5.4. Formatting and Mounting Bricks
To create a Red Hat Gluster Storage volume, specify the bricks that comprise the volume. After creating the volume, the volume must be started before it can be mounted.
5.4.1. Creating Bricks Manually
Important
- Red Hat supports formatting a Logical Volume using the XFS file system on the bricks.
5.4.1.1. Creating a Thinly Provisioned Logical Volume
To create a thinly provisioned logical volume, proceed with the following steps:
- Create a physical volume(PV) by using the
pvcreate
command.For example:# pvcreate --dataalignment 1280K /dev/sdb
Here,/dev/sdb
is a storage device.Use the correctdataalignment
option based on your device. For more information, see Section 20.2, “Brick Configuration”Note
The device name and the alignment value will vary based on the device you are using. - Create a Volume Group (VG) from the PV using the
vgcreate
command:For example:# vgcreate --physicalextentsize 1280K rhs_vg /dev/sdb
- Create a thin-pool using the following commands:
# lvcreate --thin VOLGROUP/thin_pool --size pool_sz --chunksize chunk_sz --poolmetadatasize metadev_sz --zero n
For example:# lvcreate --thin rhs_vg/rhs_pool --size 2T --chunksize 1280K --poolmetadatasize 16G --zero n
To enhance the performance of Red Hat Gluster Storage, ensure you read Chapter 20, Tuning for Performance chapter. - Create a thinly provisioned volume that uses the previously created pool by running the
lvcreate
command with the--virtualsize
and--thin
options:# lvcreate --virtualsize size --thin volgroup/poolname --name volname
For example:# lvcreate --virtualsize 1G --thin rhs_vg/rhs_pool --name rhs_lv
It is recommended that only one LV should be created in a thin pool.
5.4.1.2. Creating a Thickly Provisioned Logical Volume
Format bricks using the supported XFS configuration, mount the bricks, and verify the bricks are mounted correctly. To enhance the performance of Red Hat Gluster Storage, ensure you read Chapter 20, Tuning for Performance before formatting the bricks.
Important
Snapshots are not supported on bricks formatted with external log devices. Do not use
-l logdev=device
option with mkfs.xfs
command for formatting the Red Hat Gluster Storage bricks.
- Run
# mkfs.xfs -f -i size=512 -n size=8192 -d su=128k,sw=10 DEVICE
to format the bricks to the supported XFS file system format. Here, DEVICE is the created thin LV. The inode size is set to 512 bytes to accommodate for the extended attributes used by Red Hat Gluster Storage. - Run
# mkdir /mountpoint
to create a directory to link the brick to. - Add an entry in
/etc/fstab
:/dev/rhs_vg/rhs_lv /mountpoint xfs rw,inode64,noatime,nouuid 1 2
- Run
# mount /mountpoint
to mount the brick. - Run the
df -h
command to verify the brick is successfully mounted:# df -h /dev/rhs_vg/rhs_lv 16G 1.2G 15G 7% /rhgs
- If SElinux is enabled, then the SELinux labels that has to be set manually for the bricks created using the following commands:
# semanage fcontext -a -t glusterd_brick_t /rhgs/brick1 # restorecon -Rv /rhgs/brick1
5.4.2. Using Subdirectory as the Brick for Volume
You can create an XFS file system, mount them and point them as bricks while creating a Red Hat Gluster Storage volume. If the mount point is unavailable, the data is directly written to the root file system in the unmounted directory.
For example, the
/rhgs
directory is the mounted file system and is used as the brick for volume creation. However, for some reason, if the mount point is unavailable, any write continues to happen in the /rhgs
directory, but now this is under root file system.
To overcome this issue, you can perform the below procedure.
During Red Hat Gluster Storage setup, create an XFS file system and mount it. After mounting, create a subdirectory and use this subdirectory as the brick for volume creation. Here, the XFS file system is mounted as
/bricks
. After the file system is available, create a directory called /rhgs/brick1
and use it for volume creation. Ensure that no more than one brick is created from a single mount. This approach has the following advantages:
- When the
/rhgs
file system is unavailable, there is no longer/rhgs/brick1
directory available in the system. Hence, there will be no data loss by writing to a different location. - This does not require any additional file system for nesting.
Perform the following to use subdirectories as bricks for creating a volume:
- Create the
brick1
subdirectory in the mounted file system.# mkdir /rhgs/brick1
Repeat the above steps on all nodes. - Create the Red Hat Gluster Storage volume using the subdirectories as bricks.
# gluster volume create distdata01 ad-rhs-srv1:/rhgs/brick1 ad-rhs-srv2:/rhgs/brick2
- Start the Red Hat Gluster Storage volume.
# gluster volume start distdata01
- Verify the status of the volume.
# gluster volume status distdata01
Note
If multiple bricks are used from the same server, then ensure the bricks are mounted in the following format. For example:
# df -h /dev/rhs_vg/rhs_lv1 16G 1.2G 15G 7% /rhgs1 /dev/rhs_vg/rhs_lv2 16G 1.2G 15G 7% /rhgs2
Create a distribute volume with 2 bricks from each server. For example:
# gluster volume create test-volume server1:/rhgs1/brick1 server2:/rhgs1/brick1 server1:/rhgs2/brick2 server2:/rhgs2/brick2
5.4.3. Reusing a Brick from a Deleted Volume
Bricks can be reused from deleted volumes, however some steps are required to make the brick reusable.
Brick with a File System Suitable for Reformatting (Optimal Method)
Run
# mkfs.xfs -f -i size=512 device
to reformat the brick to supported requirements, and make it available for immediate reuse in a new volume.
Note
All data will be erased when the brick is reformatted.
File System on a Parent of a Brick Directory
If the file system cannot be reformatted, remove the whole brick directory and create it again.
5.4.4. Cleaning An Unusable Brick
If the file system associated with the brick cannot be reformatted, and the brick directory cannot be removed, perform the following steps:
- Delete all previously existing data in the brick, including the
.glusterfs
subdirectory. - Run
# setfattr -x trusted.glusterfs.volume-id brick
and# setfattr -x trusted.gfid brick
to remove the attributes from the root of the brick. - Run
# getfattr -d -m . brick
to examine the attributes set on the volume. Take note of the attributes. - Run
# setfattr -x attribute brick
to remove the attributes relating to the glusterFS file system.Thetrusted.glusterfs.dht
attribute for a distributed volume is one such example of attributes that need to be removed.