The end of the Solaris Cluster /globaldevices file system

I have been working with [Sun|Solaris] for as long as I can recall. One thing that always annoyed me was the need to have a 512MB file system devoted to /globaldevices. With Sun Cluster 3.2 update 2, this is no longer the case!:

  >>> Global Devices File System <<<

    Each node in the cluster must have a local file system mounted on
    /global/.devices/node@ before it can successfully participate
    as a cluster member. Since the "nodeID" is not assigned until
    scinstall is run, scinstall will set this up for you.

    You must supply the name of either an already-mounted file system or a
    raw disk partition which scinstall can use to create the global
    devices file system. This file system or partition should be at least
    512 MB in size.

    Alternatively, you can use a loopback file (lofi), with a new file
    system, and mount it on /global/.devices/node@.

    If an already-mounted file system is used, the file system must be
    empty. If a raw disk partition is used, a new file system will be
    created for you.

    If the lofi method is used, scinstall creates a new 100 MB file system
    from a lofi device by using the file /.globaldevices. The lofi method
    is typically preferred, since it does not require the allocation of a
    dedicated disk slice.

    The default is to use /globaldevices.

    Is it okay to use this default (yes/no) [yes]? yes

    Testing for "/globaldevices" on "snode1" ... failed

/globaldevices is not a directory or file system mount point.
Cannot use "/globaldevices" on "snode1".

    Is it okay to use the lofi method (yes/no) [yes]?  yes



This is pretty sweet, and I am SOOOOO glad that /globaldevices as a separate file system is no more! Thanks goes out to the Solaris cluster team for making this wish list item a reality! :)

matty on March 22, 2009 | Filed Under Solaris Cluster

One Comment

Nick  on March 22nd, 2009

Hi,

I know this is a bit off topic, but I could not find any email address at the webpage.

I face an issue a couple of days a go that got me thinking.
I made a 3 way stripe on SVM:

#metainit d90 1 3 c1t0d0s2 c1t1d0s2 c1t2d0s2

And then I wanted to add a new disk to the stripe:

#metattach d90 c1t2d0s2

However I would expect (and anyone else) that this would expand the stripe to become something like (on metastat -p):

d90 1 4 c1t0d0s2 c1t1d0s2 c1t2d0s2 c1t2d0s2

But it ended up concating the stripe with the new disk like this:

d90 1 3 c1t0d0s2 c1t1d0s2 c1t2d0s2 \
1 c1t2d0s2

So, I began to wonder withut any answer ( AND I THOUGHT YOU COULD HELP ME HERE) if there is a way to add a disk to a stripe without it becoming a concat.

Nick.

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