Subject: OCFS2 - FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Doc ID: 391771.1 Type: FAQ

Modified Date: 10-JUN-2009 Status: PUBLISHED

In this Document
Purpose
Questions and Answers
GENERAL
DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL
CONFIGURE
O2CB CLUSTER SERVICE
FORMAT
RESIZE
MOUNT
ORACLE RAC
MIGRATE DATA FROM OCFS (RELEASE 1) TO OCFS2
COREUTILS
EXPORTING VIA NFS
TROUBLESHOOTING
LIMITS
SYSTEM FILES
HEARTBEAT
QUORUM AND FENCING
NOVELL'S SLES9 and SLES10
RELEASE 1.2
UPGRADE TO THE LATEST RELEASE
PROCESSES
BUILD RPMS FOR HOTFIX KERNELS
BACKUP SUPER BLOCK
CONFIGURING CLUSTER TIMEOUTS
ENTERPRISE LINUX 5
References

Applies to:

Linux Kernel - Version: 1.2

Oracle Server - Enterprise Edition - Version: 9.2.0.1 to 10.2.0.1
IBM zSeries Based Linux
Linux Itanium
Linux x86-64
IBM Power Based Linux
Linux x86

Purpose

This Metalink Note duplicates the OCFS2 FAQ that can be found at the following URL:

http://oss.oracle.com/projects/ocfs2/dist/documentation/v1.2/ocfs2_faq.html

The intent is to make the OCFS2 FAQ searchable by Metalink when customers are creating SRs and also for Oracle Support
analysts when researching OCFS2 issues.

This note will be compared periodically against the master document on the oss.oracle.com website and will be updated as needed
to remain accurate with that document.

Users of this note are encourage to refer to http://oss.oracle.com/projects/ocfs2/dist/documentation/v1.2/ocfs2_faq.html for the

latest updates.

Questions and Answers

GENERAL

1. How do I get started?

* Download and install the module and tools rpms.
* Create cluster.conf and propagate to all nodes.
* Configure and start the O2CB cluster service.
* Format the volume.
* Mount the volume.

2. How do I know the version number running?

# cat /proc/fs/ocfs2/version
OCFS2 1.2.8 Tue Feb 12 20:22:48 EST 2008 (build 9c7ae8bb50ef6d8791df2912775adcc5)

3. How do I configure my system to auto-reboot after a panic?

To auto-reboot system 60 secs after a panic, do:

# echo 60 > /proc/sys/kernel/panic

To enable the above on every reboot, add the following to /etc/sysctl.conf:

kernel.panic = 60

DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL

4. Where do I get the packages from?

For Oracle Enterprise Linux 4 and 5, use the up2date command as follows:

# up2date --install ocfs2-tools ocfs2console

# up2date --install ocfs2-`uname -r`

For Novell's SLES9, use yast to upgrade to the latest SP3 kernel to get the required modules installed. Also, install the ocfs2-tools
and ocfs2console packages.
For Novell's SLES10, install ocfs2-tools and ocfs2console packages. For Red Hat's RHEL4 and RHEL5, download and install the
appropriate module package and the two tools packages, ocfs2-tools and ocfs2console. Appropriate module refers to one matching
the kernel version, flavor and architecture. Flavor refers to smp, hugemem, etc.

5. What are the latest versions of the OCFS2 packages?

The latest module package version is 1.2.9-1 for both Enterprise Linux 4 and 5.
The latest tools/console package version is 1.2.7-1 for both Enterprise Linux 4 and 5.6.

6. How do I interpret the package name ocfs2-2.6.9-22.0.1.ELsmp-1.2.1-1.i686.rpm?

The package name is comprised of multiple parts separated by '-'.
* ocfs2 - Package name
* 2.6.9-22.0.1.ELsmp - Kernel version and flavor
* 1.2.1 - Package version
* 1 - Package subversion
* i686 - Architecture

7. How do I know which package to install on my box?

After one identifies the package name and version to install, one still needs to determine the kernel version, flavor and architecture.
To know the kernel version and flavor, do:

# uname -r
2.6.9-22.0.1.ELsmp

To know the architecture, do:

# rpm -qf /boot/vmlinuz-`uname -r` --queryformat "%{ARCH}\n"

i686

8. Why can't I use uname -p to determine the kernel architecture?

uname -p does not always provide the exact kernel architecture. Case in point the RHEL3 kernels on x86_64. Even though Red Hat
has two different kernel architectures available for this port, ia32e and x86_64, uname -p identifies both as the generic x86_64.

9. How do I install the rpms?

First install the tools and console packages:

# rpm -Uvh ocfs2-tools-1.2.1-1.i386.rpm ocfs2console-1.2.1-1.i386.rpm

Then install the appropriate kernel module package:

# rpm -Uvh ocfs2-2.6.9-22.0.1.ELsmp-1.2.1-1.i686.rpm

10. Do I need to install the console?
No, the console is not required but recommended for ease-of-use.

11. What are the dependencies for installing ocfs2console?

ocfs2console requires e2fsprogs, glib2 2.2.3 or later, vte 0.11.10 or later, pygtk2 (RHEL4) or python-gtk (SLES9) 1.99.16 or later,
python 2.3 or later and ocfs2-tools.

12. What modules are installed with the OCFS2 1.2 package?
* configfs.ko
* ocfs2.ko
* ocfs2_dlm.ko
* ocfs2_dlmfs.ko
* ocfs2_nodemanager.ko
* debugfs
The kernel shipped along with Enterprise Linux 5 includes configfs.ko and debugfs.ko.

13. What tools are installed with the ocfs2-tools 1.2 package?
* mkfs.ocfs2
* fsck.ocfs2
* tunefs.ocfs2
* debugfs.ocfs2
* mount.ocfs2
* mounted.ocfs2
* ocfs2cdsl
* ocfs2_hb_ctl
* o2cb_ctl
* o2cb - init service to start/stop the cluster
* ocfs2 - init service to mount/umount ocfs2 volumes
* ocfs2console - installed with the console package

14. What is debugfs and is it related to debugfs.ocfs2?

debugfs is an in-memory filesystem developed by Greg Kroah-Hartman. It is useful for debugging as it allows kernel space to easily
export data to userspace. It is currently being used by OCFS2 to dump the list of filesystem locks and could be used for more in the
future. It is bundled with OCFS2 as the various distributions are currently not bundling it. While debugfs and debugfs.ocfs2 are
unrelated in general, the latter is used as the front-end for the debugging info provided by the former. For example, refer to the
troubleshooting section.

CONFIGURE

15. How do I populate /etc/ocfs2/cluster.conf?

If you have installed the console, use it to create this configuration file. For details, refer to the user's guide. If you do not have the
console installed, check the Appendix in the User's guide for a sample cluster.conf and the details of all the components. Do not
forget to copy this file to all the nodes in the cluster. If you ever edit this file on any node, ensure the other nodes are updated as
well.

16. Should the IP interconnect be public or private?

Using a private interconnect is recommended. While OCFS2 does not take much bandwidth, it does require the nodes to be alive on
the network and sends regular keepalive packets to ensure that they are. To avoid a network delay being interpreted as a node
disappearing on the net which could lead to a node-self-fencing, a private interconnect is recommended. One could use the same
interconnect for Oracle RAC and OCFS2.

17. What should the node name be and should it be related to the IP address?
The node name needs to match the hostname. The IP address need not be the one associated with that hostname. As in, any valid
IP address on that node can be used. OCFS2 will not attempt to match the node name (hostname) with the specified IP address.

18. How do I modify the IP address, port or any other information specified in cluster.conf?
While one can use ocfs2console to add nodes dynamically to a running cluster, any other modifications require the cluster to be
offlined. Stop the cluster on all nodes, edit /etc/ocfs2/cluster.conf on one and copy to the rest, and restart the cluster on all nodes.
Always ensure that cluster.conf is the same on all the nodes in the cluster.

19. How do I add a new node to an online cluster?

You can use the console to add a new node. However, you will need to explicitly add the new node on all the online nodes. That is,
adding on one node and propagating to the other nodes is not sufficient. If the operation fails, it will most likely be due to bug#741.
In that case, you can use the o2cb_ctl utility on all online nodes as follows:

# o2cb_ctl -C -i -n NODENAME -t node -a number=NODENUM -a ip_address=IPADDR -a ip_port=IPPORT -a

cluster=CLUSTERNAME

20. # How do I add a new node to an offline cluster?

You can either use the console or use o2cb_ctl or simply hand edit cluster.conf. Then either use the console to propagate it to all
nodes or hand copy using scp or any other tool. The o2cb_ctl command to do the same is:

# o2cb_ctl -C -n NODENAME -t node -a number=NODENUM -a ip_address=IPADDR -a ip_port=IPPORT -a

cluster=CLUSTERNAME

Notice the "-i" argument is not required as the cluster is not online.

O2CB CLUSTER SERVICE

21. How do I configure the cluster service?

# /etc/init.d/o2cb configure

Enter 'y' if you want the service to load on boot and the name of the cluster (as listed in /etc/ocfs2/cluster.conf) and the cluster
timeouts

.
22. How do I start the cluster service?
* To load the modules, do:

# /etc/init.d/o2cb load

* To Online it, do:

# /etc/init.d/o2cb online [cluster_name]

If you have configured the cluster to load on boot, you could combine the two as follows:

# /etc/init.d/o2cb start [cluster_name]

The cluster name is not required if you have specified the name during configuration.

23. How do I stop the cluster service?

* To offline it, do:

# /etc/init.d/o2cb offline [cluster_name]

* To unload the modules, do:

# /etc/init.d/o2cb unload

If you have configured the cluster to load on boot, you could combine the two as follows:

# /etc/init.d/o2cb stop [cluster_name]

The cluster name is not required if you have specified the name during configuration.

24. How can I learn the status of the cluster?

To learn the status of the cluster, do:

# /etc/init.d/o2cb status

25. I am unable to get the cluster online. What could be wrong?

Check whether the node name in the cluster.conf exactly matches the hostname. One of the nodes in the cluster.conf need to be in
the cluster for the cluster to be online.

FORMAT

26. Should I partition a disk before formatting?

Yes, partitioning is recommended even if one is planning to use the entire disk for ocfs2. Apart from the fact that partitioned disks
are less likely to be "reused" by mistake, some features like mount-by-label only work with partitioned volumes.
Use fdisk or parted or any other tool for the task.

27. How do I format a volume?

You could either use the console or use mkfs.ocfs2 directly to format the volume. For console, refer to the user's guide.
mkfs.ocfs2 -L "oracle_home" /dev/sdX

The above formats the volume with default block and cluster sizes, which are computed based upon the size of the volume.

# mkfs.ocfs2 -b 4k -C 32K -L "oracle_home" -N 4 /dev/sdX

The above formats the volume for 4 nodes with a 4K block size and a 32K cluster size.

28. What does the number of node slots during format refer to?
The number of node slots specifies the number of nodes that can concurrently mount the volume. This number is specified during
format and can be increased using tunefs.ocfs2. This number cannot be decreased.

29. What should I consider when determining the number of node slots?
OCFS2 allocates system files, like Journal, for each node slot. So as to not to waste space, one should specify a number within the
ballpark of the actual number of nodes. Also, as this number can be increased, there is no need to specify a much larger number
than one plans for mounting the volume.

30. Does the number of node slots have to be the same for all volumes?
No. This number can be different for each volume.

31. What block size should I use?

A block size is the smallest unit of space addressable by the file system. OCFS2 supports block sizes of 512 bytes, 1K, 2K and 4K.
The block size cannot be changed after the format. For most volume sizes, a 4K size is recommended. On the other hand, the 512
bytes block is never recommended.

32. What cluster size should I use?

A cluster size is the smallest unit of space allocated to a file to hold the data. OCFS2 supports cluster sizes of 4K, 8K, 16K, 32K,
64K, 128K, 256K, 512K and 1M. For database volumes, a cluster size of 128K or larger is recommended. For Oracle home, 32K to
64K.

33. Any advantage of labelling the volumes?

As in a shared disk environment, the disk name (/dev/sdX) for a particular device be different on different nodes, labelling becomes
a must for easy identification. You could also use labels to identify volumes during mount.

# mount -L "label" /dir

The volume label is changeable using the tunefs.ocfs2 utility.

RESIZE

34. Can OCFS2 file systems be grown in size?

Yes, you can grow an OCFS2 file system using tunefs.ocfs2. It should be noted that the tool will only resize the file system and not
the underlying partition. You can use fdisk(8) (or any appropriate tool for your disk array) to resize the partition.

35.What do I need to know to use fdisk(8) to resize the partition?

To grow a partition using fdisk(8), you will have to delete it and recreate it with a larger size. When recreating it, ensure you specify
the same starting disk cylinder as before and a ending disk cylinder that is greater than the existing one. Otherwise, not only will the
resize operation fail, but you may lose your entire file system. Backup your data before performing this task.

36. Short of reboot, how do I get the other nodes in the cluster to see the resized partition?
Use blockdev(8) to rescan the partition table of the device on the other nodes in the cluster.

# blockdev --rereadpt /dev/sdX

37. What is the tunefs.ocfs2 syntax for resizing the file system?
To grow a file system to the end of the resized partition, do:

# tunefs.ocfs2 -S /dev/sdX

For more, refer to the tunefs.ocfs2 manpage.

38. Can the OCFS2 file system be grown while the file system is in use?
No. tunefs.ocfs2 1.2.2 only allows offline resize. i.e., the file system cannot be mounted on any node in the cluster. The online resize
capability will be added later.

39. Can the OCFS2 file system be shrunk in size?

No. We have no current plans on providing this functionality. However, if you find this feature useful, file an enhancement request on
bugzilla listing your reasons for the same.
MOUNT

40. How do I mount the volume?

You could either use the console or use mount directly. For console, refer to the user's guide.

# mount -t ocfs2 /dev/sdX /dir

The above command will mount device /dev/sdX on directory /dir.

41. How do I mount by label?

To mount by label do:

# mount -L "label" /dir

42. What entry to I add to /etc/fstab to mount an ocfs2 volume?

Add the following:

/dev/sdX /dir ocfs2 _netdev 0 0

The _netdev option indicates that the devices needs to be mounted after the network is up.

43. What do I need to do to mount OCFS2 volumes on boot?

* Enable o2cb service using:

# chkconfig --add o2cb

* Enable ocfs2 service using:

# chkconfig --add ocfs2

* Configure o2cb to load on boot using:

# /etc/init.d/o2cb configure

* Add entries into /etc/fstab as follows:

/dev/sdX /dir ocfs2 _netdev 0 0

44. How do I know my volume is mounted?

* Enter mount without arguments, or,

# mount

* List /etc/mtab, or,

# cat /etc/mtab

* List /proc/mounts, or,

# cat /proc/mounts

* Run ocfs2 service.

# /etc/init.d/ocfs2 status

mount command reads the /etc/mtab to show the information.

45. What are the /config and /dlm mountpoints for?

OCFS2 comes bundled with two in-memory filesystems configfs and ocfs2_dlmfs. configfs is used by the ocfs2 tools to
communicate to the in-kernel node manager the list of nodes in the cluster and to the in-kernel heartbeat thread the resource to
heartbeat on. ocfs2_dlmfs is used by ocfs2 tools to communicate with the in-kernel dlm to take and release clusterwide locks on
resources.

46. Why does it take so much time to mount the volume?

It takes around 5 secs for a volume to mount. It does so so as to let the heartbeat thread stabilize. In a later release, we plan to
add support for a global heartbeat, which will make most mounts instant.

47. Why does it take so much time to umount the volume?

During umount, the dlm has to migrate all the mastered lockres' to an another node in the cluster. In 1.2, the lockres migration is a
synchronous operation. We are looking into making it asynchronous so as to reduce the time it takes to migrate the lockres'. (While
we have improved this performance in 1.2.5, the task of asynchronously migrating lockres' has been pushed to the 1.4 time frame.)
To find the number of lockres in all dlm domains, do:

# cat /proc/fs/ocfs2_dlm/*/stat
local=60624, remote=1, unknown=0, key=0x8619a8da

local refers to locally mastered lockres'.

ORACLE RAC

48. Any special flags to run Oracle RAC?

OCFS2 volumes containing the Voting diskfile (CRS), Cluster registry (OCR), Data files, Redo logs, Archive logs and Control files
must be mounted with the datavolume and nointr mount options. The datavolume option ensures that the Oracle processes opens
these files with the o_direct flag. The nointr option ensures that the ios are not interrupted by signals.

# mount -o datavolume,nointr -t ocfs2 /dev/sda1 /u01/db

49. What about the volume containing Oracle home?

Oracle home volume should be mounted normally, that is, without the datavolume and nointr mount options. These mount options
are only relevant for Oracle files listed above.

# mount -t ocfs2 /dev/sdb1 /software/orahome

# Also as OCFS2 does not currently support shared writeable mmap, the health check (GIMH) file $ORACLE_HOME/dbs
/hc_ORACLESID.dat and the ASM file $ASM_HOME/dbs/ab_ORACLESID.dat should be symlinked to local filesystem. We expect
to support shared writeable mmap in the OCFS2 1.4 release.

50. Does that mean I cannot have my data file and Oracle home on the same volume?
Yes. The volume containing the Oracle data files, redo-logs, etc. should never be on the same volume as the distribution (including
the trace logs like, alert.log).

51. Any other information I should be aware off?

The 1.2.3 release of OCFS2 does not update the modification time on the inode across the cluster for non-extending writes.
However, the time will be locally updated in the cached inodes. This leads to one observing different times (ls -l) for the same file on
different nodes on the cluster.
While this does not affect most uses of the filesystem, as one variably changes the file size during write, the one usage where this
is most commonly experienced is with Oracle datafiles and redologs. This is because Oracle rarely resizes these files and thus
almost all writes are non-extending.
In OCFS2 1.4, we intend to fix this by updating modification times for all writes while providing an opt-out mount option (nocmtime)
for users who would prefer to avoid the performance overhead associated with this feature.

MIGRATE DATA FROM OCFS (RELEASE 1) TO OCFS2

52. Can I mount OCFS volumes as OCFS2?

No. OCFS and OCFS2 are not on-disk compatible. We had to break the compatibility in order to add many of the new features. At
the same time, we have added enough flexibility in the new disk layout so as to maintain backward compatibility in the future.

53. Can OCFS volumes and OCFS2 volumes be mounted on the same machine simultaneously?
No. OCFS only works on 2.4 linux kernels (Red Hat's AS2.1/EL3 and SuSE's SLES8). OCFS2, on the other hand, only works on the
2.6 kernels (RHEL4, SLES9 and SLES10).

54. Can I access my OCFS volume on 2.6 kernels (SLES9/SLES10/RHEL4)?

Yes, you can access the OCFS volume on 2.6 kernels using FSCat tools, fsls and fscp. These tools can access the OCFS volumes
at the device layer, to list and copy the files to another filesystem. FSCat tools are available on oss.oracle.com.

55. Can I in-place convert my OCFS volume to OCFS2?

No. The on-disk layout of OCFS and OCFS2 are sufficiently different that it would require a third disk (as a temporary buffer)
inorder to in-place upgrade the volume. With that in mind, it was decided not to develop such a tool but instead provide tools to copy
data from OCFS without one having to mount it.

56. What is the quickest way to move data from OCFS to OCFS2?
Quickest would mean having to perform the minimal number of copies. If you have the current backup on a non-OCFS volume
accessible from the 2.6 kernel install, then all you would need to do is to retore the backup on the OCFS2 volume(s). If you do not
have a backup but have a setup in which the system containing the OCFS2 volumes can access the disks containing the OCFS
volume, you can use the FSCat tools to extract data from the OCFS volume and copy onto OCFS2.
COREUTILS

57. Like with OCFS (Release 1), do I need to use o_direct enabled tools to perform cp, mv, tar, etc.?
No. OCFS2 does not need the o_direct enabled tools. The file system allows processes to open files in both o_direct and bufferred
mode concurrently.

EXPORTING VIA NFS

58. Can I export an OCFS2 file system via NFS?

Yes, you can export files on OCFS2 via the standard Linux NFS server. Please note that only NFS version 3 and above will work. In
practice, this means clients need to be running a 2.4.x kernel or above.

59. Is there no solution for the NFS v2 clients?

NFS v2 clients can work if the server exports the volumes with the no_subtree_check option. However, this has some security
implications that is documented in the exports manpage.

TROUBLESHOOTING

60. How do I enable and disable filesystem tracing?

To list all the debug bits along with their statuses, do:

# debugfs.ocfs2 -l

To enable tracing the bit SUPER, do:

# debugfs.ocfs2 -l SUPER allow

To disable tracing the bit SUPER, do:

# debugfs.ocfs2 -l SUPER off

To totally turn off tracing the SUPER bit, as in, turn off tracing even if some other bit is enabled for the same, do:

# debugfs.ocfs2 -l SUPER deny

To enable heartbeat tracing, do:

# debugfs.ocfs2 -l HEARTBEAT ENTRY EXIT allow

To disable heartbeat tracing, do:

# debugfs.ocfs2 -l HEARTBEAT off ENTRY EXIT deny

61. How do I get a list of filesystem locks and their statuses?

OCFS2 1.0.9+ has this feature. To get this list, do:

* Mount debugfs is mounted at /debug (EL4) or /sys/kernel/debug (EL5).

# mount -t debugfs debugfs /debug

- OR -
# mount -t debugfs debugfs /sys/kernel/debug

* Dump the locks.

# echo "fs_locks" | debugfs.ocfs2 /dev/sdX >/tmp/fslocks

62. How do I read the fs_locks output?

Let's look at a sample output:

Lockres: M000000000000000006672078b84822 Mode: Protected Read

Flags: Initialized Attached
RO Holders: 0 EX Holders: 0
Pending Action: None Pending Unlock Action: None
Requested Mode: Protected Read Blocking Mode: Invalid

First thing to note is the Lockres, which is the lockname. The dlm identifies resources using locknames. A lockname is a combination
of a lock type (S superblock, M metadata, D filedata, R rename, W readwrite), inode number and generation.
To get the inode number and generation from lockname, do:

#echo "stat " | debugfs.ocfs2 -n /dev/sdX

Inode: 419616 Mode: 0666 Generation: 2025343010 (0x78b84822)
....

To map the lockname to a directory entry, do:

# echo "locate " | debugfs.ocfs2 -n /dev/sdX

419616 /linux-2.6.15/arch/i386/kernel/semaphore.c

One could also provide the inode number instead of the lockname.

# echo "locate <419616>" | debugfs.ocfs2 -n /dev/sdX

419616 /linux-2.6.15/arch/i386/kernel/semaphore.c

To get a lockname from a directory entry, do:

# echo "encode /linux-2.6.15/arch/i386/kernel/semaphore.c" | debugfs.ocfs2 -n /dev/sdX

M000000000000000006672078b84822 D000000000000000006672078b84822 W000000000000000006672078b84822

The first is the Metadata lock, then Data lock and last ReadWrite lock for the same resource.

The DLM supports 3 lock modes: NL no lock, PR protected read and EX exclusive.

If you have a dlm hang, the resource to look for would be one with the "Busy" flag set.

The next step would be to query the dlm for the lock resource.

Note: The dlm debugging is still a work in progress.

To do dlm debugging, first one needs to know the dlm domain, which matches the volume UUID.

# echo "stats" | debugfs.ocfs2 -n /dev/sdX | grep UUID: | while read a b ; do echo $b ; done
82DA8137A49A47E4B187F74E09FBBB4B

Then do:

# echo R dlm_domain lockname > /proc/fs/ocfs2_dlm/debug

For example:

# echo R 82DA8137A49A47E4B187F74E09FBBB4B M000000000000000006672078b84822 > /proc/fs/ocfs2_dlm/debug

# dmesg | tail
struct dlm_ctxt: 82DA8137A49A47E4B187F74E09FBBB4B, node=79, key=965960985
lockres: M000000000000000006672078b84822, owner=75, state=0 last used: 0, on purge list: no
granted queue:
type=3, conv=-1, node=79, cookie=11673330234144325711, ast=(empty=y,pend=n), bast=(empty=y,pend=n)
converting queue:
blocked queue:

It shows that the lock is mastered by node 75 and that node 79 has been granted a PR lock on the resource.

This is just to give a flavor of dlm debugging.

LIMITS

63. Is there a limit to the number of subdirectories in a directory?

Yes. OCFS2 currently allows up to 32000 subdirectories. While this limit could be increased, we will not be doing it till we implement
some kind of efficient name lookup (htree, etc.).

64. Is there a limit to the size of an ocfs2 file system?

Yes, current software addresses block numbers with 32 bits. So the file system device is limited to (2 ^ 32) * blocksize (see mkfs
-b). With a 4KB block size this amounts to a 16TB file system. This block addressing limit will be relaxed in future software. At that
point the limit becomes addressing clusters of 1MB each with 32 bits which leads to a 4PB file system.

SYSTEM FILES
65.What are system files?
System files are used to store standard filesystem metadata like bitmaps, journals, etc. Storing this information in files in a directory
allows OCFS2 to be extensible. These system files can be accessed using debugfs.ocfs2. To list the system files, do:

# echo "ls -l //" | debugfs.ocfs2 -n /dev/sdX

18 16 1 2 .
18 16 2 2 ..
19 24 10 1 bad_blocks
20 32 18 1 global_inode_alloc
21 20 8 1 slot_map
22 24 9 1 heartbeat
23 28 13 1 global_bitmap
24 28 15 2 orphan_dir:0000
25 32 17 1 extent_alloc:0000
26 28 16 1 inode_alloc:0000
27 24 12 1 journal:0000
28 28 16 1 local_alloc:0000
29 3796 17 1 truncate_log:0000

The first column lists the block number.

66. Why do some files have numbers at the end?

There are two types of files, global and local. Global files are for all the nodes, while local, like journal:0000, are node specific. The
set of local files used by a node is determined by the slot mapping of that node. The numbers at the end of the system file name is
the slot#. To list the slot maps, do:

# echo "slotmap" | debugfs.ocfs2 -n /dev/sdX

Slot# Node#
0 39
1 40
2 41
3 42

HEARTBEAT

67. How does the disk heartbeat work?

Every node writes every two secs to its block in the heartbeat system file. The block offset is equal to its global node number. So
node 0 writes to the first block, node 1 to the second, etc. All the nodes also read the heartbeat sysfile every two secs. As long as
the timestamp is changing, that node is deemed alive.

68. When is a node deemed dead?

An active node is deemed dead if it does not update its timestamp for O2CB_HEARTBEAT_THRESHOLD (default=31) loops. Once
a node is deemed dead, the surviving node which manages to cluster lock the dead node's journal, recovers it by replaying the
journal.

69. What about self fencing?

A node self-fences if it fails to update its timestamp for ((O2CB_HEARTBEAT_THRESHOLD - 1) * 2) secs. The [o2hb-xx] kernel
thread, after every timestamp write, sets a timer to panic the system after that duration. If the next timestamp is written within that
duration, as it should, it first cancels that timer before setting up a new one. This way it ensures the system will self fence if for
some reason the [o2hb-x] kernel thread is unable to update the timestamp and thus be deemed dead by other nodes in the cluster.

70. How can one change the parameter value of O2CB_HEARTBEAT_THRESHOLD?

This parameter value could be changed by adding it to /etc/sysconfig/o2cb and RESTARTING the O2CB cluster. This value should
be the SAME on ALL the nodes in the cluster.

71. What should one set O2CB_HEARTBEAT_THRESHOLD to?

It should be set to the timeout value of the io layer. Most multipath solutions have a timeout ranging from 60 secs to 120 secs. For
60 secs, set it to 31. For 120 secs, set it to 61.

O2CB_HEARTBEAT_THRESHOLD = (((timeout in secs) / 2) + 1)

72. How does one check the current active O2CB_HEARTBEAT_THRESHOLD value?

# cat /proc/fs/ocfs2_nodemanager/hb_dead_threshold
7

73. What if a node umounts a volume?

During umount, the node will broadcast to all the nodes that have mounted that volume to drop that node from its node maps. As the
journal is shutdown before this broadcast, any node crash after this point is ignored as there is no need for recovery.
74. I encounter "Kernel panic - not syncing: ocfs2 is very sorry to be fencing this system by panicing" whenever I run a heavy io
load?
We have encountered a bug with the default CFQ io scheduler which causes a process doing heavy io to temporarily starve out
other processes. While this is not fatal for most environments, it is for OCFS2 as we expect the hb thread to reading from and
writing to the hb area atleast once every 12 secs (default). This bug has been addressed by Red Hat in RHEL4 U4 (2.6.9-42.EL)
and Novell in SLES9 SP3 (2.6.5-7.257). If you wish to use the DEADLINE io scheduler, you could do so by appending
"elevator=deadline" to the kernel command line as follows:

* For SLES9, edit the command line in /boot/grub/menu.lst.

title Linux 2.6.5-7.244-bigsmp (with deadline)

kernel (hd0,4)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.5-7.244-bigsmp root=/dev/sda5
vga=0x314 selinux=0 splash=silent resume=/dev/sda3 elevator=deadline showopts console=tty0 console=ttyS0,115200 noexec=off
initrd (hd0,4)/boot/initrd-2.6.5-7.244-bigsmp

* For RHEL4, edit the command line in /boot/grub/grub.conf:

title Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS (2.6.9-22.EL) (with deadline)

root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.9-22.EL ro root=LABEL=/ console=ttyS0,115200 console=tty0 elevator=deadline noexec=off
initrd /initrd-2.6.9-22.EL.img

To see the current kernel command line, do:

# cat /proc/cmdline

QUORUM AND FENCING

75. What is a quorum?

A quorum is a designation given to a group of nodes in a cluster which are still allowed to operate on shared storage. It comes up
when there is a failure in the cluster which breaks the nodes up into groups which can communicate in their groups and with the
shared storage but not between groups.

76. How does OCFS2's cluster services define a quorum?

The quorum decision is made by a single node based on the number of other nodes that are considered alive by heartbeating and
the number of other nodes that are reachable via the network.
A node has quorum when:

* it sees an odd number of heartbeating nodes and has network connectivity to more than half of them.
OR,
* it sees an even number of heartbeating nodes and has network connectivity to at least half of them *and* has connectivity to the
heartbeating node with the lowest node number.

77. What is fencing?

Fencing is the act of forecefully removing a node from a cluster. A node with OCFS2 mounted will fence itself when it realizes that it
doesn't have quorum in a degraded cluster. It does this so that other nodes won't get stuck trying to access its resources. Currently
OCFS2 will panic the machine when it realizes it has to fence itself off from the cluster. As described above, it will do this when it
sees more nodes heartbeating than it has connectivity to and fails the quorum test.
Due to user reports of nodes hanging during fencing, OCFS2 1.2.5 no longer uses "panic" for fencing. Instead, by default, it uses
"machine restart". This should not only prevent nodes from hanging during fencing but also allow for nodes to quickly restart and
rejoin the cluster. While this change is internal in nature, we are documenting this so as to make users aware that they are no longer
going to see the familiar panic stack trace during fencing. Instead they will see the message "*** ocfs2 is very sorry to be fencing
this system by restarting ***" and that too probably only as part of the messages captured on the netdump/netconsole server.
If perchance the user wishes to use panic to fence (maybe to see the familiar oops stack trace or on the advise of customer
support to diagnose frequent reboots), one can do so by issuing the following command after the O2CB cluster is online.

# echo 1 > /proc/fs/ocfs2_nodemanager/fence_method

Please note that this change is local to a node.

78. How does a node decide that it has connectivity with another?
When a node sees another come to life via heartbeating it will try and establish a TCP connection to that newly live node. It
considers that other node connected as long as the TCP connection persists and the connection is not idle for
O2CB_IDLE_TIMEOUT_MS. Once that TCP connection is closed or idle it will not be reestablished until heartbeat thinks the other
node has died and come back alive.

79. How long does the quorum process take?

First a node will realize that it doesn't have connectivity with another node. This can happen immediately if the connection is closed
but can take a maximum of O2CB_IDLE_TIMEOUT_MS idle time. Then the node must wait long enough to give heartbeating a
chance to declare the node dead. It does this by waiting two iterations longer than the number of iterations needed to consider a
node dead (see the Heartbeat section of this FAQ). The current default of 31 iterations of 2 seconds results in waiting for 33
iterations or 66 seconds. By default, then, a maximum of 96 seconds can pass from the time a network fault occurs until a node
fences itself.

80. How can one avoid a node from panic-ing when one shutdowns the other node in a 2-node cluster?
This typically means that the network is shutting down before all the OCFS2 volumes are being umounted. Ensure the ocfs2 init
script is enabled. This script ensures that the OCFS2 volumes are umounted before the network is shutdown. To check whether the
service is enabled, do:

# chkconfig --list ocfs2

ocfs2 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off

81. How does one list out the startup and shutdown ordering of the OCFS2 related services?

* To list the startup order for runlevel 3 on RHEL4, do:

# cd /etc/rc3.d
# ls S*ocfs2* S*o2cb* S*network*
S10network S24o2cb S25ocfs2

* To list the shutdown order on RHEL4, do:

# cd /etc/rc6.d
# ls K*ocfs2* K*o2cb* K*network*
K19ocfs2 K20o2cb K90network

* To list the startup order for runlevel 3 on SLES9/SLES10, do:

# cd /etc/init.d/rc3.d
# ls S*ocfs2* S*o2cb* S*network*
S05network S07o2cb S08ocfs2

* To list the shutdown order on SLES9/SLES10, do:

# cd /etc/init.d/rc3.d
# ls K*ocfs2* K*o2cb* K*network*
K14ocfs2 K15o2cb K17network

Please note that the default ordering in the ocfs2 scripts only include the network service and not any shared-device specific
service, like iscsi. If one is using iscsi or any shared device requiring a service to be started and shutdown, please ensure that that
service runs before and shutsdown after the ocfs2 init service.

NOVELL'S SLES9 and SLES10

82. Why are OCFS2 packages for SLES9 and SLES10 not made available on oss.oracle.com?
OCFS2 packages for SLES9 and SELS10 are available directly from Novell as part of the kernel. Same is true for the various
Asianux distributions and for ubuntu. As OCFS2 is now part of the mainline kernel, we expect more distributions to bundle the
product with the kernel.

83. What versions of OCFS2 are available with SLES9 and how do they match with the Red Hat versions available on
oss.oracle.com?
As both Novell and Oracle ship OCFS2 on different schedules, the package versions do not match. We expect to resolve itself over
time as the number of patch fixes reduce. Novell is shipping two SLES9 releases, viz., SP2 and SP3.

* The latest kernel with the SP2 release is 2.6.5-7.202.7. It ships with OCFS2 1.0.8.
* The latest kernel with the SP3 release is 2.6.5-7.283. It ships with OCFS2 1.2.3. Please contact Novell to get the latest OCFS2
modules on SLES9 SP3.

84. What versions of OCFS2 are available with SLES10?

SLES10 is currently shipping OCFS2 1.2.3. SLES10 SP1 is currently shipping 1.2.5-1.

RELEASE 1.2

85. What is new in OCFS2 1.2?

OCFS2 1.2 has two new features:
* It is endian-safe. With this release, one can mount the same volume concurrently on x86, x86-64, ia64 and big endian
architectures ppc64 and s390x.
* Supports readonly mounts. The fs uses this feature to auto remount ro when encountering on-disk corruptions (instead of
panic-ing).

86. Do I need to re-make the volume when upgrading?

No. OCFS2 1.2 is fully on-disk compatible with 1.0.

87. Do I need to upgrade anything else?

Yes, the tools needs to be upgraded to ocfs2-tools 1.2. ocfs2-tools 1.0 will not work with OCFS2 1.2 nor will 1.2 tools work with
1.0 modules.

UPGRADE TO THE LATEST RELEASE

88. How do I upgrade to the latest release?

* Download the latest ocfs2-tools and ocfs2console for the target platform and the appropriate ocfs2 module package for the kernel
version, flavor and architecture. (For more, refer to the "Download and Install" section above.)

* Umount all OCFS2 volumes.

# umount -at ocfs2

* Shutdown the cluster and unload the modules.

# /etc/init.d/o2cb offline
# /etc/init.d/o2cb unload

* If required, upgrade the tools and console.

# rpm -Uvh ocfs2-tools-1.2.2-1.i386.rpm ocfs2console-1.2.2-1.i386.rpm

* Upgrade the module.

# rpm -Uvh ocfs2-2.6.9-42.0.3.ELsmp-1.2.4-2.i686.rpm

* Ensure init services ocfs2 and o2cb are enabled.

# chkconfig --add o2cb

# chkconfig --add ocfs2

* To check whether the services are enabled, do:

# chkconfig --list o2cb

o2cb 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
# chkconfig --list ocfs2
ocfs2 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off

* To update the cluster timeouts, do:

# /etc/init.d/o2cb configure

* At this stage one could either reboot the node or simply, restart the cluster and mount the volume.

89. Can I do a rolling upgrade from 1.2.3 to 1.2.4?

No. The network protocol had to be updated in 1.2.4 to allow for proper reference counting of lockres' across the cluster. This fix
was necessary to fix races encountered during lockres purge and migrate. Effectively, one cannot run 1.2.4 on one node while
another node is still on an earlier release (1.2.3 or older).

90. Can I do a rolling upgrade from 1.2.4 to 1.2.5?

No. The network protocol had to be updated in 1.2.5 to ensure all nodes were using the same O2CB timeouts. Effectively, one
cannot run 1.2.5 on one node while another node is still on an earlier release. (For the record, the protocol remained the same
between 1.2.0 to 1.2.3 before changing in 1.2.4 and 1.2.5.)

91. Can I do a rolling upgrade from 1.2.6 to 1.2.7 on EL5?

Yes. The network protocol is fully compatible across both releases.

92. Can I do a rolling upgrade from 1.2.5 to 1.2.7 on EL4?

Yes. However, there is a catch. While the network protocol is fully compatible across the two releases, the default cluster timeouts
are not. So if you were using the default timeouts, you will have to specifically set those timeouts on the new nodes using service
o2cb configure command. Use service o2cb status to review current timeouts.
# Users that are not careful with the above are likely to encounter failed mounts on the upgraded node. dmesg will indicate the
differing timeout values.

93. Can I do a rolling upgrade from 1.2.7 to 1.2.8 or 1.2.9 on EL4 and EL5?
Yes. OCFS2 1.2.7, 1.2.8 and 1.2.9 are fully compatible. Users upgrading to 1.2.8/9 from 1.2.5/1.2.6 can expect the same
behaviour as described above for upgrading to 1.2.7.

94. After upgrade I am getting the following error on mount "mount.ocfs2: Invalid argument while mounting /dev/sda6 on /ocfs".
Do "dmesg | tail". If you see the error:

ocfs2_parse_options:523 ERROR: Unrecognized mount option "heartbeat=local" or missing value

it means that you are trying to use the 1.2 tools and 1.0 modules. Ensure that you have unloaded the 1.0 modules and installed and
loaded the 1.2 modules. Use modinfo to determine the version of the module installed and/or loaded.

95. The cluster fails to load. What do I do?

Check "demsg | tail" for any relevant errors. One common error is as follows:

SELinux: initialized (dev configfs, type configfs), not configured for labeling audit(1139964740.184:2): avc: denied { mount } for ...

The above error indicates that you have SELinux activated. A bug in SELinux does not allow configfs to mount. Disable SELinux by
setting "SELINUX=disabled" in /etc/selinux/config. Change is activated on reboot.

PROCESSES

96. List and describe all OCFS2 threads?

[o2net]
One per node. Is a workqueue thread started when the cluster is brought online and stopped when offline. It handles the network
communication for all threads. It gets the list of active nodes from the o2hb thread and sets up tcp/ip communication channels with
each active node. It sends regular keepalive packets to detect any interruption on the channels.
[user_dlm]
One per node. Is a workqueue thread started when dlmfs is loaded and stopped on unload. (dlmfs is an in-memory file system
which allows user space processes to access the dlm in kernel to lock and unlock resources.) Handles lock downconverts when
requested by other nodes.
[ocfs2_wq]
One per node. Is a workqueue thread started when ocfs2 module is loaded and stopped on unload. Handles blockable file system
tasks like truncate log flush, orphan dir recovery and local alloc recovery, which involve taking dlm locks. Various code paths queue
tasks to this thread. For example, ocfs2rec queues orphan dir recovery so that while the task is kicked off as part of recovery, its
completion does not affect the recovery time.
[o2hb-14C29A7392]
One per heartbeat device. Is a kernel thread started when the heartbeat region is populated in configfs and stopped when it is
removed. It writes every 2 secs to its block in the heartbeat region to indicate to other nodes that that node is alive. It also reads
the region to maintain a nodemap of live nodes. It notifies o2net and dlm any changes in the nodemap.
[ocfs2vote-0]
One per mount. Is a kernel thread started when a volume is mounted and stopped on umount. It downgrades locks when requested
by other nodes in reponse to blocking ASTs (BASTs). It also fixes up the dentry cache in reponse to files unlinked or renamed on
other nodes.
[dlm_thread]
One per dlm domain. Is a kernel thread started when a dlm domain is created and stopped when destroyed. This is the core dlm
which maintains the list of lock resources and handles the cluster locking infrastructure.
[dlm_reco_thread]
One per dlm domain. Is a kernel thread which handles dlm recovery whenever a node dies. If the node is the dlm recovery master,
it remasters all the locks owned by the dead node.
[dlm_wq]
One per dlm domain. Is a workqueue thread. o2net queues dlm tasks on this thread.
[kjournald]
One per mount. Is used as OCFS2 uses JDB for journalling.
[ocfs2cmt-0]
One per mount. Is a kernel thread started when a volume is mounted and stopped on umount. Works in conjunction with kjournald.
[ocfs2rec-0]
Is started whenever another node needs to be be recovered. This could be either on mount when it discovers a dirty journal or
during operation when hb detects a dead node. ocfs2rec handles the file system recovery and it runs after the dlm has finished its
recovery.

BUILD RPMS FOR HOTFIX KERNELS

97 How to build OCFS2 packages for a hotfix kernel?

* Download and install all the kernel-devel packages for the hotfix kernel.
* Download and untar the OCFS2 source tarball.

# cd /tmp
# wget http://oss.oracle.com/projects/ocfs2/dist/files/source/v1.2/ocfs2-1.2.3.tar.gz
# tar -zxvf ocfs2-1.2.3.tar.gz
# cd ocfs2-1.2.3

* Ensure rpmbuild is installed and ~/.rpmmacros contains the proper links.

# cat ~/.rpmmacros
%_topdir /home/jdoe/rpms
%_tmppath /home/jdoe/rpms/tmp
%_sourcedir /home/jdoe/rpms/SOURCES
%_specdir /home/jdoe/rpms/SPECS
%_srcrpmdir /home/jdoe/rpms/SRPMS
%_rpmdir /home/jdoe/rpms/RPMS
%_builddir /home/jdoe/rpms/BUILD

* Ensure you have all kernel-*-devel packages installed for the kernel version you wish to build for. If so, then the following
command will list it as a possible target.

# ./vendor/rhel4/kernel.guess targets
rhel4_2.6.9-67.EL_rpm
rhel4_2.6.9-67.0.1.EL_rpm
rhel4_2.6.9-55.0.12.EL_rpm

* Configure and make.

# ./configure --with-kernel=/usr/src/kernels/2.6.9-67.EL-i686
# make rhel4_2.6.9-67.EL_rpm

# The packages will be in %_rpmdir.

98. Are the self-built packages officially supported by Oracle Support?

No. Oracle Support does not provide support for self-built modules. If you wish official support, contact Oracle via Support or the
ocfs2-users mailing list with the link to the hotfix kernel (kernel-devel and kernel-src rpms).

BACKUP SUPER BLOCK

99. What is a Backup Super block?

A backup super block is a copy of the super block. As the super block is typically located close to the start of the device, it is
susceptible to be overwritten, say, by an errant write (dd if=file of=/dev/sdX). Moreover, as the super block stores critical
information that is hard to recreate, it becomes important to backup the block and use it when the super block gets corrupted.

100. Where are the backup super blocks located?

In OCFS2, the super blocks are backed up to blocks at the 1G, 4G, 16G, 64G, 256G and 1T byte offsets. The actual number of
backups depend on the size of the device. It should be noted that the super block is not backed up on devices smaller than 1G.

101. How does one enable this feature?

mkfs.ocfs2 1.2.3 or later automatically backs up super blocks on devices larger than 1G. One can disable this by using the
--no-backup-super option.

102. How do I detect whether the super blocks are backed up on a device?

# debugfs.ocfs2 -R "stats" /dev/sdX | grep "Feature Compat"

Feature Compat: 1 BackupSuper

103. How do I backup the super block on a device formatted by an older mkfs.ocfs2?
tunefs.ocfs2 1.2.3 or later can attempt to retroactively backup the super block.

# tunefs.ocfs2 --backup-super /dev/sdX

tunefs.ocfs2 1.2.3
Adding backup superblock for the volume
Proceed (y/N): y
Backed up Superblock.
Wrote Superblock
However, it is quite possible that one or more backup locations are in use by the file system. (tunefs.ocfs2 backs up the block only if
all the backup locations are unused.)

# tunefs.ocfs2 --backup-super /dev/sdX

tunefs.ocfs2 1.2.3
tunefs.ocfs2: block 262144 is in use.
tunefs.ocfs2: block 4194304 is in use.
tunefs.ocfs2: Cannot enable backup superblock as backup blocks are in use

If so, use the verify_backup_super script to list out the objects using these blocks.

# ./verify_backup_super /dev/sdX
Locating inodes using blocks 262144 1048576 4194304 on device /dev/sdX
Block# Inode Block Offset
262144 27 65058
1048576 Unused
4194304 4161791 25
Matching inodes to object names
27 //journal:0003
4161791 /src/kernel/linux-2.6.19/drivers/scsi/BusLogic.c

# If the object happens to be user created, move that object temporarily to an another volume before re-attempting the operation.
However, this will not work if one or more blocks are being used by a system file (shown starting with double slashes //), say, a
journal.

104. How do I ask fsck.ocfs2 to use a backup super block?

To recover a volume using the second backup super block, do:

# fsck.ocfs2 -f -r 2 /dev/sdX
[RECOVER_BACKUP_SUPERBLOCK] Recover superblock information from backup block#1048576? n
Checking OCFS2 filesystem in /dev/sdX
label: myvolume
uuid: 4d 1d 1f f3 24 01 4d 3f 82 4c e2 67 0c b2 94 f3
number of blocks: 13107196
bytes per block: 4096
number of clusters: 13107196
bytes per cluster: 4096
max slots: 4

/dev/sdX was run with -f, check forced.

Pass 0a: Checking cluster allocation chains
Pass 0b: Checking inode allocation chains
Pass 0c: Checking extent block allocation chains
Pass 1: Checking inodes and blocks.
Pass 2: Checking directory entries.
Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity.
Pass 4a: checking for orphaned inodes
Pass 4b: Checking inodes link counts.
All passes succeeded.

For more, refer to the man pages.

CONFIGURING CLUSTER TIMEOUTS

105. List and describe all the configurable timeouts in the O2CB cluster stack?
OCFS2 1.2.5 has 4 different configurable O2CB cluster timeouts:

* O2CB_HEARTBEAT_THRESHOLD - The Disk Heartbeat timeout is the number of two second iterations before a node is
considered dead. The exact formula used to convert the timeout in seconds to the number of iterations is as follows:

O2CB_HEARTBEAT_THRESHOLD = (((timeout in seconds) / 2) + 1)

For e.g., to specify a 60 sec timeout, set it to 31. For 120 secs, set it to 61. The current default for this timeout is 60 secs
(O2CB_HEARTBEAT_THRESHOLD = 31). In releases 1.2.5 and earlier, it was 12 secs (O2CB_HEARTBEAT_THRESHOLD = 7).

* O2CB_IDLE_TIMEOUT_MS - The Network Idle timeout specifies the time in miliseconds before a network connection is
considered dead. The current default for this timeout is 30000 ms. In releases 1.2.5 and earlier, it was 10000 ms.
* O2CB_KEEPALIVE_DELAY_MS - The Network Keepalive specifies the maximum delay in miliseconds before a keepalive packet
is sent. As in, a keepalive packet is sent if a network connection between two nodes is silent for this duration. If the other node is
alive and is connected, it is expected to respond. The current default for this timeout is 2000 ms. In releases 1.2.5 and earlier, it
was 5000 ms.
* O2CB_RECONNECT_DELAY_MS - The Network Reconnect specifies the minimum delay in miliseconds between connection
attempts. The default has always been 2000 ms.

106. What are the recommended timeout values?

# As timeout values depend on the hardware being used, there is no one set of recommended values. For e.g., users of multipath io
should set the disk heartbeat threshold to atleast 60 secs, if not 120 secs. Similarly, users of Network bonding should set the
network idle timeout to atleast 30 secs, if not 60 secs.

107. What are the currect defaults for the cluster timeouts?
The timeouts were updated in the 1.2.6 release to the following:

O2CB_HEARTBEAT_THRESHOLD = 31
O2CB_IDLE_TIMEOUT_MS = 30000
O2CB_KEEPALIVE_DELAY_MS = 2000
O2CB_RECONNECT_DELAY_MS = 2000

108 Can one change these timeout values in a round robin fashion?
# No. The o2net handshake protocol ensures that all the timeout values for both the nodes are consistent and fails if any value
differs. This failed connection results in a failed mount, the reason for which is always listed in dmesg.

109. How does one set these O2CB timeouts?

Umount all OCFS2 volumes and shutdown the O2CB cluster. If not already, upgrade to OCFS2 1.2.5+ and Tools 1.2.4+. Then use
o2cb configure to set the new values. Do the same on all nodes. Start mounting volumes only after the timeouts have been set on all
nodes.

# service o2cb configure

Configuring the O2CB driver.

This will configure the on-boot properties of the O2CB driver.

The following questions will determine whether the driver is loaded on
boot. The current values will be shown in brackets ('[]'). Hitting
without typing an answer will keep that current value. Ctrl-C
will abort.

Load O2CB driver on boot (y/n) [n]: y

Cluster to start on boot (Enter "none" to clear) []: mycluster
Specify heartbeat dead threshold (>=7) [7]: 31
Specify network idle timeout in ms (>=5000) [10000]: 30000
Specify network keepalive delay in ms (>=1000) [5000]: 2000
Specify network reconnect delay in ms (>=2000) [2000]: 2000
Writing O2CB configuration: OK
Starting O2CB cluster mycluster: OK

110. How to find the O2CB timeout values in effect?

# /etc/init.d/o2cb status
Module "configfs": Loaded
Filesystem "configfs": Mounted
Module "ocfs2_nodemanager": Loaded
Module "ocfs2_dlm": Loaded
Module "ocfs2_dlmfs": Loaded
Filesystem "ocfs2_dlmfs": Mounted
Checking O2CB cluster mycluster: Online
Heartbeat dead threshold: 31
Network idle timeout: 30000
Network keepalive delay: 2000
Network reconnect delay: 2000
Checking O2CB heartbeat: Not active

111. Where are the O2CB timeout values stored?

# cat /etc/sysconfig/o2cb
#
# This is a configuration file for automatic startup of the O2CB
# driver. It is generated by running /etc/init.d/o2cb configure.
# Please use that method to modify this file
#

# O2CB_ENABELED: 'true' means to load the driver on boot.

O2CB_ENABLED=true

# O2CB_BOOTCLUSTER: If not empty, the name of a cluster to start.

O2CB_BOOTCLUSTER=mycluster

# O2CB_HEARTBEAT_THRESHOLD: Iterations before a node is considered dead.

O2CB_HEARTBEAT_THRESHOLD=31

# O2CB_IDLE_TIMEOUT_MS: Time in ms before a network connection is considered dead.

O2CB_IDLE_TIMEOUT_MS=30000

# O2CB_KEEPALIVE_DELAY_MS: Max time in ms before a keepalive packet is sent

O2CB_KEEPALIVE_DELAY_MS=2000

# O2CB_RECONNECT_DELAY_MS: Min time in ms between connection attempts

O2CB_RECONNECT_DELAY_MS=2000

ENTERPRISE LINUX 5

112. What are the changes in EL5 as compared to EL4 as it pertains to OCFS2?
The in-memory filesystems, configfs and debugfs, have different mountpoints. configfs is mounted at /sys/kernel/config, instead of
/config, while debugfs at /sys/kernel/debug, instead of /debug. (dlmfs still mounts at the old mountpoint /dlm.)

References

http://kerneltrap.org/node/4394
http://oss.oracle.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=741
http://lwn.net/Articles/166954/
http://oss.oracle.com/projects/ocfs2-tools/dist/files/extras/verify_backup_super

Keywords

FENCE ; HEARTBEAT ; FREQUENTLY~ASKED~QUESTIONS ; OCFS2 ;

Help us improve our service. Please email us your comments for this document. .