Commit | Line | Data |
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e4731420 DT |
1 | Global File System |
2 | ------------------ | |
3 | ||
4cb947b5 | 4 | http://sources.redhat.com/cluster/wiki/ |
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5 | |
6 | GFS is a cluster file system. It allows a cluster of computers to | |
7 | simultaneously use a block device that is shared between them (with FC, | |
8 | iSCSI, NBD, etc). GFS reads and writes to the block device like a local | |
9 | file system, but also uses a lock module to allow the computers coordinate | |
10 | their I/O so file system consistency is maintained. One of the nifty | |
11 | features of GFS is perfect consistency -- changes made to the file system | |
12 | on one machine show up immediately on all other machines in the cluster. | |
13 | ||
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14 | GFS uses interchangable inter-node locking mechanisms, the currently |
15 | supported mechanisms are: | |
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16 | |
17 | lock_nolock -- allows gfs to be used as a local file system | |
18 | ||
19 | lock_dlm -- uses a distributed lock manager (dlm) for inter-node locking | |
20 | The dlm is found at linux/fs/dlm/ | |
21 | ||
e9ccb73a | 22 | Lock_dlm depends on user space cluster management systems found |
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23 | at the URL above. |
24 | ||
25 | To use gfs as a local file system, no external clustering systems are | |
26 | needed, simply: | |
27 | ||
2fcb4a12 | 28 | $ mkfs -t gfs2 -p lock_nolock -j 1 /dev/block_device |
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29 | $ mount -t gfs2 /dev/block_device /dir |
30 | ||
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31 | If you are using Fedora, you need to install the gfs2-utils package |
32 | and, for lock_dlm, you will also need to install the cman package | |
33 | and write a cluster.conf as per the documentation. | |
34 | ||
35 | GFS2 is not on-disk compatible with previous versions of GFS, but it | |
36 | is pretty close. | |
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37 | |
38 | The following man pages can be found at the URL above: | |
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39 | fsck.gfs2 to repair a filesystem |
40 | gfs2_grow to expand a filesystem online | |
41 | gfs2_jadd to add journals to a filesystem online | |
42 | gfs2_tool to manipulate, examine and tune a filesystem | |
e4731420 | 43 | gfs2_quota to examine and change quota values in a filesystem |
e9ccb73a | 44 | gfs2_convert to convert a gfs filesystem to gfs2 in-place |
373b5a45 | 45 | mount.gfs2 to help mount(8) mount a filesystem |
4cb947b5 | 46 | mkfs.gfs2 to make a filesystem |