Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7

Global File System 2

Red Hat Global File System 2

Last Updated: 2018-10-04

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Global File System 2
Red Hat Global File System 2

Steven Levine
Red Hat Customer Content Services
[email protected]
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Abstract
This book provides information about configuring and maintaining Red Hat GFS2 (Red Hat Global
File System 2) for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.
 Table of Contents

Table of Contents
.CHAPTER
. . . . . . . . .1.. .GFS2
. . . . .OVERVIEW
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4. . . . . . . . . .
1.1. NEW AND CHANGED FEATURES 5
1.2. BEFORE SETTING UP GFS2 5
1.3. INSTALLING GFS2 6
1.4. REPLACEMENT FUNCTIONS FOR GFS2_TOOL IN RED HAT ENTERPRISE LINUX 7 7

.CHAPTER
. . . . . . . . .2.. .GFS2
. . . . .CONFIGURATION
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .AND
. . . . OPERATIONAL
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .CONSIDERATIONS
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10
...........
2.1. FORMATTING CONSIDERATIONS 10
2.2. FILE SYSTEM FRAGMENTATION 12
2.3. BLOCK ALLOCATION ISSUES 12
2.4. CLUSTER CONSIDERATIONS 13
2.5. USAGE CONSIDERATIONS 13
2.6. FILE SYSTEM BACKUPS 15
2.7. HARDWARE CONSIDERATIONS 16
2.8. PERFORMANCE ISSUES: CHECK THE RED HAT CUSTOMER PORTAL 16
2.9. GFS2 NODE LOCKING 16

. . . . . . . . . .3.. .MANAGING
CHAPTER . . . . . . . . . . GFS2
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22
...........
3.1. MAKING A FILE SYSTEM 22
3.2. MOUNTING A FILE SYSTEM 26
3.3. UNMOUNTING A FILE SYSTEM 29
3.4. SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS WHEN MOUNTING GFS2 FILE SYSTEMS 29
3.5. GFS2 QUOTA MANAGEMENT 29
3.6. GROWING A FILE SYSTEM 35
3.7. ADDING JOURNALS TO A FILE SYSTEM 36
3.8. DATA JOURNALING 38
3.9. CONFIGURING ATIME UPDATES 39
3.10. SUSPENDING ACTIVITY ON A FILE SYSTEM 40
3.11. REPAIRING A FILE SYSTEM 41
3.12. THE GFS2 WITHDRAW FUNCTION 43

.CHAPTER
. . . . . . . . .4.. .DIAGNOSING
. . . . . . . . . . . .AND
. . . . CORRECTING
. . . . . . . . . . . . .PROBLEMS
. . . . . . . . . . .WITH
. . . . .GFS2
. . . . .FILE
. . . . SYSTEMS
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46
...........
4.1. GFS2 FILE SYSTEM SHOWS SLOW PERFORMANCE 46
4.2. GFS2 FILE SYSTEM HANGS AND REQUIRES REBOOT OF ONE NODE 46
4.3. GFS2 FILE SYSTEM HANGS AND REQUIRES REBOOT OF ALL NODES 46
4.4. GFS2 FILE SYSTEM DOES NOT MOUNT ON NEWLY ADDED CLUSTER NODE 47
4.5. SPACE INDICATED AS USED IN EMPTY FILE SYSTEM 48

. . . . . . . . . .5.. .CONFIGURING
CHAPTER . . . . . . . . . . . . . A. .GFS2
. . . . . FILE
. . . . .SYSTEM
. . . . . . . IN
. . .A. .CLUSTER
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49
...........

. . . . . . . . . . A.
APPENDIX . . .GFS2
. . . . .PERFORMANCE
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . ANALYSIS
. . . . . . . . . .WITH
. . . . . PERFORMANCE
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .CO-PILOT
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52
...........
A.1. OVERVIEW OF PERFORMANCE CO-PILOT 52
A.2. PCP DEPLOYMENT 52
A.3. PCP INSTALLATION 53
A.4. TRACING GFS2 PERFORMANCE DATA 54
A.5. METRIC CONFIGURATION (USING PMSTORE) 56
A.6. LOGGING PERFORMANCE DATA (USING PMLOGGER) 57
A.7. VISUAL TRACING (USING PCP-GUI AND PMCHART) 58

.APPENDIX
. . . . . . . . . B.
. . .GFS2
. . . . .TRACEPOINTS
. . . . . . . . . . . . . AND
. . . . .THE
. . . .DEBUGFS
. . . . . . . . .GLOCKS
. . . . . . . . FILE
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60
...........
B.1. GFS2 TRACEPOINT TYPES 60
B.2. TRACEPOINTS 60
B.3. GLOCKS 61

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Global File System 2

B.4. THE GLOCK DEBUGFS INTERFACE 62

B.5. GLOCK HOLDERS 65
B.6. GLOCK TRACEPOINTS 66
B.7. BMAP TRACEPOINTS 67
B.8. LOG TRACEPOINTS 67
B.9. GLOCK STATISTICS 67
B.10. REFERENCES 68

. . . . . . . . . . C.
APPENDIX . . .REVISION
. . . . . . . . .HISTORY
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .69
...........

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .70
INDEX ...........

2
Table of Contents

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Global File System 2

CHAPTER 1. GFS2 OVERVIEW

The Red Hat GFS2 file system is included in the Resilient Storage Add-On. It is a native file system that
interfaces directly with the Linux kernel file system interface (VFS layer). When implemented as a cluster
file system, GFS2 employs distributed metadata and multiple journals. Red Hat supports the use of
GFS2 file systems only as implemented in the High Availability Add-On.

NOTE

Although a GFS2 file system can be implemented in a standalone system or as part of a

cluster configuration, for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 release Red Hat does not support
the use of GFS2 as a single-node file system. Red Hat does support a number of high-
performance single node file systems which are optimized for single node and thus have
generally lower overhead than a cluster file system. Red Hat recommends using these file
systems in preference to GFS2 in cases where only a single node needs to mount the file
system.

Red Hat will continue to support single-node GFS2 file systems for mounting snapshots of
cluster file systems (for example, for backup purposes).

NOTE

Red Hat does not support using GFS2 for cluster file system deployments greater than 16
nodes.

GFS2 is based on a 64-bit architecture, which can theoretically accommodate an 8 EB file system.
However, the current supported maximum size of a GFS2 file system for 64-bit hardware is 100TB. The
current supported maximum size of a GFS2 file system for 32-bit hardware is 16TB. If your system
requires larger GFS2 file systems, contact your Red Hat service representative.

When determining the size of your file system, you should consider your recovery needs. Running the
fsck.gfs2 command on a very large file system can take a long time and consume a large amount of
memory. Additionally, in the event of a disk or disk subsystem failure, recovery time is limited by the
speed of your backup media. For information on the amount of memory the fsck.gfs2 command
requires, see Section 3.11, “Repairing a File System”.

When configured in a cluster, Red Hat GFS2 nodes can be configured and managed with High
Availability Add-On configuration and management tools. Red Hat GFS2 then provides data sharing
among GFS2 nodes in a cluster, with a single, consistent view of the file system name space across the
GFS2 nodes. This allows processes on different nodes to share GFS2 files in the same way that
processes on the same node can share files on a local file system, with no discernible difference. For
information about the High Availability Add-On see Configuring and Managing a Red Hat Cluster.

While a GFS2 file system may be used outside of LVM, Red Hat supports only GFS2 file systems that
are created on a CLVM logical volume. CLVM is included in the Resilient Storage Add-On. It is a cluster-
wide implementation of LVM, enabled by the CLVM daemon clvmd, which manages LVM logical
volumes in a cluster. The daemon makes it possible to use LVM2 to manage logical volumes across a
cluster, allowing all nodes in the cluster to share the logical volumes. For information on the LVM volume
manager, see Logical Volume Manager Administration.

The gfs2.ko kernel module implements the GFS2 file system and is loaded on GFS2 cluster nodes.

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 CHAPTER 1. GFS2 OVERVIEW

NOTE

When you configure a GFS2 file system as a cluster file system, you must ensure that all
nodes in the cluster have access to the shared storage. Asymmetric cluster configurations
in which some nodes have access to the shared storage and others do not are not
supported. This does not require that all nodes actually mount the GFS2 file system itself.

This chapter provides some basic, abbreviated information as background to help you understand
GFS2. It contains the following sections:

Section 1.1, “New and Changed Features”

Section 1.2, “Before Setting Up GFS2”

Section 1.3, “Installing GFS2”

Section 2.9, “GFS2 Node Locking”

1.1. NEW AND CHANGED FEATURES

This section lists new and changed features of the GFS2 file system and the GFS2 documentation that
are included with the initial and subsequent releases of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.

1.1.1. New and Changed Features for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.0
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.0 includes the following documentation and feature updates and changes.

For Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, a cluster that includes a GFS2 file system requires that you
configure your cluster with Pacemaker according to the procedure described in Chapter 5,
Configuring a GFS2 File System in a Cluster.

The gfs2_tool command is not supported in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7. Replacement
functions for the gfs2_tool are summarized in Section 1.4, “Replacement Functions for
gfs2_tool in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7”.

1.1.2. New and Changed Features for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.1
For Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.1, Appendix A, GFS2 Performance Analysis with Performance Co-Pilot
has been updated.

In addition, small technical corrections and clarifications have been made throughout the document.

1.1.3. New and Changed Features for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.2
Small technical corrections and clarifications have been made throughout the document.

1.1.4. New and Changed Features for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.4
As of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.4, Security Enhanced Linux (SELinux) is supported for use with GFS2
file systems. For information on SELinux and GFS2, see Section 2.5.3, “SELinux on GFS2”.

1.2. BEFORE SETTING UP GFS2

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Global File System 2

Before you install and set up GFS2, note the following key characteristics of your GFS2 file systems:

GFS2 nodes
Determine which nodes in the cluster will mount the GFS2 file systems.

Number of file systems

Determine how many GFS2 file systems to create initially. (More file systems can be added later.)

File system name

Determine a unique name for each file system. The name must be unique for all lock_dlm file
systems over the cluster. Each file system name is required in the form of a parameter variable. For
example, this book uses file system names mydata1 and mydata2 in some example procedures.

Journals
Determine the number of journals for your GFS2 file systems. One journal is required for each node
that mounts a GFS2 file system. GFS2 allows you to add journals dynamically at a later point as
additional servers mount a file system. For information on adding journals to a GFS2 file system, see
Section 3.7, “Adding Journals to a File System”.

Storage devices and partitions

Determine the storage devices and partitions to be used for creating logical volumes (using CLVM) in
the file systems.

Time protocol
Make sure that the clocks on the GFS2 nodes are synchronized. It is recommended that you use the
Precision Time Protocol (PTP) or, if necessary for your configuration, the Network Time Protocol
(NTP) software provided with your Red Hat Enterprise Linux distribution.

NOTE

The system clocks in GFS2 nodes must be within a few minutes of each other to
prevent unnecessary inode time stamp updating. Unnecessary inode time stamp
updating severely impacts cluster performance.

NOTE

You may see performance problems with GFS2 when many create and delete operations
are issued from more than one node in the same directory at the same time. If this causes
performance problems in your system, you should localize file creation and deletions by a
node to directories specific to that node as much as possible.

For further recommendations on creating, using, and maintaining a GFS2 file system. see Chapter 2,
GFS2 Configuration and Operational Considerations.

1.3. INSTALLING GFS2

In addition to the packages required for the Red Hat High Availability Add-On, you must install the gfs2-
utils package for GFS2 and the lvm2-cluster package for the Clustered Logical Volume Manager
(CLVM). The lvm2-cluster and gfs2-utils packages are part of ResilientStorage channel,

6
 CHAPTER 1. GFS2 OVERVIEW

which must be enabled before installing the packages.

You can use the following yum install command to install the Red Hat High Availability Add-On
software packages:

# yum install lvm2-cluster gfs2-utils

For general information on the Red Hat High Availability Add-On and cluster administration, see the
Cluster Administration manual.

1.4. REPLACEMENT FUNCTIONS FOR GFS2_TOOL IN RED HAT

ENTERPRISE LINUX 7
The gfs2_tool command is not supported in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7. Table 1.1, “gfs2_tool
Equivalent Functions in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7” summarizes the equivalent functionality for the
gfs2_tool command options in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.

Table 1.1. gfs2_tool Equivalent Functions in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7

gfs2_tool option Replacement Functionality

clearflag Flag File1 File2 ... Linux standard chattr command

Clear an attribute flag on a file

freeze mountpoint Linux standard fsfreeze -f mountpoint

command
Freeze (quiesce) a GFS2 file system

gettune mountpoint For many cases, has been replaced by mount (get
mount options ). Other tuning parameters may
Print out current values of tuning parameters be fetched from the respective sysfs files:
/sys/fs/gfs2/dm-3/tune/*.

journals mountpoint Information about journals can be fetched with

gfs2_edit -p journals device . You can
Print out information on the journals in a GFS2 file run this command when the file system is mounted.
system
# gfs2_edit -p journals
/dev/clus_vg/lv1
Block #Journal Status: of
2620416 (0x27fc00)
-------------------- Journal
List --------------------
journal0: 0x14 128MB clean.
journal1: 0x805b 128MB clean.
-------------------------------
-----------------------

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Global File System 2

gfs2_tool option Replacement Functionality

lockdump mountpoint The GFS2 lock information may be obtained by

mounting debugfs, then executing a command like
Print out information about the locks this machine such as the following:
holds for a given file system
# cat
/sys/kernel/debug/gfs2/clusternam
e:file_system_name/glocks

sb device proto [newvalue] To fetch the current value of the locking protocol, you
can use the following command:
View (and possibly replace) the locking protocol
# tunegfs2 -l device | grep
protocol

To replace the current value of the locking protocol,

you can use the following command:

# tunegfs2 -o lockproto=lock_dlm
device

sb device table [newvalue] To fetch the current value of the name of the locking
table, you can use the following command:
View (and possibly replace) the name of the locking
table # tunegfs2 -l device | grep table

To replace the current value of the name of the

locking table, you can use the following command:

# tunegfs2 -o
locktable=file_system_name device

sb device ondisk [newvalue] Do not perform this task.

View (and possibly replace) the ondisk format

number

sb device multihost [newvalue] Do not perform this task.

View (and possibly replace) the multihost format

number

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 CHAPTER 1. GFS2 OVERVIEW

gfs2_tool option Replacement Functionality

sb device uuid [newvalue] To fetch the current value of the uuid , you can use
the following command:
View (and possibly replace) the uuid value
# tunegfs2 -l device | grep UUID

To replace the current value of the uuid, you can

use the following command:

# tunegfs2 -U uuid device

sb device all
# tunegfs2 -l device
Print out the GFS2 superblock

setflag Flag File1 File2 ... Linux standard chattr command

Sets an attribute flag on a file

settune mountpoint parameter For many cases, has been replaced by mount (-o
newvalue remount with options). Other tuning parameters
may be set by the respective sysfs files:
Set the value of a tuning parameter /sys/fs/gfs2/cluster_name:file_syst
em_name/tune/*

unfreeze mountpoint Linux standard fsfreeze -unfreeze

mountpoint command
Unfreeze a GFS2 file system

version N/A

Displays version of the gfs2_tool command

withdraw mountpoint
# echo 1 >
Cause GFS2 to abnormally shutdown a given file
/sys/fs/gfs2/cluster_name:file_sy
system
stem_name/tune/withdraw

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Global File System 2

CHAPTER 2. GFS2 CONFIGURATION AND OPERATIONAL

CONSIDERATIONS
The Global File System 2 (GFS2) file system allows several computers (“nodes”) in a cluster to
cooperatively share the same storage. To achieve this cooperation and maintain data consistency
among the nodes, the nodes employ a cluster-wide locking scheme for file system resources. This
locking scheme uses communication protocols such as TCP/IP to exchange locking information.

You can improve performance by following the recommendations described in this chapter, including
recommendations for creating, using, and maintaining a GFS2 file system.

IMPORTANT

Make sure that your deployment of the Red Hat High Availability Add-On meets your
needs and can be supported. Consult with an authorized Red Hat representative to verify
your configuration prior to deployment.

2.1. FORMATTING CONSIDERATIONS

This section provides recommendations for how to format your GFS2 file system to optimize
performance.

2.1.1. File System Size: Smaller Is Better

GFS2 is based on a 64-bit architecture, which can theoretically accommodate an 8 EB file system.
However, the current supported maximum size of a GFS2 file system for 64-bit hardware is 100TB and
the current supported maximum size of a GFS2 file system for 32-bit hardware is 16TB.

Note that even though GFS2 large file systems are possible, that does not mean they are recommended.
The rule of thumb with GFS2 is that smaller is better: it is better to have 10 1TB file systems than one
10TB file system.

There are several reasons why you should keep your GFS2 file systems small:

Less time is required to back up each file system.

Less time is required if you need to check the file system with the fsck.gfs2 command.

Less memory is required if you need to check the file system with the fsck.gfs2 command.

In addition, fewer resource groups to maintain mean better performance.

Of course, if you make your GFS2 file system too small, you might run out of space, and that has its own
consequences. You should consider your own use cases before deciding on a size.

2.1.2. Block Size: Default (4K) Blocks Are Preferred

The mkfs.gfs2 command attempts to estimate an optimal block size based on device topology. In
general, 4K blocks are the preferred block size because 4K is the default page size (memory) for Linux.
Unlike some other file systems, GFS2 does most of its operations using 4K kernel buffers. If your block
size is 4K, the kernel has to do less work to manipulate the buffers.

It is recommended that you use the default block size, which should yield the highest performance. You
may need to use a different block size only if you require efficient storage of many very small files.

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 CHAPTER 2. GFS2 CONFIGURATION AND OPERATIONAL CONSIDERATIONS

2.1.3. Number of Journals: One For Each Node That Mounts

GFS2 requires one journal for each node in the cluster that needs to mount the file system. For example,
if you have a 16-node cluster but need to mount only the file system from two nodes, you need only two
journals. If you need to mount from a third node, you can always add a journal with the gfs2_jadd
command. With GFS2, you can add journals on the fly.

2.1.4. Journal Size: Default (128MB) Is Usually Optimal

When you run the mkfs.gfs2 command to create a GFS2 file system, you may specify the size of the
journals. If you do not specify a size, it will default to 128MB, which should be optimal for most
applications.

Some system administrators might think that 128MB is excessive and be tempted to reduce the size of
the journal to the minimum of 8MB or a more conservative 32MB. While that might work, it can severely
impact performance. Like many journaling file systems, every time GFS2 writes metadata, the metadata
is committed to the journal before it is put into place. This ensures that if the system crashes or loses
power, you will recover all of the metadata when the journal is automatically replayed at mount time.
However, it does not take much file system activity to fill an 8MB journal, and when the journal is full,
performance slows because GFS2 has to wait for writes to the storage.

It is generally recommended to use the default journal size of 128MB. If your file system is very small (for
example, 5GB), having a 128MB journal might be impractical. If you have a larger file system and can
afford the space, using 256MB journals might improve performance.

2.1.5. Size and Number of Resource Groups

When a GFS2 file system is created with the mkfs.gfs2 command, it divides the storage into uniform
slices known as resource groups. It attempts to estimate an optimal resource group size (ranging from
32MB to 2GB). You can override the default with the -r option of the mkfs.gfs2 command.

Your optimal resource group size depends on how you will use the file system. Consider how full it will be
and whether or not it will be severely fragmented.

You should experiment with different resource group sizes to see which results in optimal performance. It
is a best practice to experiment with a test cluster before deploying GFS2 into full production.

If your file system has too many resource groups (each of which is too small), block allocations can
waste too much time searching tens of thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of resource groups for a
free block. The more full your file system, the more resource groups that will be searched, and every one
of them requires a cluster-wide lock. This leads to slow performance.

If, however, your file system has too few resource groups (each of which is too big), block allocations
might contend more often for the same resource group lock, which also impacts performance. For
example, if you have a 10GB file system that is carved up into five resource groups of 2GB, the nodes in
your cluster will fight over those five resource groups more often than if the same file system were carved
into 320 resource groups of 32MB. The problem is exacerbated if your file system is nearly full because
every block allocation might have to look through several resource groups before it finds one with a free
block. GFS2 tries to mitigate this problem in two ways:

First, when a resource group is completely full, it remembers that and tries to avoid checking it
for future allocations (until a block is freed from it). If you never delete files, contention will be
less severe. However, if your application is constantly deleting blocks and allocating new blocks
on a file system that is mostly full, contention will be very high and this will severely impact
performance.

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Global File System 2

Second, when new blocks are added to an existing file (for example, appending) GFS2 will
attempt to group the new blocks together in the same resource group as the file. This is done to
increase performance: on a spinning disk, seeks take less time when they are physically close
together.

The worst case scenario is when there is a central directory in which all the nodes create files because
all of the nodes will constantly fight to lock the same resource group.

2.2. FILE SYSTEM FRAGMENTATION

While there is no defragmentation tool for GFS2 on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, you can defragment
individual files by identifying them with the filefrag tool, copying them to temporary files, and
renaming the temporary files to replace the originals.

2.3. BLOCK ALLOCATION ISSUES

This section provides a summary of issues related to block allocation in GFS2 file systems. Even though
applications that only write data typically do not care how or where a block is allocated, a little knowledge
about how block allocation works can help you optimize performance.

2.3.1. Leave Free Space in the File System

When a GFS2 file system is nearly full, the block allocator starts to have a difficult time finding space for
new blocks to be allocated. As a result, blocks given out by the allocator tend to be squeezed into the
end of a resource group or in tiny slices where file fragmentation is much more likely. This file
fragmentation can cause performance problems. In addition, when a GFS2 file system is nearly full, the
GFS2 block allocator spends more time searching through multiple resource groups, and that adds lock
contention that would not necessarily be there on a file system that has ample free space. This also can
cause performance problems.

For these reasons, it is recommended that you not run a file system that is more than 85 percent full,
although this figure may vary depending on workload.

2.3.2. Have Each Node Allocate Its Own Files, If Possible

Due to the way the distributed lock manager (DLM) works, there will be more lock contention if all files
are allocated by one node and other nodes need to add blocks to those files.

In GFS (version 1), all locks were managed by a central lock manager whose job was to control locking
throughout the cluster. This grand unified lock manager (GULM) was problematic because it was a
single point of failure. GFS2’s replacement locking scheme, DLM, spreads the locks throughout the
cluster. If any node in the cluster goes down, its locks are recovered by the other nodes.

With DLM, the first node to lock a resource (like a file) becomes the “lock master” for that lock. Other
nodes may lock that resource, but they have to ask permission from the lock master first. Each node
knows which locks for which it is the lock master, and each node knows which node it has lent a lock to.
Locking a lock on the master node is much faster than locking one on another node that has to stop and
ask permission from the lock’s master.

As in many file systems, the GFS2 allocator tries to keep blocks in the same file close to one another to
reduce the movement of disk heads and boost performance. A node that allocates blocks to a file will
likely need to use and lock the same resource groups for the new blocks (unless all the blocks in that
resource group are in use). The file system will run faster if the lock master for the resource group
containing the file allocates its data blocks (it is faster to have the node that first opened the file do all the
writing of new blocks).

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 CHAPTER 2. GFS2 CONFIGURATION AND OPERATIONAL CONSIDERATIONS

2.3.3. Preallocate, If Possible

If files are preallocated, block allocations can be avoided altogether and the file system can run more
efficiently. Newer versions of GFS2 include the fallocate(1) system call, which you can use to
preallocate blocks of data.

2.4. CLUSTER CONSIDERATIONS

When determining the number of nodes that your system will contain, note that there is a trade-off
between high availability and performance. With a larger number of nodes, it becomes increasingly
difficult to make workloads scale. For that reason, Red Hat does not support using GFS2 for cluster file
system deployments greater than 16 nodes.

Deploying a cluster file system is not a "drop in" replacement for a single node deployment. Red Hat
recommends that you allow a period of around 8-12 weeks of testing on new installations in order to test
the system and ensure that it is working at the required performance level. During this period any
performance or functional issues can be worked out and any queries should be directed to the Red Hat
support team.

Red Hat recommends that customers considering deploying clusters have their configurations reviewed
by Red Hat support before deployment to avoid any possible support issues later on.

2.5. USAGE CONSIDERATIONS

This section provides general recommendations about GFS2 usage.

2.5.1. Mount Options: noatime and nodiratime

It is generally recommended to mount GFS2 file systems with the noatime and nodiratime
arguments. This allows GFS2 to spend less time updating disk inodes for every access.

2.5.2. VFS Tuning Options: Research and Experiment

Like all Linux file systems, GFS2 sits on top of a layer called the virtual file system (VFS). You can tune
the VFS layer to improve underlying GFS2 performance by using the sysctl(8) command. For
example, the values for dirty_background_ratio and vfs_cache_pressure may be adjusted
depending on your situation. To fetch the current values, use the following commands:

# sysctl -n vm.dirty_background_ratio
# sysctl -n vm.vfs_cache_pressure

The following commands adjust the values:

# sysctl -w vm.dirty_background_ratio=20
# sysctl -w vm.vfs_cache_pressure=500

You can permanently change the values of these parameters by editing the /etc/sysctl.conf file.

To find the optimal values for your use cases, research the various VFS options and experiment on a test
cluster before deploying into full production.

2.5.3. SELinux on GFS2

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Global File System 2

As of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.4 and later, Security Enhanced Linux (SELinux) is supported for use
with GFS2 file systems.

Use of SELinux with GFS2 incurs a small performance penalty. To avoid this overhead, you may choose
not to use SELinux with GFS2 even on a system with SELinux in enforcing mode. When mounting a
GFS2 file system, you can ensure that SELinux will not attempt to read the seclabel element on each
file system object by using one of the context options as described on the mount(8) man page;
SELinux will assume that all content in the file system is labeled with the seclabel element provided in
the context mount options. This will also speed up processing as it avoids another disk read of the
extended attribute block that could contain seclabel elements.

For example, on a system with SELinux in enforcing mode, you can use the following mount command
to mount the GFS2 file system if the file system is going to contain Apache content. This label will apply
to the entire file system; it remains in memory and is not written to disk.

# mount -t gfs2 -o context=system_u:object_r:httpd_sys_content_t:s0

/dev/mapper/xyz/mnt/gfs2

If you are not sure whether the file system will contain Apache content, you can use the labels
public_content_rw_t or public_content_t, or you could define a new label altogether and
define a policy around it.

Note that in a Pacemaker cluster you should always use Pacemaker to manage a GFS2 file system. You
can specify the mount options when you create a GFS2 file system resource, as described in Chapter 5,
Configuring a GFS2 File System in a Cluster.

2.5.4. Setting Up NFS Over GFS2

Due to the added complexity of the GFS2 locking subsystem and its clustered nature, setting up NFS
over GFS2 requires taking many precautions and careful configuration. This section describes the
caveats you should take into account when configuring an NFS service over a GFS2 file system.


WARNING

If the GFS2 file system is NFS exported, and NFS client applications use POSIX
locks, then you must mount the file system with the localflocks option. The
effect of this is to force both POSIX locks and flocks from each server to be local:
non-clustered, independent of each other. This is necessary because a number of
problems exist if GFS2 attempts to implement POSIX locks from NFS across the
nodes of a cluster. For applications running on NFS clients, localized POSIX locks
means that two clients can hold the same lock concurrently if the two clients are
mounting from different servers. For this reason, when using NFS over GFS2, it is
always safest to specify the -o localflocks mount option so that NFS can
coordinate both POSIX locks and the flocks among all clients mounting NFS.

For all other (non-NFS) GFS2 applications, do not mount your file system using
localflocks, so that GFS2 will manage the POSIX locks and flocks between all
the nodes in the cluster (on a cluster-wide basis). If you specify localflocks and
do not use NFS, the other nodes in the cluster will not have knowledge of each
other's POSIX locks and flocks, thus making them unsafe in a clustered environment

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 CHAPTER 2. GFS2 CONFIGURATION AND OPERATIONAL CONSIDERATIONS

In addition to the locking considerations, you should take the following into account when configuring an
NFS service over a GFS2 file system.

Red Hat supports only Red Hat High Availability Add-On configurations using NFSv3 with
locking in an active/passive configuration with the following characteristics:

The back-end file system is a GFS2 file system running on a 2 to 16 node cluster.

An NFSv3 server is defined as a service exporting the entire GFS2 file system from a single
cluster node at a time.

The NFS server can fail over from one cluster node to another (active/passive configuration).

No access to the GFS2 file system is allowed except through the NFS server. This includes
both local GFS2 file system access as well as access through Samba or Clustered Samba.

There is no NFS quota support on the system.

This configuration provides High Availability (HA) for the file system and reduces system
downtime since a failed node does not result in the requirement to execute the fsck command
when failing the NFS server from one node to another.

The fsid= NFS option is mandatory for NFS exports of GFS2.

If problems arise with your cluster (for example, the cluster becomes inquorate and fencing is not
successful), the clustered logical volumes and the GFS2 file system will be frozen and no access
is possible until the cluster is quorate. You should consider this possibility when determining
whether a simple failover solution such as the one defined in this procedure is the most
appropriate for your system.

2.5.5. Samba (SMB or Windows) File Serving Over GFS2

You can use Samba (SMB or Windows) file serving from a GFS2 file system with CTDB, which allows
active/active configurations.

Simultaneous access to the data in the Samba share from outside of Samba is not supported. There is
currently no support for GFS2 cluster leases, which slows Samba file serving.

2.5.6. Configuring Virtual Machines for GFS2

When using a GFS2 file system with a virtual machine, it is important that your VM storage settings on
each node be configured properly in order to force the cache off. For example, including these settings
for cache and io in the libvirt domain should allow GFS2 to behave as expected.

<driver name='qemu' type='raw' cache='none' io='native'/>

Alternately, you can configure the shareable attribute within the device element. This indicates that the
device is expected to be shared between domains (as long as hypervisor and OS support this). If
shareable is used, cache='no' should be used for that device.

2.6. FILE SYSTEM BACKUPS

It is important to make regular backups of your GFS2 file system in case of emergency, regardless of the
size of your file system. Many system administrators feel safe because they are protected by RAID,
multipath, mirroring, snapshots, and other forms of redundancy, but there is no such thing as safe

15
Global File System 2

enough.

It can be a problem to create a backup since the process of backing up a node or set of nodes usually
involves reading the entire file system in sequence. If this is done from a single node, that node will
retain all the information in cache until other nodes in the cluster start requesting locks. Running this type
of backup program while the cluster is in operation will negatively impact performance.

Dropping the caches once the backup is complete reduces the time required by other nodes to regain
ownership of their cluster locks/caches. This is still not ideal, however, because the other nodes will have
stopped caching the data that they were caching before the backup process began. You can drop
caches using the following command after the backup is complete:

echo -n 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches

It is faster if each node in the cluster backs up its own files so that the task is split between the nodes.
You might be able to accomplish this with a script that uses the rsync command on node-specific
directories.

Red Hat recommends making a GFS2 backup by creating a hardware snapshot on the SAN, presenting
the snapshot to another system, and backing it up there. The backup system should mount the snapshot
with -o lockproto=lock_nolock since it will not be in a cluster.

2.7. HARDWARE CONSIDERATIONS

You should take the following hardware considerations into account when deploying a GFS2 file system.

Use Higher Quality Storage Options

GFS2 can operate on cheaper shared storage options, such as iSCSI or Fibre Channel over
Ethernet (FCoE), but you will get better performance if you buy higher quality storage with larger
caching capacity. Red Hat performs most quality, sanity, and performance tests on SAN storage
with Fibre Channel interconnect. As a general rule, it is always better to deploy something that
has been tested first.

Test Network Equipment Before Deploying

Higher quality, faster network equipment makes cluster communications and GFS2 run faster
with better reliability. However, you do not have to purchase the most expensive hardware.
Some of the most expensive network switches have problems passing multicast packets, which
are used for passing fcntl locks (flocks), whereas cheaper commodity network switches are
sometimes faster and more reliable. Red Hat recommends trying equipment before deploying it
into full production.

2.8. PERFORMANCE ISSUES: CHECK THE RED HAT CUSTOMER

PORTAL
For information on recommendations for deploying and upgrading Red Hat Enterprise Linux clusters
using the High Availability Add-On and Red Hat Global File System 2 (GFS2) see the article "Red Hat
Enterprise Linux Cluster, High Availability, and GFS Deployment Best Practices" on the Red Hat
Customer Portal at https://access.redhat.com/kb/docs/DOC-40821.

2.9. GFS2 NODE LOCKING

In order to get the best performance from a GFS2 file system, it is very important to understand some of

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 CHAPTER 2. GFS2 CONFIGURATION AND OPERATIONAL CONSIDERATIONS

the basic theory of its operation. A single node file system is implemented alongside a cache, the
purpose of which is to eliminate latency of disk accesses when using frequently requested data. In Linux
the page cache (and historically the buffer cache) provide this caching function.

With GFS2, each node has its own page cache which may contain some portion of the on-disk data.
GFS2 uses a locking mechanism called glocks (pronounced gee-locks) to maintain the integrity of the
cache between nodes. The glock subsystem provides a cache management function which is
implemented using the distributed lock manager (DLM) as the underlying communication layer.

The glocks provide protection for the cache on a per-inode basis, so there is one lock per inode which is
used for controlling the caching layer. If that glock is granted in shared mode (DLM lock mode: PR) then
the data under that glock may be cached upon one or more nodes at the same time, so that all the nodes
may have local access to the data.

If the glock is granted in exclusive mode (DLM lock mode: EX) then only a single node may cache the
data under that glock. This mode is used by all operations which modify the data (such as the write
system call).

If another node requests a glock which cannot be granted immediately, then the DLM sends a message
to the node or nodes which currently hold the glocks blocking the new request to ask them to drop their
locks. Dropping glocks can be (by the standards of most file system operations) a long process.
Dropping a shared glock requires only that the cache be invalidated, which is relatively quick and
proportional to the amount of cached data.

Dropping an exclusive glock requires a log flush, and writing back any changed data to disk, followed by
the invalidation as per the shared glock.

The difference between a single node file system and GFS2, then, is that a single node file system has a
single cache and GFS2 has a separate cache on each node. In both cases, latency to access cached
data is of a similar order of magnitude, but the latency to access uncached data is much greater in GFS2
if another node has previously cached that same data.

NOTE

Due to the way in which GFS2's caching is implemented the best performance is obtained
when either of the following takes place:

An inode is used in a read only fashion across all nodes.

An inode is written or modified from a single node only.

Note that inserting and removing entries from a directory during file creation and deletion
counts as writing to the directory inode.

It is possible to break this rule provided that it is broken relatively infrequently. Ignoring
this rule too often will result in a severe performance penalty.

If you mmap() a file on GFS2 with a read/write mapping, but only read from it, this only
counts as a read. On GFS though, it counts as a write, so GFS2 is much more scalable
with mmap() I/O.

If you do not set the noatime mount parameter, then reads will also result in writes to
update the file timestamps. We recommend that all GFS2 users should mount with
noatime unless they have a specific requirement for atime.

2.9.1. Issues with Posix Locking

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Global File System 2

When using Posix locking, you should take the following into account:

Use of Flocks will yield faster processing than use of Posix locks.

Programs using Posix locks in GFS2 should avoid using the GETLK function since, in a clustered
environment, the process ID may be for a different node in the cluster.

2.9.2. Performance Tuning with GFS2

It is usually possible to alter the way in which a troublesome application stores its data in order to gain a
considerable performance advantage.

A typical example of a troublesome application is an email server. These are often laid out with a spool
directory containing files for each user (mbox), or with a directory for each user containing a file for each
message (maildir). When requests arrive over IMAP, the ideal arrangement is to give each user an
affinity to a particular node. That way their requests to view and delete email messages will tend to be
served from the cache on that one node. Obviously if that node fails, then the session can be restarted on
a different node.

When mail arrives by means of SMTP, then again the individual nodes can be set up so as to pass a
certain user's mail to a particular node by default. If the default node is not up, then the message can be
saved directly into the user's mail spool by the receiving node. Again this design is intended to keep
particular sets of files cached on just one node in the normal case, but to allow direct access in the case
of node failure.

This setup allows the best use of GFS2's page cache and also makes failures transparent to the
application, whether imap or smtp.

Backup is often another tricky area. Again, if it is possible it is greatly preferable to back up the working
set of each node directly from the node which is caching that particular set of inodes. If you have a
backup script which runs at a regular point in time, and that seems to coincide with a spike in the
response time of an application running on GFS2, then there is a good chance that the cluster may not
be making the most efficient use of the page cache.

Obviously, if you are in the (enviable) position of being able to stop the application in order to perform a
backup, then this will not be a problem. On the other hand, if a backup is run from just one node, then
after it has completed a large portion of the file system will be cached on that node, with a performance
penalty for subsequent accesses from other nodes. This can be mitigated to a certain extent by dropping
the VFS page cache on the backup node after the backup has completed with following command:

echo -n 3 >/proc/sys/vm/drop_caches

However this is not as good a solution as taking care to ensure the working set on each node is either
shared, mostly read only across the cluster, or accessed largely from a single node.

2.9.3. Troubleshooting GFS2 Performance with the GFS2 Lock Dump

If your cluster performance is suffering because of inefficient use of GFS2 caching, you may see large
and increasing I/O wait times. You can make use of GFS2's lock dump information to determine the
cause of the problem.

This section provides an overview of the GFS2 lock dump. For a more complete description of the GFS2
lock dump, see Appendix B, GFS2 Tracepoints and the debugfs glocks File.

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The GFS2 lock dump information can be gathered from the debugfs file which can be found at the
following path name, assuming that debugfs is mounted on /sys/kernel/debug/:

/sys/kernel/debug/gfs2/fsname/glocks

The content of the file is a series of lines. Each line starting with G: represents one glock, and the
following lines, indented by a single space, represent an item of information relating to the glock
immediately before them in the file.

The best way to use the debugfs file is to use the cat command to take a copy of the complete content
of the file (it might take a long time if you have a large amount of RAM and a lot of cached inodes) while
the application is experiencing problems, and then looking through the resulting data at a later date.

NOTE

It can be useful to make two copies of the debugfs file, one a few seconds or even a
minute or two after the other. By comparing the holder information in the two traces
relating to the same glock number, you can tell whether the workload is making progress
(it is just slow) or whether it has become stuck (which is always a bug and should be
reported to Red Hat support immediately).

Lines in the debugfs file starting with H: (holders) represent lock requests either granted or waiting to be
granted. The flags field on the holders line f: shows which: The 'W' flag refers to a waiting request, the 'H'
flag refers to a granted request. The glocks which have large numbers of waiting requests are likely to be
those which are experiencing particular contention.

Table 2.1, “Glock flags” shows the meanings of the different glock flags and Table 2.2, “Glock holder
flags” shows the meanings of the different glock holder flags.

Table 2.1. Glock flags

Flag Name Meaning

b Blocking Valid when the locked flag is set, and indicates that the operation
that has been requested from the DLM may block. This flag is
cleared for demotion operations and for "try" locks. The purpose
of this flag is to allow gathering of stats of the DLM response
time independent from the time taken by other nodes to demote
locks.

d Pending demote A deferred (remote) demote request

D Demote A demote request (local or remote)

f Log flush The log needs to be committed before releasing this glock

F Frozen Replies from remote nodes ignored - recovery is in progress.

This flag is not related to file system freeze, which uses a
different mechanism, but is used only in recovery.

i Invalidate in progress In the process of invalidating pages under this glock

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Global File System 2

Flag Name Meaning

I Initial Set when DLM lock is associated with this glock

l Locked The glock is in the process of changing state

L LRU Set when the glock is on the LRU list

o Object Set when the glock is associated with an object (that is, an inode
for type 2 glocks, and a resource group for type 3 glocks)

p Demote in progress The glock is in the process of responding to a demote request

q Queued Set when a holder is queued to a glock, and cleared when the
glock is held, but there are no remaining holders. Used as part of
the algorithm the calculates the minimum hold time for a glock.

r Reply pending Reply received from remote node is awaiting processing

y Dirty Data needs flushing to disk before releasing this glock

Table 2.2. Glock holder flags

Flag Name Meaning

a Async Do not wait for glock result (will poll for result later)

A Any Any compatible lock mode is acceptable

c No cache When unlocked, demote DLM lock immediately

e No expire Ignore subsequent lock cancel requests

E exact Must have exact lock mode

F First Set when holder is the first to be granted for this lock

H Holder Indicates that requested lock is granted

p Priority Enqueue holder at the head of the queue

t Try A "try" lock

T Try 1CB A "try" lock that sends a callback

W Wait Set while waiting for request to complete

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Having identified a glock which is causing a problem, the next step is to find out which inode it relates to.
The glock number (n: on the G: line) indicates this. It is of the form type/number and if type is 2, then the
glock is an inode glock and the number is an inode number. To track down the inode, you can then run
find -inum number where number is the inode number converted from the hex format in the glocks
file into decimal.


WARNING

If you run the find command on a file system when it is experiencing lock
contention, you are likely to make the problem worse. It is a good idea to stop the
application before running the find command when you are looking for contended
inodes.

Table 2.3, “Glock types” shows the meanings of the different glock types.

Table 2.3. Glock types

Type Lock type Use

number

1 Trans Transaction lock

2 Inode Inode metadata and data

3 Rgrp Resource group metadata

4 Meta The superblock

5 Iopen Inode last closer detection

6 Flock flock(2) syscall

8 Quota Quota operations

9 Journal Journal mutex

If the glock that was identified was of a different type, then it is most likely to be of type 3: (resource
group). If you see significant numbers of processes waiting for other types of glock under normal loads,
report this to Red Hat support.

If you do see a number of waiting requests queued on a resource group lock there may be a number of
reasons for this. One is that there are a large number of nodes compared to the number of resource
groups in the file system. Another is that the file system may be very nearly full (requiring, on average,
longer searches for free blocks). The situation in both cases can be improved by adding more storage
and using the gfs2_grow command to expand the file system.

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Global File System 2

CHAPTER 3. MANAGING GFS2

This chapter describes the tasks and commands for managing GFS2 and consists of the following
sections:

Section 3.1, “Making a File System”

Section 3.2, “Mounting a File System”

Section 3.3, “Unmounting a File System”

Section 3.5, “GFS2 Quota Management”

Section 3.6, “Growing a File System”

Section 3.7, “Adding Journals to a File System”

Section 3.8, “Data Journaling”

Section 3.9, “Configuring atime Updates”

Section 3.10, “Suspending Activity on a File System”

Section 3.11, “Repairing a File System”

Section 3.12, “The GFS2 Withdraw Function”

3.1. MAKING A FILE SYSTEM

You create a GFS2 file system with the mkfs.gfs2 command. You can also use the mkfs command
with the -t gfs2 option specified. A file system is created on an activated LVM volume. The following
information is required to run the mkfs.gfs2 command:

Lock protocol/module name (the lock protocol for a cluster is lock_dlm)

Cluster name (needed when specifying the LockTableName parameter)

Number of journals (one journal required for each node that may be mounting the file system)

When creating a GFS2 file system, you can use the mkfs.gfs2 command directly, or you can use the
mkfs command with the -t parameter specifying a file system of type gfs2, followed by the GFS2 file
system options.

NOTE

Once you have created a GFS2 file system with the mkfs.gfs2 command, you cannot
decrease the size of the file system. You can, however, increase the size of an existing
file system with the gfs2_grow command, as described in Section 3.6, “Growing a File
System”.

Usage
When creating a clustered GFS2 file system, you can use either of the following formats:

mkfs.gfs2 -p LockProtoName -t LockTableName -j NumberJournals BlockDevice

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mkfs -t gfs2 -p LockProtoName -t LockTableName -j NumberJournals

BlockDevice

When creating a local GFS2 file system, you can use either of the following formats:

NOTE

As of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 release, Red Hat does not support the use of GFS2
as a single-node file system.

mkfs.gfs2 -p LockProtoName -j NumberJournals BlockDevice

mkfs -t gfs2 -p LockProtoName -j NumberJournals BlockDevice


WARNING

Make sure that you are very familiar with using the LockProtoName and
LockTableName parameters. Improper use of the LockProtoName and
LockTableName parameters may cause file system or lock space corruption.

LockProtoName
Specifies the name of the locking protocol to use. The lock protocol for a cluster is lock_dlm.

LockTableName
This parameter is specified for a GFS2 file system in a cluster configuration. It has two parts
separated by a colon (no spaces) as follows: ClusterName:FSName

ClusterName, the name of the cluster for which the GFS2 file system is being created.

FSName, the file system name, can be 1 to 16 characters long. The name must be unique for
all lock_dlm file systems over the cluster, and for all file systems (lock_dlm and
lock_nolock) on each local node.

Number
Specifies the number of journals to be created by the mkfs.gfs2 command. One journal is required
for each node that mounts the file system. For GFS2 file systems, more journals can be added later
without growing the file system, as described in Section 3.7, “Adding Journals to a File System”.

BlockDevice
Specifies a logical or physical volume.

Examples

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Global File System 2

In these examples, lock_dlm is the locking protocol that the file system uses, since this is a clustered
file system. The cluster name is alpha, and the file system name is mydata1. The file system contains
eight journals and is created on /dev/vg01/lvol0.

# mkfs.gfs2 -p lock_dlm -t alpha:mydata1 -j 8 /dev/vg01/lvol0

# mkfs -t gfs2 -p lock_dlm -t alpha:mydata1 -j 8 /dev/vg01/lvol0

In these examples, a second lock_dlm file system is made, which can be used in cluster alpha. The
file system name is mydata2. The file system contains eight journals and is created on
/dev/vg01/lvol1.

mkfs.gfs2 -p lock_dlm -t alpha:mydata2 -j 8 /dev/vg01/lvol1

mkfs -t gfs2 -p lock_dlm -t alpha:mydata2 -j 8 /dev/vg01/lvol1

Complete Options
Table 3.1, “Command Options: mkfs.gfs2” describes the mkfs.gfs2 command options (flags and
parameters).

Table 3.1. Command Options: mkfs.gfs2

Flag Parameter Description

-c Megabytes Sets the initial size of each journal's quota change file to
Megabytes.

-D Enables debugging output.

-h Help. Displays available options.

-J Megabytes Specifies the size of the journal in megabytes. Default

journal size is 128 megabytes. The minimum size is 8
megabytes. Larger journals improve performance, although
they use more memory than smaller journals.

-j Number Specifies the number of journals to be created by the

mkfs.gfs2 command. One journal is required for each
node that mounts the file system. If this option is not
specified, one journal will be created. For GFS2 file
systems, you can add additional journals at a later time
without growing the file system.

-O Prevents the mkfs.gfs2 command from asking for

confirmation before writing the file system.

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 CHAPTER 3. MANAGING GFS2

Flag Parameter Description

-p LockProtoName
Specifies the name of the locking protocol to use. Recognized
locking protocols include:

lock_dlm — The standard locking module, required for a

clustered file system.

lock_nolock — Used when GFS2 is acting as a local file

system (one node only).

-q Quiet. Do not display anything.

-r Megabytes Specifies the size of the resource groups in megabytes. The

minimum resource group size is 32 megabytes. The
maximum resource group size is 2048 megabytes. A large
resource group size may increase performance on very
large file systems. If this is not specified, mkfs.gfs2
chooses the resource group size based on the size of the
file system: average size file systems will have 256
megabyte resource groups, and bigger file systems will
have bigger RGs for better performance.

-t LockTableName
A unique identifier that specifies the lock table field when you
use the lock_dlm protocol; the lock_nolock protocol
does not use this parameter.

This parameter has two parts separated by a colon (no

spaces) as follows: ClusterName:FSName .

ClusterName is the name of the cluster for which the

GFS2 file system is being created; only members of this
cluster are permitted to use this file system. The cluster name
is set in the /etc/cluster/cluster.conf file by
means of the Cluster Configuration Tool and displayed at
the Cluster Status Tool in the Red Hat Cluster Suite cluster
management GUI.

FSName , the file system name, can be 1 to 16 characters in

length, and the name must be unique among all file systems in
the cluster.

-u Megabytes Specifies the initial size of each journal's unlinked tag file.

-V Displays command version information.

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Global File System 2

3.2. MOUNTING A FILE SYSTEM

Before you can mount a GFS2 file system, the file system must exist (see Section 3.1, “Making a File
System”), the volume where the file system exists must be activated, and the supporting clustering and
locking systems must be started (see Configuring and Managing a Red Hat Cluster). After those
requirements have been met, you can mount the GFS2 file system as you would any Linux file system.

To manipulate file ACLs, you must mount the file system with the -o acl mount option. If a file system
is mounted without the -o acl mount option, users are allowed to view ACLs (with getfacl), but are
not allowed to set them (with setfacl).

Usage
Mounting Without ACL Manipulation

mount BlockDevice MountPoint

Mounting With ACL Manipulation

mount -o acl BlockDevice MountPoint

-o acl
GFS2-specific option to allow manipulating file ACLs.

BlockDevice
Specifies the block device where the GFS2 file system resides.

MountPoint
Specifies the directory where the GFS2 file system should be mounted.

Example
In this example, the GFS2 file system on /dev/vg01/lvol0 is mounted on the /mygfs2 directory.

# mount /dev/vg01/lvol0 /mygfs2

Complete Usage

mount BlockDevice MountPoint -o option

The -o option argument consists of GFS2-specific options (see Table 3.2, “GFS2-Specific Mount
Options”) or acceptable standard Linux mount -o options, or a combination of both. Multiple option
parameters are separated by a comma and no spaces.

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NOTE

The mount command is a Linux system command. In addition to using GFS2-specific

options described in this section, you can use other, standard, mount command options
(for example, -r). For information about other Linux mount command options, see the
Linux mount man page.

Table 3.2, “GFS2-Specific Mount Options” describes the available GFS2-specific -o option values
that can be passed to GFS2 at mount time.

NOTE

This table includes descriptions of options that are used with local file systems only. Note,
however, that as of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 release, Red Hat does not support the
use of GFS2 as a single-node file system. Red Hat will continue to support single-node
GFS2 file systems for mounting snapshots of cluster file systems (for example, for backup
purposes).

Table 3.2. GFS2-Specific Mount Options

Option Description

acl Allows manipulating file ACLs. If a file system is mounted

without the acl mount option, users are allowed to view
ACLs (with getfacl), but are not allowed to set them (with
setfacl).

data=[ordered|writeback] When data=ordered is set, the user data modified by a

transaction is flushed to the disk before the transaction is
committed to disk. This should prevent the user from seeing
uninitialized blocks in a file after a crash. When
data=writeback mode is set, the user data is written to
the disk at any time after it is dirtied; this does not provide
the same consistency guarantee as ordered mode, but it
should be slightly faster for some workloads. The default
value is ordered mode.

Forces GFS2 to treat the file system as a multi-host file

ignore_local_fs system. By default, using lock_nolock automatically
turns on the localflocks flag.
Caution: This option should not be used
when GFS2 file systems are shared.

Tells GFS2 to let the VFS (virtual file system) layer do all
localflocks flock and fcntl. The localflocks flag is automatically
turned on by lock_nolock .
Caution: This option should not be used
when GFS2 file systems are shared.

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Option Description

lockproto=LockModuleName Allows the user to specify which locking protocol to use with
the file system. If LockModuleName is not specified, the
locking protocol name is read from the file system
superblock.

locktable=LockTableName Allows the user to specify which locking table to use with the
file system.

quota=[off/account/on] Turns quotas on or off for a file system. Setting the quotas
to be in the account state causes the per UID/GID usage
statistics to be correctly maintained by the file system; limit
and warn values are ignored. The default value is off.

errors=panic|withdraw When errors=panic is specified, file system errors will

cause a kernel panic. When errors=withdraw is
specified, which is the default behavior, file system errors
will cause the system to withdraw from the file system and
make it inaccessible until the next reboot; in some cases the
system may remain running.

discard/nodiscard Causes GFS2 to generate "discard" I/O requests for blocks

that have been freed. These can be used by suitable
hardware to implement thin provisioning and similar
schemes.

barrier/nobarrier Causes GFS2 to send I/O barriers when flushing the journal.
The default value is on. This option is automatically turned
off if the underlying device does not support I/O barriers.
Use of I/O barriers with GFS2 is highly recommended at all
times unless the block device is designed so that it cannot
lose its write cache content (for example, if it is on a UPS or
it does not have a write cache).

quota_quantum=secs Sets the number of seconds for which a change in the quota
information may sit on one node before being written to the
quota file. This is the preferred way to set this parameter.
The value is an integer number of seconds greater than
zero. The default is 60 seconds. Shorter settings result in
faster updates of the lazy quota information and less
likelihood of someone exceeding their quota. Longer
settings make file system operations involving quotas faster
and more efficient.

statfs_quantum=secs Setting statfs_quantum to 0 is the preferred way to set

the slow version of statfs . The default value is 30 secs
which sets the maximum time period before statfs
changes will be synced to the master statfs file. This can
be adjusted to allow for faster, less accurate statfs
values or slower more accurate values. When this option is
set to 0, statfs will always report the true values.

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Option Description

statfs_percent=value Provides a bound on the maximum percentage change in

the statfs information on a local basis before it is synced
back to the master statfs file, even if the time period has
not expired. If the setting of statfs_quantum is 0, then
this setting is ignored.

3.3. UNMOUNTING A FILE SYSTEM

The GFS2 file system can be unmounted the same way as any Linux file system — by using the
umount command.

NOTE

The umount command is a Linux system command. Information about this command can
be found in the Linux umount command man pages.

Usage

umount MountPoint

MountPoint
Specifies the directory where the GFS2 file system is currently mounted.

3.4. SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS WHEN MOUNTING GFS2 FILE

SYSTEMS
GFS2 file systems that have been mounted manually rather than automatically through Pacemaker will
not be known to the system when file systems are unmounted at system shutdown. As a result, the
GFS2 script will not unmount the GFS2 file system. After the GFS2 shutdown script is run, the standard
shutdown process kills off all remaining user processes, including the cluster infrastructure, and tries to
unmount the file system. This unmount will fail without the cluster infrastructure and the system will hang.

To prevent the system from hanging when the GFS2 file systems are unmounted, you should do one of
the following:

Always use Pacemaker to manage the GFS2 file system. For information on configuring a GFS2
file system in a Pacemaker cluster, see Chapter 5, Configuring a GFS2 File System in a Cluster.

If a GFS2 file system has been mounted manually with the mount command, be sure to
unmount the file system manually with the umount command before rebooting or shutting down
the system.

If your file system hangs while it is being unmounted during system shutdown under these
circumstances, perform a hardware reboot. It is unlikely that any data will be lost since the file system is
synced earlier in the shutdown process.

3.5. GFS2 QUOTA MANAGEMENT

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File system quotas are used to limit the amount of file system space a user or group can use. A user or
group does not have a quota limit until one is set. When a GFS2 file system is mounted with the
quota=on or quota=account option, GFS2 keeps track of the space used by each user and group
even when there are no limits in place. GFS2 updates quota information in a transactional way so
system crashes do not require quota usages to be reconstructed.

To prevent a performance slowdown, a GFS2 node synchronizes updates to the quota file only
periodically. The fuzzy quota accounting can allow users or groups to slightly exceed the set limit. To
minimize this, GFS2 dynamically reduces the synchronization period as a hard quota limit is approached.

NOTE

GFS2 supports the standard Linux quota facilities. In order to use this you will need to
install the quota RPM. This is the preferred way to administer quotas on GFS2 and
should be used for all new deployments of GFS2 using quotas. This section documents
GFS2 quota management using these facilities.

3.5.1. Configuring Disk Quotas

To implement disk quotas, use the following steps:

1. Set up quotas in enforcement or accounting mode.

2. Initialize the quota database file with current block usage information.

3. Assign quota policies. (In accounting mode, these policies are not enforced.)

Each of these steps is discussed in detail in the following sections.

3.5.1.1. Setting Up Quotas in Enforcement or Accounting Mode

In GFS2 file systems, quotas are disabled by default. To enable quotas for a file system, mount the file
system with the quota=on option specified.

It is possible to keep track of disk usage and maintain quota accounting for every user and group without
enforcing the limit and warn values. To do this, mount the file system with the quota=account option
specified.

To mount a file system with quotas enabled, specify quota=on for the options argument when
creating the GFS2 file system resource in a cluster. For example, the following command specifies that
the GFS2 Filesystem resource being created will be mounted with quotas enabled.

# pcs resource create gfs2mount Filesystem options="quota=on"

device=BLOCKDEVICE directory=MOUNTPOINT fstype=gfs2 clone

For information on configuring a GFS2 file system in a Pacemaker cluster, see Chapter 5, Configuring a
GFS2 File System in a Cluster.

To mount a file system with quota accounting maintained, even though the quota limits are not enforced,
specify quota=account for the options argument when creating the GFS2 file system resource in a
cluster.

To mount a file system with quotas disabled, specify quota=off for the options argument when
creating the GFS2 file system resource in a cluster.

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3.5.1.2. Creating the Quota Database Files

After each quota-enabled file system is mounted, the system is capable of working with disk quotas.
However, the file system itself is not yet ready to support quotas. The next step is to run the
quotacheck command.

The quotacheck command examines quota-enabled file systems and builds a table of the current disk
usage per file system. The table is then used to update the operating system's copy of disk usage. In
addition, the file system's disk quota files are updated.

To create the quota files on the file system, use the -u and the -g options of the quotacheck
command; both of these options must be specified for user and group quotas to be initialized. For
example, if quotas are enabled for the /home file system, create the files in the /home directory:

quotacheck -ug /home

3.5.1.3. Assigning Quotas Per User

The last step is assigning the disk quotas with the edquota command. Note that if you have mounted
your file system in accounting mode (with the quota=account option specified), the quotas are not
enforced.

To configure the quota for a user, as root in a shell prompt, execute the command:

# edquota username

Perform this step for each user who needs a quota. For example, if a quota is enabled for the /home
partition (/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol02 in the example below) and the command edquota
testuser is executed, the following is shown in the editor configured as the default for the system:

Disk quotas for user testuser (uid 501):

Filesystem blocks soft hard inodes soft
hard
/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol02 440436 0 0

NOTE

The text editor defined by the EDITOR environment variable is used by edquota. To
change the editor, set the EDITOR environment variable in your ~/.bash_profile file
to the full path of the editor of your choice.

The first column is the name of the file system that has a quota enabled for it. The second column shows
how many blocks the user is currently using. The next two columns are used to set soft and hard block
limits for the user on the file system.

The soft block limit defines the maximum amount of disk space that can be used.

The hard block limit is the absolute maximum amount of disk space that a user or group can use. Once
this limit is reached, no further disk space can be used.

The GFS2 file system does not maintain quotas for inodes, so these columns do not apply to GFS2 file
systems and will be blank.

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If any of the values are set to 0, that limit is not set. In the text editor, change the limits. For example:

Disk quotas for user testuser (uid 501):

Filesystem blocks soft hard inodes soft
hard
/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol02 440436 500000 550000

To verify that the quota for the user has been set, use the command:

quota testuser

3.5.1.4. Assigning Quotas Per Group

Quotas can also be assigned on a per-group basis. Note that if you have mounted your file system in
accounting mode (with the account=on option specified), the quotas are not enforced.

To set a group quota for the devel group (the group must exist prior to setting the group quota), use the
following command:

edquota -g devel

This command displays the existing quota for the group in the text editor:

Disk quotas for group devel (gid 505):

Filesystem blocks soft hard inodes soft hard
/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol02 440400 0 0

The GFS2 file system does not maintain quotas for inodes, so these columns do not apply to GFS2 file
systems and will be blank. Modify the limits, then save the file.

To verify that the group quota has been set, use the following command:

$ quota -g devel

3.5.2. Managing Disk Quotas

If quotas are implemented, they need some maintenance — mostly in the form of watching to see if the
quotas are exceeded and making sure the quotas are accurate.

Of course, if users repeatedly exceed their quotas or consistently reach their soft limits, a system
administrator has a few choices to make depending on what type of users they are and how much disk
space impacts their work. The administrator can either help the user determine how to use less disk
space or increase the user's disk quota.

You can create a disk usage report by running the repquota utility. For example, the command
repquota /home produces this output:

*** Report for user quotas on device /dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol02

Block grace time: 7days; Inode grace time: 7days
Block limits File limits
User used soft hard grace used soft hard grace
----------------------------------------------------------------------

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root -- 36 0 0 4 0 0
kristin -- 540 0 0 125 0 0
testuser -- 440400 500000 550000 37418 0 0

To view the disk usage report for all (option -a) quota-enabled file systems, use the command:

# repquota -a

While the report is easy to read, a few points should be explained. The -- displayed after each user is a
quick way to determine whether the block limits have been exceeded. If the block soft limit is exceeded,
a + appears in place of the first - in the output. The second - indicates the inode limit, but GFS2 file
systems do not support inode limits so that character will remain as -. GFS2 file systems do not support
a grace period, so the grace column will remain blank.

Note that the repquota command is not supported over NFS, irrespective of the underlying file system.

3.5.3. Keeping Quotas Accurate

If you enable quotas on your file system after a period of time when you have been running with quotas
disabled, you should run the quotacheck command to create, check, and repair quota files.
Additionally, you may want to run the quotacheck command if you think your quota files may not be
accurate, as may occur when a file system is not unmounted cleanly after a system crash.

For more information about the quotacheck command, see the quotacheck man page.

NOTE

Run quotacheck when the file system is relatively idle on all nodes because disk activity
may affect the computed quota values.

3.5.4. Synchronizing Quotas with the quotasync Command

GFS2 stores all quota information in its own internal file on disk. A GFS2 node does not update this
quota file for every file system write; rather, by default it updates the quota file once every 60 seconds.
This is necessary to avoid contention among nodes writing to the quota file, which would cause a
slowdown in performance.

As a user or group approaches their quota limit, GFS2 dynamically reduces the time between its quota-
file updates to prevent the limit from being exceeded. The normal time period between quota
synchronizations is a tunable parameter, quota_quantum. You can change this from its default value of
60 seconds using the quota_quantum= mount option, as described in Table 3.2, “GFS2-Specific Mount
Options”. The quota_quantum parameter must be set on each node and each time the file system is
mounted. Changes to the quota_quantum parameter are not persistent across unmounts. You can
update the quota_quantum value with the mount -o remount.

You can use the quotasync command to synchronize the quota information from a node to the on-disk
quota file between the automatic updates performed by GFS2.

Usage

Synchronizing Quota Information

quotasync [-ug] -a|mntpnt...

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u
Sync the user quota files.

g
Sync the group quota files

a
Sync all file systems that are currently quota-enabled and support sync. When -a is absent, a file
system mountpoint should be specified.

mntpnt
Specifies the GFS2 file system to which the actions apply.

Tuning the Time Between Synchronizations

mount -o quota_quantum=secs,remount BlockDevice MountPoint

MountPoint
Specifies the GFS2 file system to which the actions apply.

secs
Specifies the new time period between regular quota-file synchronizations by GFS2. Smaller values
may increase contention and slow down performance.

Examples

This example synchronizes all the cached dirty quotas from the node it is run on to the on-disk quota file
for the file system /mnt/mygfs2.

# quotasync -ug /mnt/mygfs2

This example changes the default time period between regular quota-file updates to one hour (3600
seconds) for file system /mnt/mygfs2 when remounting that file system on logical volume
/dev/volgroup/logical_volume.

# mount -o quota_quantum=3600,remount /dev/volgroup/logical_volume

/mnt/mygfs2

3.5.5. References
For more information on disk quotas, see the man pages of the following commands:

quotacheck

edquota

repquota

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quota

3.6. GROWING A FILE SYSTEM

The gfs2_grow command is used to expand a GFS2 file system after the device where the file system
resides has been expanded. Running the gfs2_grow command on an existing GFS2 file system fills all
spare space between the current end of the file system and the end of the device with a newly initialized
GFS2 file system extension. When the fill operation is completed, the resource index for the file system
is updated. All nodes in the cluster can then use the extra storage space that has been added.

The gfs2_grow command must be run on a mounted file system, but only needs to be run on one node
in a cluster. All the other nodes sense that the expansion has occurred and automatically start using the
new space.

NOTE

Once you have created a GFS2 file system with the mkfs.gfs2 command, you cannot
decrease the size of the file system.

Usage

gfs2_grow MountPoint

MountPoint
Specifies the GFS2 file system to which the actions apply.

Comments
Before running the gfs2_grow command:

Back up important data on the file system.

Determine the volume that is used by the file system to be expanded by running the df
MountPoint command.

Expand the underlying cluster volume with LVM. For information on administering LVM volumes,
see Logical Volume Manager Administration.

After running the gfs2_grow command, run the df command to check that the new space is now
available in the file system.

Examples
In this example, the file system on the /mygfs2fs directory is expanded.

# gfs2_grow /mygfs2fs
FS: Mount Point: /mygfs2fs
FS: Device: /dev/mapper/gfs2testvg-gfs2testlv
FS: Size: 524288 (0x80000)
FS: RG size: 65533 (0xfffd)
DEV: Size: 655360 (0xa0000)
The file system grew by 512MB.

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gfs2_grow complete.

Complete Usage

gfs2_grow [Options] {MountPoint | Device} [MountPoint | Device]

MountPoint
Specifies the directory where the GFS2 file system is mounted.

Device
Specifies the device node of the file system.

Table 3.3, “GFS2-specific Options Available While Expanding A File System” describes the GFS2-
specific options that can be used while expanding a GFS2 file system.

Table 3.3. GFS2-specific Options Available While Expanding A File System

Option Description

-h Help. Displays a short usage message.

-q Quiet. Turns down the verbosity level.

-r Megabytes Specifies the size of the new resource group. The default size is 256
megabytes.

-T Test. Do all calculations, but do not write any data to the disk and do not
expand the file system.

-V Displays command version information.

3.7. ADDING JOURNALS TO A FILE SYSTEM

The gfs2_jadd command is used to add journals to a GFS2 file system. You can add journals to a
GFS2 file system dynamically at any point without expanding the underlying logical volume. The
gfs2_jadd command must be run on a mounted file system, but it needs to be run on only one node in
the cluster. All the other nodes sense that the expansion has occurred.

NOTE

If a GFS2 file system is full, the gfs2_jadd command will fail, even if the logical volume
containing the file system has been extended and is larger than the file system. This is
because in a GFS2 file system, journals are plain files rather than embedded metadata,
so simply extending the underlying logical volume will not provide space for the journals.

Before adding journals to a GFS2 file system, you can find out how many journals the GFS2 file system
currently contains with the gfs2_edit -p jindex command, as in the following example:

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# gfs2_edit -p jindex /dev/sasdrives/scratch|grep journal

3/3 [fc7745eb] 4/25 (0x4/0x19): File journal0
4/4 [8b70757d] 5/32859 (0x5/0x805b): File journal1
5/5 [127924c7] 6/65701 (0x6/0x100a5): File journal2

Usage

gfs2_jadd -j Number MountPoint

Number
Specifies the number of new journals to be added.

MountPoint
Specifies the directory where the GFS2 file system is mounted.

Examples
In this example, one journal is added to the file system on the /mygfs2 directory.

gfs2_jadd -j 1 /mygfs2

In this example, two journals are added to the file system on the /mygfs2 directory.

gfs2_jadd -j 2 /mygfs2

Complete Usage

gfs2_jadd [Options] {MountPoint | Device} [MountPoint | Device]

MountPoint
Specifies the directory where the GFS2 file system is mounted.

Device
Specifies the device node of the file system.

Table 3.4, “GFS2-specific Options Available When Adding Journals” describes the GFS2-specific options
that can be used when adding journals to a GFS2 file system.

Table 3.4. GFS2-specific Options Available When Adding Journals

Flag Parameter Description

-h Help. Displays short usage message.

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Flag Parameter Description

-J Megabytes Specifies the size of the new journals in megabytes. Default

journal size is 128 megabytes. The minimum size is 32
megabytes. To add journals of different sizes to the file
system, the gfs2_jadd command must be run for each
size journal. The size specified is rounded down so that it is a
multiple of the journal-segment size that was specified when
the file system was created.

-j Number Specifies the number of new journals to be added by the

gfs2_jadd command. The default value is 1.

-q Quiet. Turns down the verbosity level.

-V Displays command version information.

3.8. DATA JOURNALING

Ordinarily, GFS2 writes only metadata to its journal. File contents are subsequently written to disk by the
kernel's periodic sync that flushes file system buffers. An fsync() call on a file causes the file's data to
be written to disk immediately. The call returns when the disk reports that all data is safely written.

Data journaling can result in a reduced fsync() time for very small files because the file data is written
to the journal in addition to the metadata. This advantage rapidly reduces as the file size increases.
Writing to medium and larger files will be much slower with data journaling turned on.

Applications that rely on fsync() to sync file data may see improved performance by using data
journaling. Data journaling can be enabled automatically for any GFS2 files created in a flagged
directory (and all its subdirectories). Existing files with zero length can also have data journaling turned
on or off.

Enabling data journaling on a directory sets the directory to "inherit jdata", which indicates that all files
and directories subsequently created in that directory are journaled. You can enable and disable data
journaling on a file with the chattr command.

The following commands enable data journaling on the /mnt/gfs2/gfs2_dir/newfile file and then
check whether the flag has been set properly.

# chattr +j /mnt/gfs2/gfs2_dir/newfile
# lsattr /mnt/gfs2/gfs2_dir
---------j--- /mnt/gfs2/gfs2_dir/newfile

The following commands disable data journaling on the /mnt/gfs2/gfs2_dir/newfile file and then
check whether the flag has been set properly.

# chattr -j /mnt/gfs2/gfs2_dir/newfile
# lsattr /mnt/gfs2/gfs2_dir
------------- /mnt/gfs2/gfs2_dir/newfile

You can also use the chattr command to set the j flag on a directory. When you set this flag for a
directory, all files and directories subsequently created in that directory are journaled. The following set

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of commands sets the j flag on the gfs2_dir directory, then checks whether the flag has been set
properly. After this, the commands create a new file called newfile in the /mnt/gfs2/gfs2_dir
directory and then check whether the j flag has been set for the file. Since the j flag is set for the
directory, then newfile should also have journaling enabled.

# chattr -j /mnt/gfs2/gfs2_dir
# lsattr /mnt/gfs2
---------j--- /mnt/gfs2/gfs2_dir
# touch /mnt/gfs2/gfs2_dir/newfile
# lsattr /mnt/gfs2/gfs2_dir
---------j--- /mnt/gfs2/gfs2_dir/newfile

3.9. CONFIGURING ATIME UPDATES

Each file inode and directory inode has three time stamps associated with it:

ctime — The last time the inode status was changed

mtime — The last time the file (or directory) data was modified

atime — The last time the file (or directory) data was accessed

If atime updates are enabled as they are by default on GFS2 and other Linux file systems then every
time a file is read, its inode needs to be updated.

Because few applications use the information provided by atime, those updates can require a
significant amount of unnecessary write traffic and file locking traffic. That traffic can degrade
performance; therefore, it may be preferable to turn off or reduce the frequency of atime updates.

Two methods of reducing the effects of atime updating are available:

Mount with relatime (relative atime), which updates the atime if the previous atime update
is older than the mtime or ctime update.

Mount with noatime, which disables atime updates on that file system.

3.9.1. Mount with relatime

The relatime (relative atime) Linux mount option can be specified when the file system is mounted.
This specifies that the atime is updated if the previous atime update is older than the mtime or ctime
update.

Usage

mount BlockDevice MountPoint -o relatime

BlockDevice
Specifies the block device where the GFS2 file system resides.

MountPoint
Specifies the directory where the GFS2 file system should be mounted.

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Example

In this example, the GFS2 file system resides on /dev/vg01/lvol0 and is mounted on directory
/mygfs2. The atime updates take place only if the previous atime update is older than the mtime or
ctime update.

# mount /dev/vg01/lvol0 /mygfs2 -o relatime

3.9.2. Mount with noatime

The noatime Linux mount option can be specified when the file system is mounted, which disables
atime updates on that file system.

Usage

mount BlockDevice MountPoint -o noatime

BlockDevice
Specifies the block device where the GFS2 file system resides.

MountPoint
Specifies the directory where the GFS2 file system should be mounted.

Example

In this example, the GFS2 file system resides on /dev/vg01/lvol0 and is mounted on directory
/mygfs2 with atime updates turned off.

# mount /dev/vg01/lvol0 /mygfs2 -o noatime

3.10. SUSPENDING ACTIVITY ON A FILE SYSTEM

You can suspend write activity to a file system by using the dmsetup suspend command. Suspending
write activity allows hardware-based device snapshots to be used to capture the file system in a
consistent state. The dmsetup resume command ends the suspension.

Usage
Start Suspension

dmsetup suspend MountPoint

End Suspension

dmsetup resume MountPoint

MountPoint
Specifies the file system.

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Examples
This example suspends writes to file system /mygfs2.

# dmsetup suspend /mygfs2

This example ends suspension of writes to file system /mygfs2.

# dmsetup resume /mygfs2

3.11. REPAIRING A FILE SYSTEM

When nodes fail with the file system mounted, file system journaling allows fast recovery. However, if a
storage device loses power or is physically disconnected, file system corruption may occur. (Journaling
cannot be used to recover from storage subsystem failures.) When that type of corruption occurs, you
can recover the GFS2 file system by using the fsck.gfs2 command.

IMPORTANT

The fsck.gfs2 command must be run only on a file system that is unmounted from all
nodes. When the file system is being managed as a Pacemaker cluster resource, you can
disable the file system resource, which unmounts the file system. After running the
fsck.gfs2 command, you enable the file system resource again. The timeout value
specified with the --wait option of the pcs resource disable indicates a value in
seconds.

# pcs resource disable --wait=timeoutvalue resource_id

[fsck.gfs2]
# pcs resource enable resource_id

To ensure that fsck.gfs2 command does not run on a GFS2 file system at boot time,
you can set the run_fsck parameter of the options argument when creating the GFS2
file system resource in a cluster. Specifying "run_fsck=no" will indicate that you should
not run the fsck command.

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Global File System 2

NOTE

If you have previous experience using the gfs_fsck command on GFS file systems,
note that the fsck.gfs2 command differs from some earlier releases of gfs_fsck in
the following ways:

Pressing Ctrl+C while running the fsck.gfs2 command interrupts processing

and displays a prompt asking whether you would like to abort the command, skip
the rest of the current pass, or continue processing.

You can increase the level of verbosity by using the -v flag. Adding a second -v
flag increases the level again.

You can decrease the level of verbosity by using the -q flag. Adding a second -q
flag decreases the level again.

The -n option opens a file system as read only and answers no to any queries
automatically. The option provides a way of trying the command to reveal errors
without actually allowing the fsck.gfs2 command to take effect.

Refer to the fsck.gfs2 man page for additional information about other command
options.

Running the fsck.gfs2 command requires system memory above and beyond the memory used for
the operating system and kernel. Each block of memory in the GFS2 file system itself requires
approximately five bits of additional memory, or 5/8 of a byte. So to estimate how many bytes of memory
you will need to run the fsck.gfs2 command on your file system, determine how many blocks the file
system contains and multiply that number by 5/8.

For example, to determine approximately how much memory is required to run the fsck.gfs2
command on a GFS2 file system that is 16TB with a block size of 4K, first determine how many blocks of
memory the file system contains by dividing 16TB by 4K:

17592186044416 / 4096 = 4294967296

Since this file system contains 4294967296 blocks, multiply that number by 5/8 to determine how many
bytes of memory are required:

4294967296 * 5/8 = 2684354560

This file system requires approximately 2.6GB of free memory to run the fsck.gfs2 command. Note
that if the block size was 1K, running the fsck.gfs2 command would require four times the memory, or
approximately 11GB.

Usage

fsck.gfs2 -y BlockDevice

-y
The -y flag causes all questions to be answered with yes. With the -y flag specified, the
fsck.gfs2 command does not prompt you for an answer before making changes.

BlockDevice

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 CHAPTER 3. MANAGING GFS2

Specifies the block device where the GFS2 file system resides.

Example
In this example, the GFS2 file system residing on block device /dev/testvg/testlv is repaired. All
queries to repair are automatically answered with yes.

# fsck.gfs2 -y /dev/testvg/testlv
Initializing fsck
Validating Resource Group index.
Level 1 RG check.
(level 1 passed)
Clearing journals (this may take a while)...
Journals cleared.
Starting pass1
Pass1 complete
Starting pass1b
Pass1b complete
Starting pass1c
Pass1c complete
Starting pass2
Pass2 complete
Starting pass3
Pass3 complete
Starting pass4
Pass4 complete
Starting pass5
Pass5 complete
Writing changes to disk
fsck.gfs2 complete

3.12. THE GFS2 WITHDRAW FUNCTION

The GFS2 withdraw function is a data integrity feature of the GFS2 file system that prevents potential file
system damage due to faulty hardware or kernel software. If the GFS2 kernel module detects an
inconsistency while using a GFS2 file system on any given cluster node, it withdraws from the file
system, leaving it unavailable to that node until it is unmounted and remounted (or the machine detecting
the problem is rebooted). All other mounted GFS2 file systems remain fully functional on that node. (The
GFS2 withdraw function is less severe than a kernel panic, which causes the node to be fenced.)

The main categories of inconsistency that can cause a GFS2 withdraw are as follows:

Inode consistency error

Resource group consistency error

Journal consistency error

Magic number metadata consistency error

Metadata type consistency error

An example of an inconsistency that would cause a GFS2 withdraw is an incorrect block count for a file’s
inode. When GFS2 deletes a file, it systematically removes all the data and metadata blocks referenced

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Global File System 2

by that file. When done, it checks the inode’s block count. If the block count is not 1 (meaning all that is
left is the disk inode itself), that indicates a file system inconsistency, since the inode’s block count did
not match the actual blocks used for the file.

In many cases, the problem may have been caused by faulty hardware (faulty memory, motherboard,
HBA, disk drives, cables, and so forth). It may also have been caused by a kernel bug (another kernel
module accidentally overwriting GFS2’s memory), or actual file system damage (caused by a GFS2
bug).

In most cases, the GFS2 inconsistency is fixed by rebooting the cluster node. Before rebooting the
cluster node, disable the GFS2 file system “clone” service from Pacemaker, which unmounts the file
system on that node only.

# pcs resource disable --wait=100 mydata_fs_clone

# /sbin/reboot


WARNING

Do not try to unmount and remount the file system manually with the umount and
mount commands. You must use the pcs command, otherwise Pacemaker will
detect the file system service has disappeared and fence the node.

The consistency problem that caused the withdraw may make stopping the file system service
impossible as it may cause the system to hang.

If the problem persists after a remount, you should stop the file system service to unmount the file
system from all nodes in the cluster, then perform a file system check with the fsck.gfs2 command before
restarting the service with the following procedure.

1. Reboot the affected node.

2. Disable the non-clone file system service in Pacemaker to unmount the file system from every
node in the cluster.

# pcs resource disable --wait=100 mydata_fs

3. From one node of the cluster, run the fsck.gfs2 command on the file system device to check
for and repair any file system damage.

# fsck.gfs2 -y /dev/vg_mydata/mydata > /tmp/fsck.out

4. Remount the GFS2 file system from all nodes by re-enabling the file system service:

# pcs resource enable --wait=100 mydata_fs

You can override the GFS2 withdraw function by mounting the file system with the -o errors=panic
option specified in the file system service.

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 CHAPTER 3. MANAGING GFS2

# pcs resource update mydata_fs “options=noatime,errors=panic”

When this option is specified, any errors that would normally cause the system to withdraw force a kernel
panic instead. This stops the node's communications, which causes the node to be fenced. This is
especially useful for clusters that are left unattended for long periods of time without monitoring or
intervention.

Internally, the GFS2 withdraw function works by disconnecting the locking protocol to ensure that all
further file system operations result in I/O errors. As a result, when the withdraw occurs, it is normal to
see a number of I/O errors from the device mapper device reported in the system logs.

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CHAPTER 4. DIAGNOSING AND CORRECTING PROBLEMS

WITH GFS2 FILE SYSTEMS
This chapter provides information about some common GFS2 issues and how to address them.

4.1. GFS2 FILE SYSTEM SHOWS SLOW PERFORMANCE

You may find that your GFS2 file system shows slower performance than an ext3 file system. GFS2
performance may be affected by a number of influences and in certain use cases. Information that
addresses GFS2 performance issues is found throughout this document.

4.2. GFS2 FILE SYSTEM HANGS AND REQUIRES REBOOT OF ONE

NODE
If your GFS2 file system hangs and does not return commands run against it, but rebooting one specific
node returns the system to normal, this may be indicative of a locking problem or bug. Should this occur,
gather the following data:

The GFS2 lock dump for the file system on each node:

cat /sys/kernel/debug/gfs2/fsname/glocks >glocks.fsname.nodename

The DLM lock dump for the file system on each node: You can get this information with the
dlm_tool:

dlm_tool lockdebug -sv lsname.

In this command, lsname is the lockspace name used by DLM for the file system in question.
You can find this value in the output from the group_tool command.

The output from the sysrq -t command.

The contents of the /var/log/messages file.

Once you have gathered that data, you can open a ticket with Red Hat Support and provide the data you
have collected.

4.3. GFS2 FILE SYSTEM HANGS AND REQUIRES REBOOT OF ALL

NODES
If your GFS2 file system hangs and does not return commands run against it, requiring that you reboot
all nodes in the cluster before using it, check for the following issues.

You may have had a failed fence. GFS2 file systems will freeze to ensure data integrity in the
event of a failed fence. Check the messages logs to see if there are any failed fences at the time
of the hang. Ensure that fencing is configured correctly.

The GFS2 file system may have withdrawn. Check through the messages logs for the word
withdraw and check for any messages and call traces from GFS2 indicating that the file
system has been withdrawn. A withdraw is indicative of file system corruption, a storage failure,
or a bug. At the earliest time when it is convenient to unmount the file system, you should
perform the following procedure:

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 CHAPTER 4. DIAGNOSING AND CORRECTING PROBLEMS WITH GFS2 FILE SYSTEMS

1. Reboot the node on which the withdraw occurred.

# /sbin/reboot

2. Stop the file system resource to unmount the GFS2 file system on all nodes.

# pcs resource disable --wait=100 mydata_fs

3. Capture the metadata with the gfs2_edit savemeta... command. You should ensure
that there is sufficient space for the file, which in some cases may be large. In this example,
the metadata is saved to a file in the /root directory.

# gfs2_edit savemeta /dev/vg_mydata/mydata /root/gfs2metadata.gz

4. Update the gfs2-utils package.

# sudo yum update gfs2-utils

5. On one node, run the fsck.gfs2 command on the file system to ensure file system
integrity and repair any damage.

# fsck.gfs2 -y /dev/vg_mydata/mydata > /tmp/fsck.out

6. After the fsck.gfs2 command has completed, re-enable the file system resource to return
it to service:

# pcs resource enable --wait=100 mydata_fs

7. Open a support ticket with Red Hat Support. Inform them you experienced a GFS2 withdraw
and provide logs and the debugging information generated by the sosreports and
gfs2_edit savemeta commands.

In some instances of a GFS2 withdraw, commands can hang that are trying to access the file
system or its block device. In these cases a hard reboot is required to reboot the cluster.

For information on the GFS2 withdraw function, see Section 3.12, “The GFS2 Withdraw
Function”.

This error may be indicative of a locking problem or bug. Gather data during one of these
occurrences and open a support ticket with Red Hat Support, as described in Section 4.2,
“GFS2 File System Hangs and Requires Reboot of One Node”.

4.4. GFS2 FILE SYSTEM DOES NOT MOUNT ON NEWLY ADDED

CLUSTER NODE
If you add a new node to a cluster and find that you cannot mount your GFS2 file system on that node,
you may have fewer journals on the GFS2 file system than nodes attempting to access the GFS2 file
system. You must have one journal per GFS2 host you intend to mount the file system on (with the
exception of GFS2 file systems mounted with the spectator mount option set, since these do not
require a journal). You can add journals to a GFS2 file system with the gfs2_jadd command, as
described in Section 3.7, “Adding Journals to a File System”.

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4.5. SPACE INDICATED AS USED IN EMPTY FILE SYSTEM

If you have an empty GFS2 file system, the df command will show that there is space being taken up.
This is because GFS2 file system journals consume space (number of journals * journal size) on disk. If
you created a GFS2 file system with a large number of journals or specified a large journal size then you
will be see (number of journals * journal size) as already in use when you execute the df command.
Even if you did not specify a large number of journals or large journals, small GFS2 file systems (in the
1GB or less range) will show a large amount of space as being in use with the default GFS2 journal size.

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 CHAPTER 5. CONFIGURING A GFS2 FILE SYSTEM IN A CLUSTER

CHAPTER 5. CONFIGURING A GFS2 FILE SYSTEM IN A

CLUSTER
The following procedure is an outline of the steps required to set up a Pacemaker cluster that includes a
GFS2 file system.

After installing and starting the cluster software on all nodes, create the cluster. You must configure
fencing for the cluster. For information on creating a Pacemaker cluster and configuring fencing for the
cluster, see Creating a Red Hat High-Availability Cluster with Pacemaker in High Availability Add-On
Administration. Once you have done this, perform the following procedure.

1. On all nodes of the cluster, install the lvm2-cluster and gfs2-utils packages, which are
part of the Resilient Storage channel.

# yum install lvm2-cluster gfs2-utils

2. Set the global Pacemaker parameter no_quorum_policy to freeze.

NOTE

By default, the value of no-quorum-policy is set to stop, indicating that once

quorum is lost, all the resources on the remaining partition will immediately be
stopped. Typically this default is the safest and most optimal option, but unlike
most resources, GFS2 requires quorum to function. When quorum is lost both the
applications using the GFS2 mounts and the GFS2 mount itself cannot be
correctly stopped. Any attempts to stop these resources without quorum will fail
which will ultimately result in the entire cluster being fenced every time quorum is
lost.

To address this situation, you can set the no-quorum-policy=freeze when

GFS2 is in use. This means that when quorum is lost, the remaining partition will
do nothing until quorum is regained.

# pcs property set no-quorum-policy=freeze

3. Set up a dlm resource. This is a required dependency for clvmd and GFS2.

# pcs resource create dlm ocf:pacemaker:controld op monitor

interval=30s on-fail=fence clone interleave=true ordered=true

4. Execute the following command in each node of the cluster to enable clustered locking. This
command sets the locking_type parameter in the /etc/lvm/lvm.conf file to 3.

# /sbin/lvmconf --enable-cluster

5. Set up clvmd as a cluster resource.

# pcs resource create clvmd ocf:heartbeat:clvm op monitor

interval=30s on-fail=fence clone interleave=true ordered=true

Note that the clvmd and cmirrord deamons are started and managed by Pacemaker using

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Global File System 2

the ocf:heartbeat:clvm resource agent and do not need to be started during boot with
systemd. Additionally, the ocf:heartbeat:clvm resource agent, as part of the start
procedure, sets the locking_type parameter in the /etc/lvm/lvm.conf file to 3 and
disables the lvmetad daemon.

6. Set up clvmd and dlm dependency and start up order. clvmd must start after dlm and must run
on the same node as dlm.

# pcs constraint order start dlm-clone then clvmd-clone

# pcs constraint colocation add clvmd-clone with dlm-clone

7. Create the clustered logical volume.

# pvcreate /dev/vdb
# vgcreate -Ay -cy cluster_vg /dev/vdb
# lvcreate -L5G -n cluster_lv cluster_vg


WARNING

When you create volume groups with CLVM on shared storage, you must
ensure that all nodes in the cluster have access to the physical volumes that
constitute the volume group. Asymmetric cluster configurations in which
some nodes have access to the storage and others do not are not
supported.

When managing volume groups using CLVMD to allow for concurrent

activation of volumes across multiple nodes, the volume groups must have
the clustered flag enabled. This flag allows CLVMD to identify the volumes
it must manage, which is what enables CLVMD to maintain LVM metadata
continuity. Failure to adhere to this configuration renders the configuration
unsupported by Red Hat and may result in storage corruption and loss of
data.

8. Format the logical volume with a GFS2 file system. Ensure that you create enough journals for
each of the nodes in your cluster.

# mkfs.gfs2 -j2 -p lock_dlm -t rhel7-demo:gfs2-demo

/dev/cluster_vg/cluster_lv

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 CHAPTER 5. CONFIGURING A GFS2 FILE SYSTEM IN A CLUSTER


WARNING

When you create the GFS2 filesystem, it is important to specify a correct

value for the -t LockTableName option. The correct format is
ClusterName:FSName. Failure to specify a correct value will prevent the
filesystem from mounting and may cause corruption. For more information
on the options for the mkfs.gfs2 command, see Section 3.1, “Making a
File System”.

9. Configure a clusterfs resource.

You should not add the file system to the /etc/fstab file because it will be managed as a
Pacemaker cluster resource. Mount options can be specified as part of the resource
configuration with options=options. Run the pcs resource describe Filesystem
command for full configuration options.

This cluster resource creation command specifies the noatime mount option.

# pcs resource create clusterfs Filesystem

device="/dev/cluster_vg/cluster_lv" directory="/var/mountpoint"
fstype="gfs2" "options=noatime" op monitor interval=10s on-
fail=fence clone interleave=true

10. Set up GFS2 and clvmd dependency and startup order. GFS2 must start after clvmd and must
run on the same node as clvmd.

# pcs constraint order start clvmd-clone then clusterfs-clone

# pcs constraint colocation add clusterfs-clone with clvmd-clone

11. Verify that GFS2 is mounted as expected.

# mount |grep /mnt/gfs2-demo

/dev/mapper/cluster_vg-cluster_lv on /mnt/gfs2-demo type gfs2
(rw,noatime,seclabel)

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Global File System 2

APPENDIX A. GFS2 PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS WITH

PERFORMANCE CO-PILOT
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 supports Performance Co-Pilot (PCP) with GFS2 performance metrics. This
allows you to monitor the performance of a GFS2 file system. This appendix describes the GFS2
performance metrics and how to use them.

A.1. OVERVIEW OF PERFORMANCE CO-PILOT

Performance Co-Pilot (PCP) is a open source toolkit for monitoring, visualizing, recording, and controlling
the status, activities and performance of computers, applications and servers. PCP allows the monitoring
and management of both real-time data and the logging and retrieval of historical data. Historical data can
be used to analyze any patterns with issues by comparing live results over the archived data.

PCP is designed with a client-server architecture. The PCP collector service is the Performance Metric
Collector Daemon (PMCD), which can be installed and run on a server. Once it is started, PCMD begins
collecting performance data from the installed Performance Metric Domain Agents (PMDAs). PMDAs
can be individually loaded or unloaded on the system and are controlled by the PMCD on the same host.
The GFS2 PMDA, which is part of the default PCP installation, is used. to gather performance metric
data of GFS2 file systems in PCP.

Table A.1, “PCP Tools” provides a brief list of some PCP tools in the PCP Toolkit that this chapter
describes. For information about additional PCP tools, see the PCPIntro(1) man page and the
additional PCP man pages.

Table A.1. PCP Tools

Tool Use

pmcd Performance Metric Collector Service: collects the metric data from the
PMDA and makes the metric data available for the other components in
PCP

pmlogger Allows the creation of archive logs of performance metric values which
may be played back by other PCP tools

pmproxy A protocol proxy for pmcd which allows PCP monitoring clients to
connect to one or more instances of pmcd by means of pmproxy

pminfo Displays information about performance metrics on the command line

pmstore Allows the modification of performance metric values (re-initialize

counters or assign new values)

pmdumptext Exports performance metric data either live or from performance

archives to an ASCII table

pmchart Graphical utility that plots performance metric values into charts ( pcp-
gui package)

A.2. PCP DEPLOYMENT

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 APPENDIX A. GFS2 PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS WITH PERFORMANCE CO-PILOT

To monitor an entire cluster, the recommended approach is to install and configure PCP so that the
GFS2 PMDA is enabled and loaded on each node of the cluster along with any other PCP services. You
will then be able to monitor nodes either locally or remotely on a machine that has PCP installed with the
corresponding PMDAs loaded in monitor mode. You may also install the optional pcp-gui package to
allow graphical representation of trace data through the pmchart tool

For additional information, see the pcp-doc package, which is installed to /usr/share/doc/pcp-doc
by default. PCP also provides a man page for every tool.

A.3. PCP INSTALLATION

The most recent tested version of PCP should be available to download from the Red Hat Enterprise
Linux 7 repositories.

The debugfs file system must be mounted in order for the GFS2 PMDA to operate correctly. If the
debugfs file system is not mounted, run the following commands commands before installing the GFS2
PMDA.

# mkdir /sys/kernel/debug
# mount -t debugfs none /sys/kernel/debug

The GFS2 PMDA is not enabled by default upon installation. In order use GFS2 metric monitoring
through PCP, you must enable the GFS2 domain agent. Use the following commands to install PCP and
the GFS2 PMDA module and to enable GFS2 PMDA. Note that the PMDA install script must be run as
root.

# yum install pcp pcp-gui pcp-pmda-gfs2

# cd /var/lib/pcp/pmdas/gfs2
# ./Install

When running the PMDA installation script, you will be prompted for which role you would like the PMDA
to take:

collector allows the collection of performance metrics on the current system

monitor only allows the system to monitor local system or remote systems or both local and
remote system

both enables both the collector and monitor configurations

In most cases the default choice (both collector and monitor) is sufficient to allow the PMDA to operate
correctly.

# ./Install
You will need to choose an appropriate configuration for installation of
the "gfs2" Performance Metrics Domain Agent (PMDA).

collector collect performance statistics on this system

monitor allow this system to monitor local and/or remote systems
both collector and monitor configuration for this system

Please enter c(ollector) or m(onitor) or b(oth) [b]

Updating the Performance Metrics Name Space (PMNS) ...
Terminate PMDA if already installed ...

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Global File System 2

Updating the PMCD control file, and notifying PMCD ...

Waiting for pmcd to terminate ...
Starting pmcd ...
Starting pmlogger ...
Check gfs2 metrics have appeared ... 316 metrics and 205 values

If there are any errors or warning with the installation of the GFS2 PMDA, make sure that PMCD is
started and running and that debugfs is mounted (there may be warnings in the event that there is not
at least one GFS2 file system loaded on the system).

NOTE

When installing the GFS2 PMDA on cluster nodes the default choice for PMDA
configuration (both) will be sufficient to allow the PMDA to run correctly. On workstation
machines where you intend just to monitor the data from remote PCP installations, it is
recommended you you install the PMDA as a monitor.

A.4. TRACING GFS2 PERFORMANCE DATA

With PCP installed and the GFS2 PMDA enabled, the easiest way to start looking at the performance
metrics available for PCP and GFS2 is to make use of the pminfo tool. The pminfo command line tool
displays information about available performance metrics. Normally pminfo operates using the local
metric namespace but you can change this to view the metrics on a remote host by using the -h flag,
For further information on the pminfo tool, see the pminfo(1) man page.

The following command displays a list of all available GFS2 metrics provided by the GFS2 PMDA.

# pminfo gfs2

You can specify the -T flag order to obtain help information and descriptions for each metric along with
the -f flag to obtain a current reading of the performance value that corresponds to each metric. You
can do this for a group of metrics or an individual metric. Most metric data is provided for each mounted
GFS2 file system on the system at time of probing.

# pminfo -t gfs2.glocks
gfs2.glocks.total [Count of total observed incore GFS2 global locks]
gfs2.glocks.shared [GFS2 global locks in shared state]
gfs2.glocks.unlocked [GFS2 global locks in unlocked state]
gfs2.glocks.deferred [GFS2 global locks in deferred state]
gfs2.glocks.exclusive [GFS2 global locks in exclusive state]

# pminfo -T gfs2.glocks.total

gfs2.glocks.total
Help:
Count of total incore GFS2 glock data structures based on parsing the
contents
of the /sys/kernel/debug/gfs2/bdev/glocks files.

# pminfo -f gfs2.glocks.total

gfs2.glocks.total
inst [0 or "testcluster:clvmd_gfs2"] value 74

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 APPENDIX A. GFS2 PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS WITH PERFORMANCE CO-PILOT

There are six different groups of GFS2 metrics, are arranged so that each different group is a new leaf
node from the root GFS2 metric using a '.' as a separator; this is true for all PCP metrics. Table A.2,
“PCP Metric Groups for GFS2” outlines the types of metrics that are available in each of the groups. With
each metric, additional information can be found by using the pminfo tool with the -T flag.

Table A.2. PCP Metric Groups for GFS2

Metric Group Metric Provided

gfs2.sbstats.* Timing metrics regarding the information collected from the superblock
stats file ( sbstats) for each GFS2 file system currently mounted on the
system.

gfs2.glocks.* Metrics regarding the information collected from the glock stats file
(glocks ) which count the number of glocks in each state that currently
exists for each GFS2 file system currently mounted on the system.

gfs2.glstats.* Metrics regarding the information collected from the glock stats file
(glstats) which count the number of each type of glock that currently
exists for each GFS2 file system currently mounted on the system.

gfs2.tracepoints.* Metrics regarding the output from the GFS2 debugfs tracepoints for
each file system currently mounted on the system. Each sub-type of
these metrics (one of each GFS2 tracepoint) can be individually
controlled whether on or off using the control metrics.

gfs2.worst_glock.* A computed metric making use of the data from the

gfs2_glock_lock_time tracepoint to calculate a perceived “current
worst glock” for each mounted file system. This metric is useful for
discovering potential lock contention and file system slows down if the
same lock is suggested multiple times.

gfs2.latency.grant.* A computed metric making use of the data from both the
gfs2_glock_queue and gfs2_glock_state_change
tracepoints to calculate an average latency in microseconds for glock
grant requests to be completed for each mounted file system. This metric
is useful for discovering potential slowdowns on the file system when the
grant latency increases.

gfs2.latency.demote.* A computed metric making use of the data from both the
gfs2_glock_state_change and gfs2_demote_rq tracepoints
to calculate an average latency in microseconds for glock demote
requests to be completed for each mounted file system. This metric is
useful for discovering potential slowdowns on the file system when the
demote latency increases.

gfs2.latency.queue.* A computed metric making use of the data from the

gfs2_glock_queue tracepoint to calculate an average latency in
microseconds for glock queue requests to be completed for each
mounted file system.

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Metric Group Metric Provided

gfs2.control.* Configuration metrics which are used to control what tracepoint metrics
are currently enabled or disabled and are toggled by means of the
pmstore tool. These configuration metrics are described in
Section A.5, “Metric Configuration (using pmstore)”.

A.5. METRIC CONFIGURATION (USING PMSTORE)

Some metrics in PCP allow the modification of their values, especially in the case where the metric acts
as a control variable. This is the case with the gsf2.control.* metrics with the GFS2 PMDA. This is
achieved through the use of the pmstore command line tool. As with most of the other PCP tools, the
pmstore tool normally changes the current value for the specified metric on the local system, but you
can use the -h switch to allow the change of metric values on specified remote systems. For further
information, see the pmstore(3) man page.

As an example, the following command enables all of the GSF2 tracepoints on the local machine on a
system with the GFS2 PMDA installed and loaded. When this command is run, the PMDA will switch on
all of the GFS2 tracepoints in the debugfs file system.

# pmstore gfs2.control.tracepoints.all 1
gfs2.control.tracepoints.all old value=0 new value=1

Table A.3, “Control Tracepoints” describes each of the control tracepoints and its usage. An explanation
on the effect of each control tracepoint and its available options is available through the help switch in the
pminfo tool.

Table A.3. Control Tracepoints

Control Metric Use and Available Options

gfs2.contol.tracepoint The GFS2 tracepoint statistics can be manually controlled using 0 [off] or
s.all 1 [on]. Setting the value of the metric controls the behavior of the PMDA
to whether it tries to collect from tracepoint metrics or not.

gfs2.control.tracepoin The GFS2 tracepoint statistics can be manually controlled using 0 [off] or
ts.* 1 [on]. Setting the value of the metric controls the behavior of the PMDA
to whether it tries to collect from each specified tracepoint metric or not.

gfs2.control.global_tr The global tracing can be controlled using 0 [off] or 1 [on]. This is
acing required to be on for most of the GFS2 metrics to function.

gfs2.control.worst_glo Can be individually controlled whether on or off using the control

ck metrics.0 [off] or 1 [on]. Setting the value of the metric controls the
behavior of the PMDA to whether it tries to collect the lock_time
metrics or not. The machine must have the GFS2 tracepoints available
for the glock_lock_time based metrics to function.

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 APPENDIX A. GFS2 PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS WITH PERFORMANCE CO-PILOT

Control Metric Use and Available Options

gfs2.control.latency The gfs2.latency statistics can be manually controlled using

pmstore gfs2.control.latency 0 [off] or 1 [on]. Setting the
value of the metric controls the behavior of the PMDA to whether it tries
to collect the latency metrics or not. The machine must have the gfs2
tracepoints available for the latency metrics to function.

gfs2.control.glock_thr The number of glocks that will be processed and accepted over all
eshold ftrace statistics. This number can be manually altered using the
pmstore tool in order to tailor the number of glocks processed. This
value must be positive.

A.6. LOGGING PERFORMANCE DATA (USING PMLOGGER)

PCP allows you to log performance metric values which can replayed at a later date by creating archived
logs of selected metrics on the system through the pmlogger tool. These metric archives may be played
back at a later date to give retrospective performance analysis.

The pmlogger tool provides flexibility and control over the logged metrics by allowing you to specify
which metrics are recorded on the system and at what frequency. By default, the configuration file for
pmlogger is stored at /var/lib/pcp/config/pmlogger/config.default; the configuration file
outlines which metrics are logged by the primary logging instance.

In order for pmlogger to log metric values on the local machine, a primary logging instance must be
started. You can use systemctl to ensure that pmlogger is started as a service when the machine
starts.

The following example shows an extract of a pmlogger configuration file which enables the recording of
GFS2 performance metrics. This extract shows that pmlogger will log the performance metric values for
the PCP GFS2 latency metrics every 10 seconds, the top 10 worst glock metric every 30 seconds, the
tracepoint data every minute, and it will log the data from the glock, glstats and sbstats metrics
every 10 minutes.

# It is safe to make additions from here on ...

#

log mandatory on every 5 seconds {

gfs2.latency.grant
gfs2.latency.queue
gfs2.latency.demote
gfs2.glocks
}

log mandatory on every 10 seconds {

gfs2.worst_glock
}

log mandatory on every 30 seconds {

gfs2.tracepoints
}

log mandatory on every 5 minutes {

57
Global File System 2

gfs2.glstats
gfs2.sbstats
}

[access]
disallow * : all;
allow localhost : enquire;

NOTE

PCP comes with a default set of metrics which it will log on the host when pmlogger is
enabled. However, no logging of GFS2 metrics occur with this default configuration.

After recording metric data, you have multiple options when it comes to the replaying of PCP log
archives on the system. You can export the logs to text files and import them into spreadsheets, or you
can replay them in the PCP-GUI application using graphs to visualize the retrospective data alongside
live data of the system.

One of the tools available in PCP for viewing the log files is pmdumptext. This tool allows the user to
parse the selected PCP log archive and export the values into an ASCII table. pmdumptext can be used
to dump the entire archive log or only select metric values from the log by specifying individual metrics
through the command line. For more information on using pmdumptext, see the pmdumptext(1) man
page.

A.7. VISUAL TRACING (USING PCP-GUI AND PMCHART)

Through the use of of the PCP-GUI package, you can use the pmchart graphical utility to plot
performance metric values into graphs. The pmchart utility allows multiple charts to be displayed
simultaneously, with metrics being sourced from one or more live hosts with alternative options to use
metric data from PCP log archives as a source of historical data.

When you open pmchart, the PCP charts GUI displays. On the bottom of the display is the pmtime
VCR-like controls. The start/pause button allows you to control the interval in which the metric data is
polled and in the event that you are using historical data, the date and time for the metrics.

From the File -> New Chart option in the toolbar, you can select a metric from both the local
machine and remote machines by specifying their host name or address and then selecting performance
metrics from the remote hosts. Advanced configuration options include the ability to manually set the axis
values for the chart and to manually choose the color of the plots.

There are multiple options to take images or record the views created in pmchart. You can save an
image of the current view through the File -> Export option in the toolbar. Recording is made
available by the Record -> Start option in the toolbar and these recordings can be stopped at a later
time using Record -> Stop. After the recording has been terminated, the recorded metrics are
archived to be viewed at a later date.

You can customize the pmchart interface to display the data from performance metrics in multiple ways,
including line plot, bar graphs and utilization graphs. In pmchart, the main configuration file known as
the “view” allows the metadata associated with one or more charts to be saved. This metadata describes
all of the chart's aspects including the metrics used and the chart columns. You can create a custom
“view” configuration which can be saved using File -> Save View and then loaded again at a later
time. For more information about view configuration files and their syntax, see the pmchart(1) man
page.

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 APPENDIX A. GFS2 PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS WITH PERFORMANCE CO-PILOT

The following example pmchart view configuration describes a stacking chart graph showing the total
number of glocks for the mounted GFS2 file system loop1 using the gfs2.glocks metric. We also
have a plot graph underneath which plots the average latency for the glock grant, demote and queue
requests for the same file system instance “loop1”.

#kmchart
version 1

chart title "Total number of Glocks /loop1" style stacking antialiasing

off
plot legend "Shared" metric gfs2.glocks.shared instance "loop1"
plot legend "Unlocked" metric gfs2.glocks.unlocked instance "loop1"
plot legend "Deferred" metric gfs2.glocks.deferred instance "loop1"
plot legend "Exclusive"metric gfs2.glocks.exclusive instance "loop1"

chart title "Average Glock Latency (usecs) /loop1" style plot antialiasing
off
plot legend "Demote" metric gfs2.latency.demote.all instance "loop1"
plot legend "Grant" metric gfs2.latency.grant.all instance "loop1"
plot legend "Queue" metric gfs2.latency.queue.all instance "loop1"

59
Global File System 2

APPENDIX B. GFS2 TRACEPOINTS AND THE DEBUGFS

GLOCKS FILE
This appendix describes both the glock debugfs interface and the GFS2 tracepoints. It is intended for
advanced users who are familiar with file system internals who would like to learn more about the design
of GFS2 and how to debug GFS2-specific issues.

B.1. GFS2 TRACEPOINT TYPES

There are currently three types of GFS2 tracepoints: glock (pronounced "gee-lock") tracepoints, bmap
tracepoints and log tracepoints. These can be used to monitor a running GFS2 file system and give
additional information to that which can be obtained with the debugging options supported in previous
releases of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Tracepoints are particularly useful when a problem, such as a
hang or performance issue, is reproducible and thus the tracepoint output can be obtained during the
problematic operation. In GFS2, glocks are the primary cache control mechanism and they are the key to
understanding the performance of the core of GFS2. The bmap (block map) tracepoints can be used to
monitor block allocations and block mapping (lookup of already allocated blocks in the on-disk metadata
tree) as they happen and check for any issues relating to locality of access. The log tracepoints keep
track of the data being written to and released from the journal and can provide useful information on that
part of GFS2.

The tracepoints are designed to be as generic as possible. This should mean that it will not be necessary
to change the API during the course of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7. On the other hand, users of this
interface should be aware that this is a debugging interface and not part of the normal Red Hat Enterprise
Linux 7 API set, and as such Red Hat makes no guarantees that changes in the GFS2 tracepoints
interface will not occur.

Tracepoints are a generic feature of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 and their scope goes well beyond GFS2.
In particular they are used to implement the blktrace infrastructure and the blktrace tracepoints can
be used in combination with those of GFS2 to gain a fuller picture of the system performance. Due to the
level at which the tracepoints operate, they can produce large volumes of data in a very short period of
time. They are designed to put a minimum load on the system when they are enabled, but it is inevitable
that they will have some effect. Filtering events by a variety of means can help reduce the volume of data
and help focus on obtaining just the information which is useful for understanding any particular situation.

B.2. TRACEPOINTS
The tracepoints can be found under the /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/ directory assuming that
debugfs is mounted in the standard place at the /sys/kernel/debug directory. The events
subdirectory contains all the tracing events that may be specified and, provided the gfs2 module is
loaded, there will be a gfs2 subdirectory containing further subdirectories, one for each GFS2 event.
The contents of the /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/gfs2 directory should look roughly like
the following:

[root@chywoon gfs2]# ls
enable gfs2_bmap gfs2_glock_queue gfs2_log_flush
filter gfs2_demote_rq gfs2_glock_state_change gfs2_pin
gfs2_block_alloc gfs2_glock_put gfs2_log_blocks gfs2_promote

To enable all the GFS2 tracepoints, enter the following command:

[root@chywoon gfs2]# echo -n 1

>/sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/gfs2/enable

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 APPENDIX B. GFS2 TRACEPOINTS AND THE DEBUGFS GLOCKS FILE

To enable a specific tracepoint, there is an enable file in each of the individual event subdirectories.
The same is true of the filter file which can be used to set an event filter for each event or set of
events. The meaning of the individual events is explained in more detail below.

The output from the tracepoints is available in ASCII or binary format. This appendix does not currently
cover the binary interface. The ASCII interface is available in two ways. To list the current content of the
ring buffer, you can enter the following command:

[root@chywoon gfs2]# cat /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/trace

This interface is useful in cases where you are using a long-running process for a certain period of time
and, after some event, want to look back at the latest captured information in the buffer. An alternative
interface, /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/trace_pipe, can be used when all the output is required.
Events are read from this file as they occur; there is no historical information available through this
interface. The format of the output is the same from both interfaces and is described for each of the
GFS2 events in the later sections of this appendix.

A utility called trace-cmd is available for reading tracepoint data. For more information on this utility,
see the link in Section B.10, “References”. The trace-cmd utility can be used in a similar way to the
strace utility, for example to run a command while gathering trace data from various sources.

B.3. GLOCKS
To understand GFS2, the most important concept to understand, and the one which sets it aside from
other file systems, is the concept of glocks. In terms of the source code, a glock is a data structure that
brings together the DLM and caching into a single state machine. Each glock has a 1:1 relationship with
a single DLM lock, and provides caching for that lock state so that repetitive operations carried out from
a single node of the file system do not have to repeatedly call the DLM, and thus they help avoid
unnecessary network traffic. There are two broad categories of glocks, those which cache metadata and
those which do not. The inode glocks and the resource group glocks both cache metadata, other types of
glocks do not cache metadata. The inode glock is also involved in the caching of data in addition to
metadata and has the most complex logic of all glocks.

Table B.1. Glock Modes and DLM Lock Modes

Glock mode DLM lock mode Notes

UN IV/NL Unlocked (no DLM lock associated with

glock or NL lock depending on I flag)

SH PR Shared (protected read) lock

EX EX Exclusive lock

DF CW Deferred (concurrent write) used for Direct

I/O and file system freeze

Glocks remain in memory until either they are unlocked (at the request of another node or at the request
of the VM) and there are no local users. At that point they are removed from the glock hash table and
freed. When a glock is created, the DLM lock is not associated with the glock immediately. The DLM
lock becomes associated with the glock upon the first request to the DLM, and if this request is
successful then the 'I' (initial) flag will be set on the glock. Table B.4, “Glock flags” shows the meanings of

61
Global File System 2

the different glock flags. Once the DLM has been associated with the glock, the DLM lock will always
remain at least at NL (Null) lock mode until the glock is to be freed. A demotion of the DLM lock from NL
to unlocked is always the last operation in the life of a glock.

Each glock can have a number of "holders" associated with it, each of which represents one lock
request from the higher layers. System calls relating to GFS2 queue and dequeue holders from the glock
to protect the critical section of code.

The glock state machine is based on a work queue. For performance reasons, tasklets would be
preferable; however, in the current implementation we need to submit I/O from that context which
prohibits their use.

NOTE

Workqueues have their own tracepoints which can be used in combination with the GFS2
tracepoints.

Table B.2, “Glock Modes and Data Types” shows what state may be cached under each of the glock
modes and whether that cached state may be dirty. This applies to both inode and resource group locks,
although there is no data component for the resource group locks, only metadata.

Table B.2. Glock Modes and Data Types

Glock mode Cache Data Cache Metadata Dirty Data Dirty Metadata

UN No No No No

SH Yes Yes No No

DF No Yes No No

EX Yes Yes Yes Yes

B.4. THE GLOCK DEBUGFS INTERFACE

The glock debugfs interface allows the visualization of the internal state of the glocks and the holders
and it also includes some summary details of the objects being locked in some cases. Each line of the
file either begins G: with no indentation (which refers to the glock itself) or it begins with a different letter,
indented with a single space, and refers to the structures associated with the glock immediately above it
in the file (H: is a holder, I: an inode, and R: a resource group) . Here is an example of what the content
of this file might look like:

G: s:SH n:5/75320 f:I t:SH d:EX/0 a:0 r:3

H: s:SH f:EH e:0 p:4466 [postmark] gfs2_inode_lookup+0x14e/0x260 [gfs2]
G: s:EX n:3/258028 f:yI t:EX d:EX/0 a:3 r:4
H: s:EX f:tH e:0 p:4466 [postmark] gfs2_inplace_reserve_i+0x177/0x780
[gfs2]
R: n:258028 f:05 b:22256/22256 i:16800
G: s:EX n:2/219916 f:yfI t:EX d:EX/0 a:0 r:3
I: n:75661/219916 t:8 f:0x10 d:0x00000000 s:7522/7522
G: s:SH n:5/127205 f:I t:SH d:EX/0 a:0 r:3
H: s:SH f:EH e:0 p:4466 [postmark] gfs2_inode_lookup+0x14e/0x260 [gfs2]

62
 APPENDIX B. GFS2 TRACEPOINTS AND THE DEBUGFS GLOCKS FILE

G: s:EX n:2/50382 f:yfI t:EX d:EX/0 a:0 r:2

G: s:SH n:5/302519 f:I t:SH d:EX/0 a:0 r:3
H: s:SH f:EH e:0 p:4466 [postmark] gfs2_inode_lookup+0x14e/0x260 [gfs2]
G: s:SH n:5/313874 f:I t:SH d:EX/0 a:0 r:3
H: s:SH f:EH e:0 p:4466 [postmark] gfs2_inode_lookup+0x14e/0x260 [gfs2]
G: s:SH n:5/271916 f:I t:SH d:EX/0 a:0 r:3
H: s:SH f:EH e:0 p:4466 [postmark] gfs2_inode_lookup+0x14e/0x260 [gfs2]
G: s:SH n:5/312732 f:I t:SH d:EX/0 a:0 r:3
H: s:SH f:EH e:0 p:4466 [postmark] gfs2_inode_lookup+0x14e/0x260 [gfs2]

The above example is a series of excerpts (from an approximately 18MB file) generated by the
command cat /sys/kernel/debug/gfs2/unity:myfs/glocks >my.lock during a run of the
postmark benchmark on a single node GFS2 file system. The glocks in the figure have been selected in
order to show some of the more interesting features of the glock dumps.

The glock states are either EX (exclusive), DF (deferred), SH (shared) or UN (unlocked). These states
correspond directly with DLM lock modes except for UN which may represent either the DLM null lock
state, or that GFS2 does not hold a DLM lock (depending on the I flag as explained above). The s: field
of the glock indicates the current state of the lock and the same field in the holder indicates the requested
mode. If the lock is granted, the holder will have the H bit set in its flags (f: field). Otherwise, it will have
the W wait bit set.

The n: field (number) indicates the number associated with each item. For glocks, that is the type
number followed by the glock number so that in the above example, the first glock is n:5/75320; which
indicates an iopen glock which relates to inode 75320. In the case of inode and iopen glocks, the glock
number is always identical to the inode's disk block number.

NOTE

The glock numbers (n: field) in the debugfs glocks file are in hexadecimal, whereas the
tracepoints output lists them in decimal. This is for historical reasons; glock numbers were
always written in hex, but decimal was chosen for the tracepoints so that the numbers
could easily be compared with the other tracepoint output (from blktrace for example)
and with output from stat(1).

The full listing of all the flags for both the holder and the glock are set out in Table B.4, “Glock flags” and
Table B.5, “Glock holder flags”. The content of lock value blocks is not currently available through the
glock debugfs interface.

Table B.3, “Glock Types” shows the meanings of the different glock types.

Table B.3. Glock Types

Type Lock type Use

number

1 trans Transaction lock

2 inode Inode metadata and data

3 rgrp Resource group metadata

4 meta The superblock

63
Global File System 2

Type Lock type Use

number

5 iopen Inode last closer detection

6 flock flock(2) syscall

8 quota Quota operations

9 journal Journal mutex

One of the more important glock flags is the l (locked) flag. This is the bit lock that is used to arbitrate
access to the glock state when a state change is to be performed. It is set when the state machine is
about to send a remote lock request through the DLM, and only cleared when the complete operation
has been performed. Sometimes this can mean that more than one lock request will have been sent,
with various invalidations occurring between times.

Table B.4, “Glock flags” shows the meanings of the different glock flags.

Table B.4. Glock flags

Flag Name Meaning

d Pending demote A deferred (remote) demote request

D Demote A demote request (local or remote)

f Log flush The log needs to be committed before releasing this glock

F Frozen Replies from remote nodes ignored - recovery is in progress.

i Invalidate in progress In the process of invalidating pages under this glock

I Initial Set when DLM lock is associated with this glock

l Locked The glock is in the process of changing state

L LRU Set when the glock is on the LRU list`

o Object Set when the glock is associated with an object (that is, an inode
for type 2 glocks, and a resource group for type 3 glocks)

p Demote in progress The glock is in the process of responding to a demote request

q Queued Set when a holder is queued to a glock, and cleared when the
glock is held, but there are no remaining holders. Used as part of
the algorithm the calculates the minimum hold time for a glock.

64
 APPENDIX B. GFS2 TRACEPOINTS AND THE DEBUGFS GLOCKS FILE

Flag Name Meaning

r Reply pending Reply received from remote node is awaiting processing

y Dirty Data needs flushing to disk before releasing this glock

When a remote callback is received from a node that wants to get a lock in a mode that conflicts with
that being held on the local node, then one or other of the two flags D (demote) or d (demote pending) is
set. In order to prevent starvation conditions when there is contention on a particular lock, each lock is
assigned a minimum hold time. A node which has not yet had the lock for the minimum hold time is
allowed to retain that lock until the time interval has expired.

If the time interval has expired, then the D (demote) flag will be set and the state required will be
recorded. In that case the next time there are no granted locks on the holders queue, the lock will be
demoted. If the time interval has not expired, then the d (demote pending) flag is set instead. This also
schedules the state machine to clear d (demote pending) and set D (demote) when the minimum hold
time has expired.

The I (initial) flag is set when the glock has been assigned a DLM lock. This happens when the glock is
first used and the I flag will then remain set until the glock is finally freed (which the DLM lock is
unlocked).

B.5. GLOCK HOLDERS

Table B.5, “Glock holder flags” shows the meanings of the different glock holder flags.

Table B.5. Glock holder flags

Flag Name Meaning

a Async Do not wait for glock result (will poll for result later)

A Any Any compatible lock mode is acceptable

c No cache When unlocked, demote DLM lock immediately

e No expire Ignore subsequent lock cancel requests

E Exact Must have exact lock mode

F First Set when holder is the first to be granted for this lock

H Holder Indicates that requested lock is granted

p Priority Enqueue holder at the head of the queue

t Try A "try" lock

T Try 1CB A "try" lock that sends a callback

65
Global File System 2

Flag Name Meaning

W Wait Set while waiting for request to complete

The most important holder flags are H (holder) and W (wait) as mentioned earlier, since they are set on
granted lock requests and queued lock requests respectively. The ordering of the holders in the list is
important. If there are any granted holders, they will always be at the head of the queue, followed by any
queued holders.

If there are no granted holders, then the first holder in the list will be the one that triggers the next state
change. Since demote requests are always considered higher priority than requests from the file system,
that might not always directly result in a change to the state requested.

The glock subsystem supports two kinds of "try" lock. These are useful both because they allow the
taking of locks out of the normal order (with suitable back-off and retry) and because they can be used to
help avoid resources in use by other nodes. The normal t (try) lock is just what its name indicates; it is a
"try" lock that does not do anything special. The T (try 1CB) lock, on the other hand, is identical to the t
lock except that the DLM will send a single callback to current incompatible lock holders. One use of the
T (try 1CB) lock is with the iopen locks, which are used to arbitrate among the nodes when an inode's
i_nlink count is zero, and determine which of the nodes will be responsible for deallocating the inode.
The iopen glock is normally held in the shared state, but when the i_nlink count becomes zero and -
>evict_inode() is called, it will request an exclusive lock with T (try 1CB) set. It will continue to
deallocate the inode if the lock is granted. If the lock is not granted it will result in the node(s) which were
preventing the grant of the lock marking their glock(s) with the D (demote) flag, which is checked at -
>drop_inode() time in order to ensure that the deallocation is not forgotten.

This means that inodes that have zero link count but are still open will be deallocated by the node on
which the final close() occurs. Also, at the same time as the inode's link count is decremented to zero
the inode is marked as being in the special state of having zero link count but still in use in the resource
group bitmap. This functions like the ext3 file system3's orphan list in that it allows any subsequent
reader of the bitmap to know that there is potentially space that might be reclaimed, and to attempt to
reclaim it.

B.6. GLOCK TRACEPOINTS

The tracepoints are also designed to be able to confirm the correctness of the cache control by
combining them with the blktrace output and with knowledge of the on-disk layout. It is then possible
to check that any given I/O has been issued and completed under the correct lock, and that no races are
present.

The gfs2_glock_state_change tracepoint is the most important one to understand. It tracks every
state change of the glock from initial creation right through to the final demotion which ends with
gfs2_glock_put and the final NL to unlocked transition. The l (locked) glock flag is always set before a
state change occurs and will not be cleared until after it has finished. There are never any granted
holders (the H glock holder flag) during a state change. If there are any queued holders, they will always
be in the W (waiting) state. When the state change is complete then the holders may be granted which is
the final operation before the l glock flag is cleared.

The gfs2_demote_rq tracepoint keeps track of demote requests, both local and remote. Assuming that
there is enough memory on the node, the local demote requests will rarely be seen, and most often they
will be created by umount or by occasional memory reclaim. The number of remote demote requests is
a measure of the contention between nodes for a particular inode or resource group.

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 APPENDIX B. GFS2 TRACEPOINTS AND THE DEBUGFS GLOCKS FILE

The gfs2_glock_lock_time tracepoint provides information on the time taken by requests to the
DLM. The blocking (b) flag was introduced into the glock specifically to be used in combination with this
tracepoint.

When a holder is granted a lock, gfs2_promote is called, this occurs as the final stages of a state
change or when a lock is requested which can be granted immediately due to the glock state already
caching a lock of a suitable mode. If the holder is the first one to be granted for this glock, then the f (first)
flag is set on that holder. This is currently used only by resource groups.

B.7. BMAP TRACEPOINTS

Block mapping is a task central to any file system. GFS2 uses a traditional bitmap-based system with
two bits per block. The main purpose of the tracepoints in this subsystem is to allow monitoring of the
time taken to allocate and map blocks.

The gfs2_bmap tracepoint is called twice for each bmap operation: once at the start to display the bmap
request, and once at the end to display the result. This makes it easy to match the requests and results
together and measure the time taken to map blocks in different parts of the file system, different file
offsets, or even of different files. It is also possible to see what the average extent sizes being returned
are in comparison to those being requested.

The gfs2_rs tracepoint traces block reservations as they are created, used, and destroyed in the block
allocator.

To keep track of allocated blocks, gfs2_block_alloc is called not only on allocations, but also on
freeing of blocks. Since the allocations are all referenced according to the inode for which the block is
intended, this can be used to track which physical blocks belong to which files in a live file system. This
is particularly useful when combined with blktrace, which will show problematic I/O patterns that may
then be referred back to the relevant inodes using the mapping gained by means this tracepoint.

B.8. LOG TRACEPOINTS

The tracepoints in this subsystem track blocks being added to and removed from the journal
(gfs2_pin), as well as the time taken to commit the transactions to the log (gfs2_log_flush). This
can be very useful when trying to debug journaling performance issues.

The gfs2_log_blocks tracepoint keeps track of the reserved blocks in the log, which can help show if
the log is too small for the workload, for example.

The gfs2_ail_flush tracepoint is similar to the gfs2_log_flush tracepoint in that it keeps track of
the start and end of flushes of the AIL list. The AIL list contains buffers which have been through the log,
but have not yet been written back in place and this is periodically flushed in order to release more log
space for use by the file system, or when a process requests a sync or fsync.

B.9. GLOCK STATISTICS

GFS2 maintains statistics that can help track what is going on within the file system. This allows you to
spot performance issues.

GFS2 maintains two counters:

dcount, which counts the number of DLM operations requested. This shows how much data
has gone into the mean/variance calculations.

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Global File System 2

qcount, which counts the number of syscall level operations requested. Generally qcount
will be equal to or greater than dcount.

In addition, GFS2 maintains three mean/variance pairs. The mean/variance pairs are smoothed
exponential estimates and the algorithm used is the one used to calculate round trip times in network
code. The mean and variance pairs maintained in GFS2 are not scaled, but are in units of integer
nanoseconds.

srtt/srttvar: Smoothed round trip time for non-blocking operations

srttb/srttvarb: Smoothed round trip time for blocking operations

irtt/irttvar: Inter-request time (for example, time between DLM requests)

A non-blocking request is one which will complete right away, whatever the state of the DLM lock in
question. That currently means any requests when (a) the current state of the lock is exclusive (b) the
requested state is either null or unlocked or (c) the "try lock" flag is set. A blocking request covers all the
other lock requests.

Larger times are better for IRTTs, whereas smaller times are better for the RTTs.

Statistics are kept in two sysfs files:

The glstats file. This file is similar to the glocks file, except that it contains statistics, with one
glock per line. The data is initialized from "per cpu" data for that glock type for which the glock is
created (aside from counters, which are zeroed). This file may be very large.

The lkstats file. This contains "per cpu" stats for each glock type. It contains one statistic per
line, in which each column is a cpu core. There are eight lines per glock type, with types
following on from each other.

B.10. REFERENCES
For more information about tracepoints and the GFS2 glocks file, see the following resources:

For information on glock internal locking rules, see http://git.kernel.org/?

p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=blob;f=Documentation/filesystems/gfs2-
glocks.txt;h=0494f78d87e40c225eb1dc1a1489acd891210761;hb=HEAD.

For information on event tracing, see

https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/Documentation/trace/events.rst.`

For information on the trace-cmd utility, see http://lwn.net/Articles/341902/.

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 APPENDIX C. REVISION HISTORY

APPENDIX C. REVISION HISTORY

Revision 3.1-1 Thu Oct 4 2018 Steven Levine
Preparing document for 7.6 GA publication.

Revision 2.1-1 Thu Mar 15 2018 Steven Levine

Preparing document for 7.5 GA publication.

Revision 2.1-0 Thu Dec 14 2017 Steven Levine

Preparing document for 7.5 Beta publication.

Revision 1.3-6 Wed Nov 8 2017 Steven Levine

Updated version for 7.4.

Revision 1.3-3 Thu Jul 27 2017 Steven Levine

Document version for 7.4 GA publication.

Revision 1.3-1 Wed May 10 2017 Steven Levine

Preparing document for 7.4 Beta publication.

Revision 1.2-5 Thu Mar 23 2017 Steven Levine

Update to 7.3 GA publication.

Revision 1.2-4 Mon Oct 17 2016 Steven Levine

Version for 7.3 GA publication.

Revision 1.2-3 Wed Aug 17 2016 Steven Levine

Preparing document for 7.3 Beta publication.

Revision 0.3-5 Mon Nov 9 2015 steven levine

Preparing document for 7.2 GA publication

Revision 0.3-2 Wed Aug 19 2015 Steven Levine

Preparing document for 7.2 Beta publication.

Revision 0.2-13 Wed Feb 18 2015 Steven Levine

Version for 7.1 GA release

Revision 0.2-8 Thu Dec 11 2014 Steven Levine

Version for 7.0 Beta release

Revision 0.1-29 Wed Jun 11 2014 Steven Levine

Version for 7.0 GA release

Revision 0.1-11 Mon Dec 9 2013 Steven Levine

7.0 Beta release

Revision 0.1-1 Wed Jan 16 2013 Steven Levine

Branched from the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 version of the document

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Global File System 2

INDEX
A
acl mount option, Mounting a File System
adding journals to a file system, Adding Journals to a File System
atime, configuring updates, Configuring atime Updates
mounting with noatime , Mount with noatime
mounting with relatime , Mount with relatime

C
Configuration considerations, GFS2 Configuration and Operational Considerations
configuration, before, Before Setting Up GFS2

D
data journaling, Data Journaling
debugfs, GFS2 Tracepoints and the debugfs glocks File
debugfs file, Troubleshooting GFS2 Performance with the GFS2 Lock Dump
disk quotas
additional resources, References
assigning per group, Assigning Quotas Per Group
assigning per user, Assigning Quotas Per User
enabling, Configuring Disk Quotas
creating quota files, Creating the Quota Database Files
quotacheck, running, Creating the Quota Database Files

hard limit, Assigning Quotas Per User

management of, Managing Disk Quotas
quotacheck command, using to check, Keeping Quotas Accurate
reporting, Managing Disk Quotas

soft limit, Assigning Quotas Per User

F
features, new and changed, New and Changed Features
file system
adding journals, Adding Journals to a File System
atime, configuring updates, Configuring atime Updates
mounting with noatime , Mount with noatime
mounting with relatime , Mount with relatime

data journaling, Data Journaling

growing, Growing a File System

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 INDEX

making, Making a File System

mounting, Mounting a File System, Special Considerations when Mounting GFS2 File Systems
quota management, GFS2 Quota Management, Setting Up Quotas in Enforcement or
Accounting Mode
synchronizing quotas, Synchronizing Quotas with the quotasync Command

repairing, Repairing a File System

suspending activity, Suspending Activity on a File System
unmounting, Unmounting a File System, Special Considerations when Mounting GFS2 File
Systems

fsck.gfs2 command, Repairing a File System

G
GFS2
atime, configuring updates, Configuring atime Updates
mounting with noatime , Mount with noatime
mounting with relatime , Mount with relatime

Configuration considerations, GFS2 Configuration and Operational Considerations

managing, Managing GFS2
Operation, GFS2 Configuration and Operational Considerations
quota management, GFS2 Quota Management, Setting Up Quotas in Enforcement or
Accounting Mode
synchronizing quotas, Synchronizing Quotas with the quotasync Command

withdraw function, The GFS2 Withdraw Function

GFS2 file system maximum size, GFS2 Overview

GFS2-specific options for adding journals table, Complete Usage
GFS2-specific options for expanding file systems table, Complete Usage
gfs2_grow command, Growing a File System
gfs2_jadd command, Adding Journals to a File System
glock, GFS2 Tracepoints and the debugfs glocks File
glock flags, Troubleshooting GFS2 Performance with the GFS2 Lock Dump, The glock debugfs
Interface
glock holder flags, Troubleshooting GFS2 Performance with the GFS2 Lock Dump, Glock
Holders
glock types, Troubleshooting GFS2 Performance with the GFS2 Lock Dump, The glock debugfs
Interface
growing a file system, Growing a File System

M
making a file system, Making a File System
managing GFS2, Managing GFS2
maximum size, GFS2 file system, GFS2 Overview

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mkfs command, Making a File System

mkfs.gfs2 command options table, Complete Options
mount command, Mounting a File System
mount table, Complete Usage
mounting a file system, Mounting a File System, Special Considerations when Mounting GFS2
File Systems

N
node locking, GFS2 Node Locking

O
overview, GFS2 Overview
configuration, before, Before Setting Up GFS2
features, new and changed, New and Changed Features

P
performance tuning, Performance Tuning with GFS2
Posix locking, Issues with Posix Locking

Q
quota management, GFS2 Quota Management, Setting Up Quotas in Enforcement or Accounting
Mode
synchronizing quotas, Synchronizing Quotas with the quotasync Command

quotacheck , Creating the Quota Database Files

quotacheck command
checking quota accuracy with, Keeping Quotas Accurate

quota_quantum tunable parameter, Synchronizing Quotas with the quotasync Command

R
repairing a file system, Repairing a File System

S
suspending activity on a file system, Suspending Activity on a File System
system hang at unmount, Special Considerations when Mounting GFS2 File Systems

T
tables
GFS2-specific options for adding journals, Complete Usage
GFS2-specific options for expanding file systems, Complete Usage
mkfs.gfs2 command options, Complete Options
mount options, Complete Usage

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 INDEX

tracepoints, GFS2 Tracepoints and the debugfs glocks File

tuning, performance, Performance Tuning with GFS2

U
umount command, Unmounting a File System
unmount, system hang, Special Considerations when Mounting GFS2 File Systems
unmounting a file system, Unmounting a File System, Special Considerations when Mounting
GFS2 File Systems

W
withdraw function, GFS2, The GFS2 Withdraw Function

73