Chapter 1. Overview
The Storage Administration Guide contains extensive information on supported file systems and data storage features in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7. This book is intended as a quick reference for administrators managing single-node (that is, non-clustered) storage solutions.
The Storage Administration Guide is split into the following parts: File Systems, Storage Administration, and Data Deduplication and Compression with VDO.
The File Systems part details the various file systems Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 supports. It describes them and explains how best to utilize them.
The Storage Administration part details the various tools and storage administration tasks Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 supports. It describes them and explains how best to utilize them.
The Data Deduplication and Compression with VDO part describes the Virtual Data Optimizer (VDO). It explains how to use VDO to reduce your storage requirements.
1.1. New Features and Enhancements in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 features the following file system enhancements:
eCryptfs not included
As of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, eCryptfs is not included. For more information on encrypting file systems, see Red Hat's Security Guide.
System Storage Manager
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 includes a new application called System Storage Manager which provides a command-line interface to manage various storage technologies. For more information, see Chapter 16, System Storage Manager (SSM).
XFS Is the Default File System
As of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, XFS is the default file system. For more information about the XFS file system, see Chapter 3, The XFS File System.
File System Restructure
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 introduces a new file system structure. The directories
/bin, /sbin, /lib, and /lib64 are now nested under /usr.
Snapper
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 introduces a new tool called Snapper that allows for the easy creation and management of snapshots for LVM and Btrfs. For more information, see Chapter 14, Creating and Maintaining Snapshots with Snapper.
Btrfs (Technology Preview)
Note
Btrfs is available as a Technology Preview feature in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 but has been deprecated since the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.4 release. It will be removed in a future major release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
For more information, see Deprecated Functionality in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.4 Release Notes.
Btrfs is a local file system that aims to provide better performance and scalability, including integrated LVM operations. This file system is not fully supported by Red Hat and as such is a technology preview. For more information on Btrfs, see Chapter 6, Btrfs (Technology Preview).
NFSv2 No Longer Supported
As of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, NFSv2 is no longer supported.
