Appendix A. Red Hat Customer Portal Labs Relevant to Storage Administration

Red Hat Customer Portal Labs are tools designed to help you improve performance, troubleshoot issues, identify security problems, and optimize configuration. This appendix provides an overview of Red Hat Customer Portal Labs relevant to storage administration. All Red Hat Customer Portal Labs are available at https://access.redhat.com/labs/.

The SCSI decoder is designed to decode SCSI error messages in the /log/* files or log file snippets, as these error messages can be hard to understand for the user.

Use the SCSI decoder to individually diagnose each SCSI error message and get solutions to resolve problems efficiently.

The File System Layout Calculator determines the optimal parameters for creating ext3, ext4, and xfs file systems, after you provide storage options that describe your current or planned storage. Move the cursor over the question mark ("?") for a brief explanation of a particular option, or scroll down to read a summary of all options.

Use the File System Layout Calculator to generate a command that creates a file system with provided parameters on the specified RAID storage. Copy the generated command and execute it as root to create the required file system.

The LVM RAID Calculator determines the optimal parameters for creating logical volumes (LVMs) on a given RAID storage after you specify storage options. Move the cursor over the question mark ("?") for a brief explanation of a particular option, or scroll down to read a summary of all options.

The LVM RAID Calculator generates a sequence of commands that create LVMs on a given RAID storage. Copy and execute the generated commands one by one as root to create the required LVMs.

The iSCSI Helper provides a block-level storage over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, and enables the use of storage pools within server virtualization.

Use the iSCSI Helper to generate a script that prepares the system for its role of an iSCSI target (server) or an iSCSI initiator (client) configured according to the settings that you provide.

The Samba Configuration Helper creates a configuration that provides basic file and printer sharing through Samba:

The Multipath Helper creates an optimal configuration for multipath devices on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, 6, and 7. By following the steps, you can create advanced multipath configurations, such as custom aliases or device blacklists.

The Multipath Helper also provides the multipath.conf file for a review. When you achieve the required configuration, download the installation script to run on your server.

The NFS Helper simplifies configuring a new NFS server or client. Follow the steps to specify the export and mount options. Then, generate a downloadable NFS configuration script.

The Multipath Configuration Visualizer analyzes files in a sosreport and provides a diagram that visualizes the multipath configuration. Use the Multipath Configuration Visualizer to display:

You can either upload a sosreport compressed in the .xz, .gz, or .bz2 format, or extract a sosreport in a directory that you then select as the source for a client-side analysis.

The RHEL Backup and Restore Assistant provides information on back-up and restore tools, and common scenarios of Linux usage.

Described tools:

Described scenarios: