003 at 10:36:31AM -0500, Barry, Christopher wrote:
> In the kernel config, in the RAID section I checked the LVM option to
> be in the kernel. Is this correct? It seems that I'm getting LVM
> version 1. Do/should I select this if I've patched the kernel?

You should just check the 'device-mapper' option.

> I try 'pvcreate /dev/sda' and get an error saying the device is not found. However, 'fdisk /dev/sda' shows the device exists.

Check the device filters in /etc/lvm/config

> Should I use pvcreate directly on the raw RAID 5 device, or partition it first?

The raw device.

> My plan was to use LVM2 to create several logical volumes on a
> single RAID 5 device that I could adjust for size over time and create
> a snapshot volume to extract backups from. Is this a good idea? I mean
> is this a good use of LVM2, or not?

Sounds fine.

- Joe

_______________________________________________
linux-lvm mailing list
linux-lvm@sistina.com
http://lists.sistina.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-lvm
read the LVM HOW-TO at http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/

RE: [linux-lvm] Core questions from a LVM neophyte...

[Andy Francke]

> Thanks for the quick reply. It seems that my patching was
> incorrect. I did not get the device-mapper option in menuconfig.
> Not sure if you are aware of Debian's make-kpkg program, but here
> is the command I used to construct my (apparently not very well)
> patched kernel:
>
> make-kpkg --added_patches=xfs,device-mapper --config=menuconfig
> kernel_image modules
>
> If anyone sees an error in this please let me know. If I was to
> bypass the make-kpkg method of adding patches, what would be the
> command to apply the patches directly?
> read the LVM HOW-TO at http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/

Hi Christopher,

I constructed the "baby brother" of your NAS box a few months ago (great
minds think alike - or it was just a coincidence :)):
- Tyan 2721 ThunderPro i7500 w/single 2.4 CPU
- 1GB RAM
- 3ware 7500-8
- 4 Maxtor 80GB drives
- 9 drive hotswap case (looks just like yours, only 3U)

I am running Debian 2.4.20 unstable + XFS + LVM2

I had a hell of a time getting XFS and device-mapper to apply (because I am
new to Linux and because I am naturally leery of manually editing things to
make them work). Specifically, XFS and device-mapper did NOT apply cleanly -
they both touched the same area of fs.h (as I recall). Since they were each
interested in extending the same enum list, I simply modified the XFS patch
to make it work. If anybody on this list is interested in seeing the
required change, I would be happy to forward it so that XFS and LVM2 will
play better on 2.4 in their stock configurations.

I don't use make-kpkg (in part because I don't understand it). If you go to
your kernel source tree and run /usr/src/kernel-patches/all/apply/<patch
name> you will be manually patching your tree. Be sure to tar your vanilla
tree first - I made all sorts of mistakes while attempting to patch and I
wanted to be able to revert at a moment's notice. I'm glad I got the 2.4
Xeon rather than using some older CPU & MB because I had to rebuild so many
times!

Now I am happy (apart from a weird error at Linux boot that I have variously
seen attributed to the i7500 chipset - do you see "PCI: Device 00:1f.1 not
available because of resource collisions" in your boot messages?) Also,
there are the multiple mysterious "invalidate: busy buffer" messages, but I
gather from searching the LVM lists that this is a known issue, not an
error, and may be safely ignored.

Andy

[linux-lvm] Core questions from a LVM neophyte...

[Barry, Christopher]

Greetings all,

	I have built a very cool NAS box, and want to use LVM2 on it. My machine is as follows:

Tyan Thunder i7500 w/ 2-2.4GHz XEON processors.
2GB RAM
3ware Escalade 7500-12 IDE RAID controller
12-160GB Maxtor IDE HDs
System on a separate 20GB Maxtor HD
Floppy, slimline CDROM, and a DVDRW drive.
All in a 12-bay chassis from http://www.rackmountpro.com/productpage.cfm?prodid=1460

This config gives me 1.8TB of RAID 5 for under $8K - not too shabby.

The box is up and running Debian. I compiled 2.4.19, adding in the device-mapper patch, and the latest xfs patch.

My questions are as follows:

In the kernel config, in the RAID section I checked the LVM option to be in the kernel. Is this correct? It seems that I'm getting LVM version 1. Do/should I select this if I've patched the kernel?

I try 'pvcreate /dev/sda' and get an error saying the device is not found. However, 'fdisk /dev/sda' shows the device exists.

Should I use pvcreate directly on the raw RAID 5 device, or partition it first?

My plan was to use LVM2 to create several logical volumes on a single RAID 5 device that I could adjust for size over time and create a snapshot volume to extract backups from. Is this a good idea? I mean is this a good use of LVM2, or not?


Sorry if these questions are really basic, and thanks to all of you for any assistance you can throw my way.

Cheers,


--
Christopher Barry
Manager of Information Systems
InfiniCon Systems
http://www.infiniconsys.com

Re: [linux-lvm] Core questions from a LVM neophyte...

[Joe Thornber]

On Mon, Mar 10, 2003 at 10:36:31AM -0500, Barry, Christopher wrote:
> In the kernel config, in the RAID section I checked the LVM option to
> be in the kernel. Is this correct? It seems that I'm getting LVM
> version 1. Do/should I select this if I've patched the kernel?

You should just check the 'device-mapper' option.

> I try 'pvcreate /dev/sda' and get an error saying the device is not found. However, 'fdisk /dev/sda' shows the device exists.

Check the device filters in /etc/lvm/config

> Should I use pvcreate directly on the raw RAID 5 device, or partition it first?

The raw device.

> My plan was to use LVM2 to create several logical volumes on a
> single RAID 5 device that I could adjust for size over time and create
> a snapshot volume to extract backups from. Is this a good idea? I mean
> is this a good use of LVM2, or not?

Sounds fine.

- Joe

RE: [linux-lvm] Core questions from a LVM neophyte...

[Stephen Perkins]

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Hi all,
 
> 	I have built a very cool NAS box, and want to use LVM2 
> on it. My machine is as follows:
> 
> Tyan Thunder i7500 w/ 2-2.4GHz XEON processors.
> 2GB RAM
> 3ware Escalade 7500-12 IDE RAID controller
> 12-160GB Maxtor IDE HDs
> System on a separate 20GB Maxtor HD
> Floppy, slimline CDROM, and a DVDRW drive.
> All in a 12-bay chassis from 
> http://www.rackmountpro.com/productpage.cfm?> prodid=1460
> 
> This 
> config gives me 1.8TB of RAID 5 for under 
> $8K - not too shabby.

This is a superb value and I'm very interested in your proposed "how-to"
site.

I am wanting to deploy some larger virtualized storage in a mixed
Linux/W2K environment.    Is anybody out there exporting virtualized
volumes to Win2K boxes?  If so, how?  I checked HyperSCSI and they do
not appear to have a Win2K client (although a beta is supposed to be
coming soon).  I have not yet found target information for Linux along
with a known interoperable Win2K initiator.  Anybody doing it?

Disk performance is not so much an issue for me since the disk arrays
will be replacing large tape libraries.  Even with pathetic performance,
they should behave much faster than large AIT libraries.  

Question 1:  Is it possible today to:

Have a large IDE RAID5 array that is virtualized through LVM and then
exported to a Dynamic Disk on Win2K over a LAN (not necessarily WAN)?

I believe iSCSI and HyperSCSI would both work... However I have not
found the approporiate interoperable software drivers.

Question 2: The system that is described above is a linux system with
direct attached storage.  It is a SPOF.  Any inexpensive solutions that
would allow the Linux portion to be clustered for active/pasive
failover?  Is FC the only alternative here?

TIA,

- Steve




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