Re: [zfs-discuss] Solaris startup script location

2010-08-18 Thread Garrett D'Amore
On Wed, 2010-08-18 at 00:16 -0700, Alxen4 wrote:
 Is there any way run start-up script before non-root pool is mounted ?
 
 For example I'm trying to use ramdisk as ZIL device (ramdiskadm )
 So I need to create ramdisk before actual pool is mounted otherwise it 
 complains that log device is missing :)
 
 For sure I can manually remove/and add it  by script and put the script in 
 regular rc2.d location...I'm just looking for more elegant way to it.
 
 
 Thanks a lot.


You *really* don't want to use a ramdisk as your ZIL.  You'd be better
off just disabling the zil altogether.

- Garrett

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Re: [zfs-discuss] Solaris startup script location

2010-08-18 Thread Andrew Gabriel

Alxen4 wrote:

Is there any way run start-up script before non-root pool is mounted ?

For example I'm trying to use ramdisk as ZIL device (ramdiskadm )
So I need to create ramdisk before actual pool is mounted otherwise it 
complains that log device is missing :)

For sure I can manually remove/and add it  by script and put the script in 
regular rc2.d location...I'm just looking for more elegant way to it.
  


Can you start by explaining what you're trying to do, because this may 
be completely misguided?


A ramdisk is volatile, so you'll lose it when system goes down, causing 
failure to mount on reboot. Recreating a ramdisk on reboot won't 
recreate the slog device you lost when the system went down. I expect 
the zpool would fail to mount.


Furthermore, using a ramdisk as a ZIL is effectively just a very 
inefficient way to disable the ZIL.
A better way to do this is to zfs set sync=disabled ... on relevant 
filesystems.
I can't recall which build introduced this, but prior to that, you can 
set zfs://zil_disable=1 in /etc/system but that applies to all 
pools/filesystems.


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Re: [zfs-discuss] Solaris startup script location

2010-08-18 Thread Alxen4
Any argumentation why ?
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Re: [zfs-discuss] Solaris startup script location

2010-08-18 Thread Garrett D'Amore
On Wed, 2010-08-18 at 00:49 -0700, Alxen4 wrote:
 Any argumentation why ?


Because a RAMDISK defeats the purpose of a ZIL, which is to provide a
fast *stable storage* for data being written.  If you are using a
RAMDISK, you are not getting any non-volatility guarantees that the ZIL
is supposed to offer.  You may as well run without one.  (Which will go
fast, but at the expense of data integrity.)

- Garrett


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Re: [zfs-discuss] Solaris startup script location

2010-08-18 Thread Andrew Gabriel

Andrew Gabriel wrote:

Alxen4 wrote:

Is there any way run start-up script before non-root pool is mounted ?

For example I'm trying to use ramdisk as ZIL device (ramdiskadm )
So I need to create ramdisk before actual pool is mounted otherwise 
it complains that log device is missing :)


For sure I can manually remove/and add it by script and put the 
script in regular rc2.d location...I'm just looking for more elegant 
way to it.


Can you start by explaining what you're trying to do, because this may 
be completely misguided?


A ramdisk is volatile, so you'll lose it when system goes down, 
causing failure to mount on reboot. Recreating a ramdisk on reboot 
won't recreate the slog device you lost when the system went down. I 
expect the zpool would fail to mount.


Furthermore, using a ramdisk as a ZIL is effectively just a very 
inefficient way to disable the ZIL.
A better way to do this is to zfs set sync=disabled ... on relevant 
filesystems.
I can't recall which build introduced this, but prior to that, you can 
set zfs://zil_disable=1 in /etc/system but that applies to all 
pools/filesystems.




The double-slash was brought to you by a bug in thunderbird. The 
original read: set zfs:zil_disable=1


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Re: [zfs-discuss] Solaris startup script location

2010-08-18 Thread Alxen4
Thanks...Now I think I understand...

Let me summarize it andd let me know if I'm wrong.

Disabling ZIL converts all synchronous calls to asynchronous which makes ZSF to 
report data acknowledgment before it actually was written to stable storage 
which in turn improves performance but might cause data corruption in case of 
server crash.

Is it correct ?

In my case I'm having serious performance issues with NFS over ZFS.
My NFS Client is ESXi so the major question is there risk of corruption for 
VMware images if I disable ZIL ?


Thanks.
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Re: [zfs-discuss] Solaris startup script location

2010-08-18 Thread Andrew Gabriel

Alxen4 wrote:

Thanks...Now I think I understand...

Let me summarize it andd let me know if I'm wrong.

Disabling ZIL converts all synchronous calls to asynchronous which makes ZSF to 
report data acknowledgment before it actually was written to stable storage 
which in turn improves performance but might cause data corruption in case of 
server crash.

Is it correct ?

In my case I'm having serious performance issues with NFS over ZFS.
  


You need a non-volatile slog, such as an SSD.


My NFS Client is ESXi so the major question is there risk of corruption for 
VMware images if I disable ZIL ?
  


Yes.

If your NFS server takes an unexpected outage and comes back up again, 
some writes will have been lost which ESXi thinks succeeded (typically 5 
to 30 seconds worth of writes/updates immediately before the outage). So 
as an example, if you had an application writing a file sequentially, 
you will likely find an area of the file is corrupt because the data was 
lost.


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Re: [zfs-discuss] Solaris startup script location

2010-08-18 Thread Garrett D'Amore
On Wed, 2010-08-18 at 01:20 -0700, Alxen4 wrote:
 Thanks...Now I think I understand...
 
 Let me summarize it andd let me know if I'm wrong.
 
 Disabling ZIL converts all synchronous calls to asynchronous which makes ZSF 
 to report data acknowledgment before it actually was written to stable 
 storage which in turn improves performance but might cause data corruption in 
 case of server crash.
 
 Is it correct ?
 
 In my case I'm having serious performance issues with NFS over ZFS.
 My NFS Client is ESXi so the major question is there risk of corruption for 
 VMware images if I disable ZIL ?

Yes.  If your server crashes, you can lose data.

- Garrett

 
 
 Thanks.


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Re: [zfs-discuss] Solaris startup script location

2010-08-18 Thread Alxen4
Thanks.Everything is clear now.
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Re: [zfs-discuss] Solaris startup script location

2010-08-18 Thread Simone Caldana
Il giorno 18/ago/2010, alle ore 10.20, Alxen4 ha scritto:

 My NFS Client is ESXi so the major question is there risk of corruption for 
 VMware images if I disable ZIL ?

I do the same use of ZFS. I had a huge improvement in performance by using 
mirrors instead of raidz. How is your zpool configured?


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Re: [zfs-discuss] Solaris startup script location

2010-08-18 Thread Gary Mills
On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 12:16:04AM -0700, Alxen4 wrote:
 Is there any way run start-up script before non-root pool is mounted ?
 
 For example I'm trying to use ramdisk as ZIL device (ramdiskadm )
 So I need to create ramdisk before actual pool is mounted otherwise it 
 complains that log device is missing :)

Yes, it's actually quite easy.  You need to create an SMF manifest and
method.  The manifest should make the ZFS mount dependant on it with
the `dependent' and `/dependent' tag pair.  It also needs to be
dependant on resources it needs, with the `dependency' and
`/dependency' pairs. It should also specify a `single_instance/' and
`transient' service.  The method script can do whatever the mount
requires, such as creating the ramdisk.

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-Gary Mills--Unix Group--Computer and Network Services-
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Re: [zfs-discuss] Solaris startup script location

2010-08-18 Thread Edward Ned Harvey
 From: zfs-discuss-boun...@opensolaris.org [mailto:zfs-discuss-
 boun...@opensolaris.org] On Behalf Of Alxen4
 
 Disabling ZIL converts all synchronous calls to asynchronous which
 makes ZSF to report data acknowledgment before it actually was written
 to stable storage which in turn improves performance but might cause
 data corruption in case of server crash.
 
 Is it correct ?

It is partially correct.

With the ZIL disabled, you could lose up to 30 sec of writes, but it won't
cause an inconsistent filesystem, or corrupt data.  If you make a
distinction between corrupt and lost data, then this is valuable for you
to know:

Disabling the ZIL can result in up to 30sec of lost data, but not corrupt
data.

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Re: [zfs-discuss] Solaris startup script location

2010-08-18 Thread Edward Ned Harvey
 From: zfs-discuss-boun...@opensolaris.org [mailto:zfs-discuss-
 boun...@opensolaris.org] On Behalf Of Alxen4
 
 For example I'm trying to use ramdisk as ZIL device (ramdiskadm )

Other people have already corrected you about ramdisk for log.
It's already been said, use SSD, or disable ZIL completely.

But this was not said:

In many cases, you can gain a large performance increase by enabling the
WriteBack buffer of your ZFS server raid controller card.  You only want to
do this if you have a BBU enabled on the card.  The performance gain is
*not* quite as good as using a nonvolatile log device, but certainly worth
checking anyway.  Because it's low cost, and doesn't consume slots...

Also, if you get a log device, you want two of them, and mirror them.

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Re: [zfs-discuss] Solaris startup script location

2010-08-18 Thread andrew . gabriel
What you say is true only on the system itself. On an NFS client system, 30 
seconds of lost data in the middle of a file (as per my earlier example) is a 
corrupt file.

-original message-
Subject: Re: [zfs-discuss] Solaris startup script location
From: Edward Ned Harvey sh...@nedharvey.com
Date: 18/08/2010 17:17

 From: zfs-discuss-boun...@opensolaris.org [mailto:zfs-discuss-
 boun...@opensolaris.org] On Behalf Of Alxen4
 
 Disabling ZIL converts all synchronous calls to asynchronous which
 makes ZSF to report data acknowledgment before it actually was written
 to stable storage which in turn improves performance but might cause
 data corruption in case of server crash.
 
 Is it correct ?

It is partially correct.

With the ZIL disabled, you could lose up to 30 sec of writes, but it won't
cause an inconsistent filesystem, or corrupt data.  If you make a
distinction between corrupt and lost data, then this is valuable for you
to know:

Disabling the ZIL can result in up to 30sec of lost data, but not corrupt
data.

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