Appendix A. Documentation Updates

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 10. 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 sections. The changes are explained below.

A.1.1. 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 5.14, “Additional Information”

Removed obolete references.

A.1.2. Installing and Managing DRBD Services

Location

Change

Section 9.3, “Configuring the DRBD Service”

The procedure was updated with an example. The following command is used to initialize a newly defined DRBD resource:

drbdadm --ignore-sanity-checks create-md r0

Script for Configuring the /etc/drbd.conf File

This section was removed. The open source add_resource_script.sh file is no longer available.

A.2. June 21, 2010

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

A.2.1. Managing Multipath I/O

A.3. June 11, 2010

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

A.3.1. Managing Multipath I/O

Location

Change

Section 5.2.3, “Using LVM2 on Multipath Devices”

The example in Step 3 was corrected.

Section 5.2.6, “SAN Timeout Settings When the Root Device Is Multipathed”

This section is new.

Section 5.3.4, “The Linux multipath(8) Command”

Expanded the defintions for options.

Section 5.3.2, “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 5.4.1, “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 5.2.6, “SAN Timeout Settings When the Root Device Is Multipathed”.

Section 5.4.5.2, “Verifying the Setup in the etc/multipath.conf File”

Added example output for -v3 verbosity.

A.3.2. Managing Software RAIDs 6 and 10 with mdadm

Location

Change

Section 7.3.1.5, “Far Layout”

Errata in the example were corrected.

A.4. February 23, 2010

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

A.4.1. Managing Multipath I/O

Location

Change

Section 5.9, “Scanning for New Devices without Rebooting”

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

Section 5.10, “Scanning for New Partitioned Devices without Rebooting”

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

A.5. January 20, 2010

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

A.5.1. Managing Multipath I/O

Location

Change

Section 5.4.5.5, “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 5.6, “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.6. October 20, 2009

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

A.6.1. Managing Multipath I/O

A.7. September 2, 2009 (SLES 10 SP3)

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

A.7.1. Managing Multipath I/O

A.7.2. Managing Software RAIDs 6 and 10 with mdadm

Location

Change

Section 7.4, “Creating a Degraded RAID Array”

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

watch -n 1 cat /proc/mdstat 

A.7.3. Overview of EVMS

Location

Change

Section 1.3, “Supported File Systems”

The Novell Storage Services (NSS) file system is also supported when used with the Novell Open Enterprise Server 2 for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP1 (or later versions of OES 2 and SLES 10).

A.8. May 15, 2009

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

A.8.1. Managing Multipath I/O

Location

Change

Section 5.7, “Configuring Multipath I/O for the Root Device”

DM-MP is available but is not supported for /boot and /root in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP1 and later if all online updates have been applied. More specifically, you need mkinitrd 1.2-106.61 and multipath-tools 0.4.7-34.23 or later. However, if you install the packages and set up the configuration, you might run into update issues later.

Full multipath support is available in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11.

A.9. November 24, 2008

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

A.9.1. Managing Multipath I/O

Location

Change

Section 5.2.9, “Supported Storage Arrays for Multipathing”

Section 5.4.5.6, “Applying Changes Made to the /etc/multipath.conf File”

After you modify the /etc/multipath.conf file, you must run mkinitrd to re-create the INITRD on your system, then reboot in order for the changes to take effect.

A.9.2. Using UUIDs to Mount Devices

Location

Change

Section 3.2.1, “Using UUIDs to Assemble or Activate File System Devices”

The device ID assigned by the manufactuer for a drive never changes, no matter where the device is mounted, so it can always be found at boot. The UUID is a property of the filesystem and can change if you reformat the drive.

A.10. June 10, 2008

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

A.10.1. Managing Multipath I/O

Location

Change

Section 5.3.3, “Using mdadm for Multipathed Devices”

For information about modifying the /etc/lvm/lvm.conf file, see Section 5.2.3, “Using LVM2 on Multipath Devices”.

Section 5.4.5.2, “Verifying the Setup in the etc/multipath.conf File”

Use the -v3 option to show the full path list.

A.11. March 20, 2008 (SLES 10 SP2)

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

A.11.1. Managing Multipath I/O

Location

Change

Section 5.2.8, “Supported Architectures for Multipath I/O”

This section is new.

Section 5.2.9, “Supported Storage Arrays for Multipathing”

This section was reorganized for clarity.

Section 5.4.5, “Creating and Configuring the /etc/multipath.conf File”

The /etc/multipath.conf file does not exist unless you create it.

Section 5.6, “Configuring Path Failover Policies and Priorities”

This section is new.

Section 5.7, “Configuring Multipath I/O for the Root Device”

DM-MP is now available and supported for /boot and /root in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP1 and later if all online updates have been applied. More specifically, you need mkinitrd 1.2-106.61 and multipath-tools 0.4.7-34.23 or later.


SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server Storage Administration Guide 10 SP3/SP4