Appendix A. Documentation Updates

Contents

A.1. January 2011
A.2. September 16, 2010
A.3. June 21, 2010
A.4. May 2010 (SLES 11 SP1)
A.5. February 23, 2010
A.6. January 20, 2010
A.7. December 1, 2009
A.8. October 20, 2009
A.9. August 3, 2009
A.10. June 22, 2009
A.11. May 21, 2009

This section contains information about documentation content changes made to the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server Storage Administration Guide since the initial release of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11. If you are an existing user, review the change entries to readily identify modified content. If you are a new user, simply read the guide in its current state.

This document was updated on the following dates:

A.1. January 2011

Updates were made to the following section. The changes are explained below.

A.1.1. LVM Configuration

Location

Change

Section 4.3, “Creating Volume Groups”

LVM2 does not restrict the number of physical extents. Having a large number of extents has no impact on I/O performance to the logical volume, but it slows down the LVM tools.

A.1.2. Managing Multipath I/O for Devices

Location

Change

Tuning the Failover for Specific Host Bus Adapters

This section was removed. For HBA failover guidance, refer to your vendor documentation.

Section 7.15, “Additional Information”

Removed obolete references.

A.1.3. Resizing File Systems

Location

Change

Section 11.3.1, “Decreasing the Size of the File System”

Decreasing the size of the file system is supported when the file system is unmounted.

A.2. September 16, 2010

Updates were made to the following sections. The changes are explained below.

A.2.1. LVM Configuration

Location

Change

Section 4.2, “Creating LVM Partitions”

The discussion and procedure were expanded to explain how to configure a partition that uses the entire disk.

The procedure was modified to use the Hard Disk partitioning feature in the YaST Partitioner.

All LVM Management sections

Procedures throughout the chapter were modified to use Volume Management in the YaST Partitioner.

Section 4.6, “Resizing a Volume Group”

This section is new.

Section 4.7, “Resizing a Logical Volume with YaST”

This section is new.

Section 4.9, “Deleting a Volume Group”

This section is new.

Section 4.10, “Deleting an LVM Partition (Physical Volume)”

This section is new.

A.3. June 21, 2010

Updates were made to the following sections. The changes are explained below.

A.3.1. LVM Configuration

Location

Change

Section 4.2, “Creating LVM Partitions”

Details were added to the procedure.

A.3.2. Managing Multipath I/O

A.3.3. Managing Software RAIDs 6 and 10 with mdadm

Location

Change

Section 10.3.1.5, “Far Layout”

Errata in the example were corrected.

A.3.4. Mass Storage on IP NetWork: iSCSI

A.4. May 2010 (SLES 11 SP1)

Updates were made to the following sections. The changes are explained below.

A.4.1. Managing Multipath I/O for Devices

Location

Change

Section 7.2.3, “Using LVM2 on Multipath Devices”

The example in Step 3 was corrected.

Section 7.2.6, “SAN Timeout Settings When the Root Device Is Multipathed”

This section is new.

Section 7.3.2, “Multipath I/O Management Tools”

The file list for a package can vary for different server architectures. For a list of files included in the multipath-tools package, go to the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server Technical SpecificationsPackage Descriptions Web page, find your architecture and select Packages Sorted by Name, then search on “multipath-tools” to find the package list for that architecture.

Section 7.4.1, “Preparing SAN Devices for Multipathing”

If the SAN device will be used as the root device on the server, modify the timeout settings for the device as described in Section 7.2.6, “SAN Timeout Settings When the Root Device Is Multipathed”.

Section 7.4.5.2, “Verifying the Setup in the etc/multipath.conf File”

Added example output for -v3 verbosity.

Section 7.7.1.1, “Enabling Multipath I/O at Install Time on an Active/Active Multipath Storage LUN”

This section is new.

Section 7.7.1.2, “Enabling Multipath I/O at Install Time on an Active/Passive Multipath Storage LUN”

This section is new.

A.4.2. Mass Storage over IP Networks: iSCSI

Location

Change

Step 7.g in Section 13.2.2, “Creating iSCSI Targets with YaST”

In the YaSTNetwork ServicesiSCSI Target function, the Save option allows you to export the iSCSI target information, which makes it easier to provide this information to consumers of the resources.

Section 13.4, “Troubleshooting iSCSI”

This section is new.

A.4.3. Software RAID Configuration

Location

Change

Section 8.4, “For More Information”

The Software RAID HOW-TO has been deprecated. Use the Linux RAID wiki instead.

A.4.4. What’s New

Location

Change

Section 2.1, “What’s New in SLES 11 SP1”

This section is new.


A.5. February 23, 2010

Updates were made to the following sections. The changes are explained below.

A.5.1. Configuring Software RAID for the Root Partition

Location

Change

Section 9.1, “Prerequisites for the Software RAID”

Corrected an error in the RAID 0 definition..

A.5.2. Managing Multipath I/O

Location

Change

Section 7.9, “Scanning for New Devices without Rebooting”

Added information about using the rescan-scsi-bus.sh script to scan for devices without rebooting.

Section 7.10, “Scanning for New Partitioned Devices without Rebooting”

Added information about using the rescan-scsi-bus.sh script to scan for devices without rebooting.

A.6. January 20, 2010

Updates were made to the following section. The changes are explained below.

A.6.1. Managing Multipath I/O

Location

Change

Section 7.4.5.5, “Configuring Default Multipath Behavior in /etc/multipath.conf”

In the default_getuid command line, use the path /sbin/scsi_id as shown in the above example instead of the sample path of /lib/udev/scsi_id that is found in the sample file /usr/share/doc/packages/multipath-tools/multipath.conf.synthetic file (and in the default and annotated sample files).

getuid in Table 7.6, “Multipath Attributes”

Use the path /sbin/scsi_id instead of the path /lib/udev/sbin_id that is in the sample file /usr/share/doc/packages/multipath-tools/multipath.conf.synthetic file (and in the default and annotated sample files).

A.7. December 1, 2009

Updates were made to the following sections. The changes are explained below.

A.7.1. Managing Multipath I/O for Devices

Location

Change

Section 7.2.3, “Using LVM2 on Multipath Devices”

Section 7.8, “Configuring Multipath I/O for an Existing Software RAID”

The -f mpath option changed to -f multipath:

mkinitrd -f multipath

prio_callout in Table 7.6, “Multipath Attributes”

Multipath prio_callouts are located in shared libraries in /lib/libmultipath/lib*. By using shared libraries, the callouts are loaded into memory on daemon startup.


A.7.2. Resizing File Systems

Location

Change

Section 5.1.1, “File Systems that Support Resizing”

The resize2fs utility supports online or offline resizing for the ext3 file system.


A.8. October 20, 2009

Updates were made to the following sections. The changes are explained below.

A.8.1. LVM Configuration

Location

Change

Section 4.1, “Understanding the Logical Volume Manager”

In the YaST Control Center, select System+Partitioner.


A.8.2. Managing Multipath I/O for Devices

Location

Change

Section 7.4.5.4, “Blacklisting Non-Multipathed Devices in /etc/multipath.conf”

The keyword devnode_blacklist has been deprecated and replaced with the keyword blacklist.

Section 7.4.5.5, “Configuring Default Multipath Behavior in /etc/multipath.conf”

Changed getuid_callout to getuid.


Section 7.6.2.1, “Understanding Priority Groups and Attributes”

Changed getuid_callout to getuid.


???

Added descriptions of least-pending, length-load-balancing, and service-time options.


A.8.3. What’s New

A.9. August 3, 2009

Updates were made to the following section. The change is explained below.

A.9.1. Managing Multipath I/O

A.10. June 22, 2009

Updates were made to the following sections. The changes are explained below.

A.10.1. Managing Multipath I/O

A.10.2. Managing Software RAIDs 6 and 10 with mdadm

Location

Change

Section 10.4, “Creating a Degraded RAID Array”

To see the rebuild progress while being refreshed every second, enter

watch -n 1 cat /proc/mdstat 

A.10.3. Mass Storage over IP Networks: iSCSI

Location

Change

Section 13.3.1, “Using YaST for the iSCSI Initiator Configuration”

Re-organized material for clarity.

Added information about how to use the settings for the Start-up option for iSCSI target devices:

  • Automatic: This option is used for iSCSI targets that are to be connected when the iSCSI service itself starts up. This is the typical configuration.

  • Onboot: This option is used for iSCSI targets that are to be connected during boot; that is, when root (/) is on iSCSI. As such, the iSCSI target device will be evaluated from the initrd on server boots.

A.11. May 21, 2009

Updates were made to the following section. The changes are explained below.

A.11.1. Managing Multipath I/O

Location

Change

Section 7.2.9.1, “Storage Arrays That Are Automatically Detected for Multipathing”

Testing of the IBM zSeries device with multipathing has shown that the dev_loss_tmo parameter should be set to 90 seconds, and the fast_io_fail_tmo parameter should be set to 5 seconds. If you are using zSeries devices, you must manually create and configure the /etc/multipath.conf file to specify the values. For information, see Section 7.4.5.6, “Configuring Default Settings for zSeries in /etc/multipath.conf”.

Section 7.3.1, “Device Mapper Multipath Module”

Multipathing is supported for the /boot device in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 and later.

Section 7.4.5.6, “Configuring Default Settings for zSeries in /etc/multipath.conf”

This section is new.

Section 7.7, “Configuring Multipath I/O for the Root Device”

DM-MP is now available and supported for /boot and /root in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11.