negative free blocks after mirror! [was: Re: mirror without destroying existing contents]
On 3/17/07, Jonathan McKeown [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Friday 16 March 2007 21:48, Steve Franks wrote: On 3/16/07, John Nielsen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Friday 16 March 2007 11:18, Steve Franks wrote: I get the following: #gmirror label -v -b split -s 1024 data ad0 can't store metadata on ad0: operation not permitted. That most likely means that you currently have a filesystem on ad0 mounted. If that's the case you should be glad that the OS was smarter than you. What steps had you taken prior to this? It appears to say in the manpage that you can do this on a disk with an existing filesys - would you expect it to work if the disk is unmounted first, then? The way to do this is potentially a little risky but I haven't had a problem with it yet after setting up several mirrors on live fileservers. There is a sysctl called kern.geom.debugflags: if you set this to 16 it will allow you to change the mounted filesystem. Bear in mind that since the metadata for the mirror is written to the last sector of the disk, there is a small risk of data loss: if that sector contains data it will be overwritten. There's a thorough howto by Ralph Engelschall, and an OnLamp article by Dru Lavigne, with more details: http://people.freebsd.org/~rse/mirror/ http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/bsd/2005/11/10/FreeBSD_Basics.html Jonathan Yes, the origonal disk was pretty full, but, I suspect this is not a good thing: Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Avail Capacity Mounted on /dev/ad0s1a507630 9525437176620%/ devfs 1 1 0 100%/dev /dev/ad0s1e507630 30688436332 7%/tmp /dev/ad0s1f 152451398 5956408 134298880 4%/usr /dev/ad0s1d 1444526103600 1225364 8%/var /dev/mirror/rainstones1 151368706 141135278 -1876068 101%/rainstone How is that even possible? Steve ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: negative free blocks after mirror! [was: Re: mirror without destroying existing contents]
On Monday 19 March 2007 10:46, Steve Franks wrote: Yes, the origonal disk was pretty full, but, I suspect this is not a good thing: Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Avail Capacity Mounted on /dev/ad0s1a507630 9525437176620%/ devfs 1 1 0 100%/dev /dev/ad0s1e507630 30688436332 7%/tmp /dev/ad0s1f 152451398 5956408 134298880 4%/usr /dev/ad0s1d 1444526103600 1225364 8%/var /dev/mirror/rainstones1 151368706 141135278 -1876068 101%/rainstone How is that even possible? This is a FAQ: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/disks.html#DISK-MORE-THAN-FULL Not really related to gmirror. JN ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: mirror without destroying existing contents
On Friday 16 March 2007 21:48, Steve Franks wrote: On 3/16/07, John Nielsen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Friday 16 March 2007 11:18, Steve Franks wrote: I get the following: #gmirror label -v -b split -s 1024 data ad0 can't store metadata on ad0: operation not permitted. That most likely means that you currently have a filesystem on ad0 mounted. If that's the case you should be glad that the OS was smarter than you. What steps had you taken prior to this? It appears to say in the manpage that you can do this on a disk with an existing filesys - would you expect it to work if the disk is unmounted first, then? The way to do this is potentially a little risky but I haven't had a problem with it yet after setting up several mirrors on live fileservers. There is a sysctl called kern.geom.debugflags: if you set this to 16 it will allow you to change the mounted filesystem. Bear in mind that since the metadata for the mirror is written to the last sector of the disk, there is a small risk of data loss: if that sector contains data it will be overwritten. There's a thorough howto by Ralph Engelschall, and an OnLamp article by Dru Lavigne, with more details: http://people.freebsd.org/~rse/mirror/ http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/bsd/2005/11/10/FreeBSD_Basics.html Jonathan ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: mirror without destroying existing contents
I get the following: #gmirror label -v -b split -s 1024 data ad0 can't store metadata on ad0: operation not permitted. Ideas? Same behavior with /dev/ad0. Does this only work with da0 disks, not sata drives? I'm logged in as root, not su. The drive is on a promise non-raid sata card (the sw raid chipset on my asus bios lost support going from 6.1 to 6.2 - something about some new method not supported by the bios according to Soren). Thanks, Steve On 3/13/07, John Nielsen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tuesday 13 March 2007 15:12, Steve Franks wrote: Anyone made a mirror w/o destroying what's in the disk already? The atacontrol man page is less than adequate in this respect...is is even possible? If you want to use gmirror (which I recommend), the most conservative approach is as follows. This can probably be adapted to other mirroring techniques/software as well. Verify that your backups are up-to-date and reliable. Create a degraded single-member mirror on the blank disk (or a partition/slice on said disk). (gmirror label command) Make sure that the size of the disk/slice/partition is equal to or smaller than the size of the disk/slice/partition which already contains your data. Create (a) new filsystem(s) on the new mirror. (newfs and possibly bsdlabel, depending on how/if you want to break it up) Transfer your data from the existing filesystem to the new filesystem (dump/restore -- it's easier than it sounds). (Alternative: restore from the backup you created to begin with.) Verify data transfer, make relevant changes to /etc/fstab, possibly other intermediate steps. Destroy the original filesystem (possibly using dd and /dev/zero) (not strictly necessary, but wiping at least the first part of the disk/slice/partition can help avoid potential confusion (for you and the system) later.) Insert the original disk/slice/partition into your new mirro (gmirror insert command). This approach can take longer than some others (due to the transfer requirement), but the finished product is less likely to contain surprises. I have successfully used this approach to migrate several types of volumes to gmirror sets, including boot partitions. JN ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Steve Franks, KE7BTE Staff Engineer La Palma Devices, LLC http://www.lapalmadevices.com (520) 312-0089 ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: mirror without destroying existing contents
On Friday 16 March 2007 11:18, Steve Franks wrote: I get the following: #gmirror label -v -b split -s 1024 data ad0 can't store metadata on ad0: operation not permitted. That most likely means that you currently have a filesystem on ad0 mounted. If that's the case you should be glad that the OS was smarter than you. What steps had you taken prior to this? Ideas? Same behavior with /dev/ad0. Does this only work with da0 disks, not sata drives? I'm logged in as root, not su. The drive is on a promise non-raid sata card (the sw raid chipset on my asus bios lost support going from 6.1 to 6.2 - something about some new method not supported by the bios according to Soren). Gmirror should work with any GEOM provider, and definitely works with SATA disks. As long as your controller is supported to the point of seeing and accessing the disks connected to it the software raid support is irrelevant (that's what you're using gmirror for). JN On 3/13/07, John Nielsen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tuesday 13 March 2007 15:12, Steve Franks wrote: Anyone made a mirror w/o destroying what's in the disk already? The atacontrol man page is less than adequate in this respect...is is even possible? If you want to use gmirror (which I recommend), the most conservative approach is as follows. This can probably be adapted to other mirroring techniques/software as well. Verify that your backups are up-to-date and reliable. Create a degraded single-member mirror on the blank disk (or a partition/slice on said disk). (gmirror label command) Make sure that the size of the disk/slice/partition is equal to or smaller than the size of the disk/slice/partition which already contains your data. Create (a) new filsystem(s) on the new mirror. (newfs and possibly bsdlabel, depending on how/if you want to break it up) Transfer your data from the existing filesystem to the new filesystem (dump/restore -- it's easier than it sounds). (Alternative: restore from the backup you created to begin with.) Verify data transfer, make relevant changes to /etc/fstab, possibly other intermediate steps. Destroy the original filesystem (possibly using dd and /dev/zero) (not strictly necessary, but wiping at least the first part of the disk/slice/partition can help avoid potential confusion (for you and the system) later.) Insert the original disk/slice/partition into your new mirro (gmirror insert command). This approach can take longer than some others (due to the transfer requirement), but the finished product is less likely to contain surprises. I have successfully used this approach to migrate several types of volumes to gmirror sets, including boot partitions. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: mirror without destroying existing contents
On 3/16/07, John Nielsen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Friday 16 March 2007 11:18, Steve Franks wrote: I get the following: #gmirror label -v -b split -s 1024 data ad0 can't store metadata on ad0: operation not permitted. That most likely means that you currently have a filesystem on ad0 mounted. If that's the case you should be glad that the OS was smarter than you. What steps had you taken prior to this? It appears to say in the manpage that you can do this on a disk with an existing filesys - would you expect it to work if the disk is unmounted first, then? Steve man gmirror: Create a mirror on disk with valid data (note that the last sector of the disk will be overwritten). Add another disk to this mirror, so it will be synchronized with existing disk: gmirror label -v -b round-robin data da0 gmirror insert data da1 ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: mirror without destroying existing contents
On Friday 16 March 2007 15:48, Steve Franks wrote: On 3/16/07, John Nielsen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Friday 16 March 2007 11:18, Steve Franks wrote: I get the following: #gmirror label -v -b split -s 1024 data ad0 can't store metadata on ad0: operation not permitted. That most likely means that you currently have a filesystem on ad0 mounted. If that's the case you should be glad that the OS was smarter than you. What steps had you taken prior to this? It appears to say in the manpage that you can do this on a disk with an existing filesys - would you expect it to work if the disk is unmounted first, then? Steve man gmirror: Create a mirror on disk with valid data (note that the last sector of the disk will be overwritten). Add another disk to this mirror, so it will be synchronized with existing disk: gmirror label -v -b round-robin data da0 gmirror insert data da1 I would expect it to, yes. JN ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: mirror without destroying existing contents
On Mar 13, 2007, at 12:12 PM, Steve Franks wrote: Anyone made a mirror w/o destroying what's in the disk already? The atacontrol man page is less than adequate in this respect...is is even possible? Oh, yes-- it's certainly possible to create a mirror with live data, but one is advised to be cautious and have a full backup available in case of problems. With hardware-based ATA controllers like Promise, 3ware, etc, they should have a BIOS utility which you can use to create the mirror-- make sure to add the drive with valid data first, and then add the second or additional drives to the mirror set. The same approach ought to work with software-mirroring such as (g) vinum. -- -Chuck ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: mirror without destroying existing contents
On Tuesday 13 March 2007 15:12, Steve Franks wrote: Anyone made a mirror w/o destroying what's in the disk already? The atacontrol man page is less than adequate in this respect...is is even possible? If you want to use gmirror (which I recommend), the most conservative approach is as follows. This can probably be adapted to other mirroring techniques/software as well. Verify that your backups are up-to-date and reliable. Create a degraded single-member mirror on the blank disk (or a partition/slice on said disk). (gmirror label command) Make sure that the size of the disk/slice/partition is equal to or smaller than the size of the disk/slice/partition which already contains your data. Create (a) new filsystem(s) on the new mirror. (newfs and possibly bsdlabel, depending on how/if you want to break it up) Transfer your data from the existing filesystem to the new filesystem (dump/restore -- it's easier than it sounds). (Alternative: restore from the backup you created to begin with.) Verify data transfer, make relevant changes to /etc/fstab, possibly other intermediate steps. Destroy the original filesystem (possibly using dd and /dev/zero) (not strictly necessary, but wiping at least the first part of the disk/slice/partition can help avoid potential confusion (for you and the system) later.) Insert the original disk/slice/partition into your new mirro (gmirror insert command). This approach can take longer than some others (due to the transfer requirement), but the finished product is less likely to contain surprises. I have successfully used this approach to migrate several types of volumes to gmirror sets, including boot partitions. JN ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: mirror without destroying existing contents
Anyone made a mirror w/o destroying what's in the disk already? The atacontrol man page is less than adequate in this respect...is is even possible? Oh, yes-- it's certainly possible to create a mirror with live data, but one is advised to be cautious and have a full backup available in case of problems. With hardware-based ATA controllers like Promise, 3ware, etc, they should have a BIOS utility which you can use to create the mirror-- make sure to add the drive with valid data first, and then add the second or additional drives to the mirror set. The same approach ought to work with software-mirroring such as (g) vinum. I'd add gmirror(8) to the list of software RAID solutions. Man page: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=gmirrorapropos=0sektion=0manpath=FreeBSD+6.2-RELEASEformat=html Handbook: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/book.html#GEOM-MIRROR Cheers, David -- David Robillard UNIX systems administrator Oracle DBA CISSP, RHCE Sun Certified Security Administrator Montreal: +1 514 966 0122 ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
