Hi all.
I need a cluster-safe filesystem for a SAN shared storage in Slackware.
Any experience about it? Red Hat's GFS is the best/only solution?
Given GFS support in a custom kernel, what about tools (mkfs,mount...)?

Not sure that the slackware forum is the right focus, not slackware-specific.

Oracle and IBM both make contributions in addition to Red Hat.

Try here to get a more definition: http://www.yolinux.com/TUTORIALS/Lin...leSystems.html

Cheers,

Why not? GFS is native in Red Hat distribution, filesystem support is included in Linux kernel, I just would know about a Slackware experience.
I saw the page you pointed a while ago. Thanks for the link anyway.
Regards

Hi,



So you've shown us your need! What's your deed?
We will aid you when you help yourself to a solution. Provide us with what you have attempted and then maybe someone will be able to assist.

A simple Google search provided;
Use Linux as a SAN Provider | Linux Journal which seems to provide some insight and is a good article to read for reference.

It depends on what you are doing with the medium in the SAN.

For example, I got an optical jukebox working quite nicely with Slackware+autofs+sshfs+samba+http. However! I never quite worked out (because of time) decoding dvds or accessing audio CDs. It worked very well for data disks though.

Additionally autofs doesn't work with nfs or ftp. Which is why I used sshfs.

OK, I should have been clearer ...
We do have a SAN infrastructure (double HBA on servers, Fibre channel switches, FC disk arrays). I have no problems accessing SAN luns and mount filesystems on SAN disks.
I have no experience with GFS2 filesystem (or another free one which is cluster-aware) in slackware. Since GFS is a redhat product (though released as open source). I compiled GFS support in kernel and now I'm wondering if there are any issues with gfs-tools compiling and using, or If I even should consider a different filesystem to share cluster resources and (KVM) virtual machine disk-files.
Anyone already did the same I am going to do?

I certainly did

You can use GFS2 or OCFS2 (I prefer OCFS2 as it was A LOT simpler to setup).

Both GFS2 and OCFS2 kernel modules are already in stock Slackware, so no need to recompile kernel.

What you need to do to make it usable in Slackware is compile the userland tools.

I used a 2 node cluster and it worked out just fine.
I did not try to export the OCFS2 through nfs or samba, but did use mysql server in each node sharing the same database (they both RW to the database at the same time).

Note: I never got the GUI tools to work properly, but the configuration is very well documented so you'll be just fine using the command line

Since I used this on Slackware 12.2 my slackbuild scripts are not up to date... but I'll help you getting things running if you want.
I'll eventually do it myself because I also need a SAN to store my VMs

What's difficult with GFS? Having filesystem and distributed lock manager support in kernel, shouldn't it be straightforward? Just compile userspace tools, mkfs and mount?

Would you share the slackbuilds anyway? should be easy to port them to 13.1/64 version...

First, you said you had no experience with ANY cluster filesystem in Slackware, so I gave you my opinion about it, since I tried both GFS2 and OCFS2.
Second, I never said GFS2 was difficult... just that OCFS2 was simpler.
GFS2 has way more dependencies, thus, it _is_ (IMHO) less simple to setup than OCFS2 but, like with every advice you get, following it is quite optional so you are welcome to try out GFS2.

I'm traveling right now. As soon as I return I'll get my old Slackware 12.2 box out of the storage house and search for the scripts.
Like I said, I also need to update them to Slackware 13.1
If I'm happy with the scripts' quality, I'll submit them to slackbuilds.org as well.

We have a redhat cluster installation, which could access SAN GFS filesystems without modifications, that's the reason I looked at GFS2 first. Didn't mind to dislike your advice: I would try OCFS2 now, and hope you share your experience about it.
I wish you a good journey and see you soon.

Hi Slax-Dude, did you retrieve the slackbuilds?
If you are too busy to edit them would you post them (or pm me) just as they are?
Regards

Sorry for the late reply.
I found my old slackbuild and updated it.
It compiles in slackware64 13.1 (didn't try slackware 13.1).

Just remove the .txt from the attached files.

Attached Files

	ocfs2-tools.SlackBuild.txt (4.1 KB, 60 views)
	slack-desc.txt (899 Bytes, 48 views)

1 members found this post helpful.

autofs does work with nfs. I've used it at work in a Slackware 12 environment where we used ClearCase dynamic views. The view store was on nfs mounts, which would be accessed by "/net/<machine_name>". Worked like a champ.

Sorry for not thanking you 'til now. I was busy in other projects, and I'm now returning to the cluster filesystem...
In the meantime 1.6.4 was released.
For all interested, this version needs and additional patch line for o2info's Makefile.
I attach the updated slackbuild. It works in Slackware64 13.37 too.

Attached Files

ocfs2-tools.SlackBuild.164.txt (4.3 KB, 69 views)

Thanks for posting the slackbuilds. Just wanted to you to know someone else appreciates your work