Comments on: RHEL 5.4 and XFS

By: CR

CR — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:51:11 +0000

So, I am running CentOS 5.3 64bit

Adding XFS was achieved with
yum install kmod-xfs xfsdump xfsprogs

That’s it. You MIGHT need to specify the kernel you are running to get kmod-xfs to install. (uname -r if your friend here)

I have a simple way to motivate Redhat to adopt XFS. Contact your RH account rep, and politely tell them you are switching to CentOS 5.3 as they support XFS. Tell them you will continue to transition to CentOS unless Redhat gets their act together and starts supporting XFS.

Lost $$$ from sales can be a good motivator if this gets mentioned to them enough times to realize they have a problem.

By: crank bucket

crank bucket — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 06:56:24 +0000

If you need/want full XFS support in RHEL, then you need to tell Redhat that you need/want it – exactly what the referenced BZ states.
The fact they’ve floated the trial balloon with 5.4 is a miracle.
XFS not being in RHEL has been mostly a political thing w/i Redhat.
As for no XFS in 32bit, too bad … no benefit for RH to invest in doing that. The main demand for XFS they’ve seen has been from 64bit server customers.

By: Darin

Darin — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 11:46:42 +0000

A co-worker used the CentosPlus

Steps taken…..

[root@somehost modules]# uname -r

2.6.18-164.el5

[root@somehost modules]# find . |grep xfs

./2.6.18-164.el5/kernel/fs/xfs

./2.6.18-164.el5/kernel/fs/xfs/xfs.ko

wget http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5.3/extras/x86_64/RPMS/xfsdump-2.2.46-1.el5.centos.x86_64.rpm

wget http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5.3/extras/x86_64/RPMS/xfsprogs-devel-2.9.4-1.el5.centos.x86_64.rpm

wget http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5.3/extras/x86_64/RPMS/xfsprogs-2.9.4-1.el5.centos.x86_64.rpm

wget http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5.3/extras/x86_64/RPMS/dmapi-2.2.8-1.el5.centos.x86_64.rpm

[root@somehost xfs]# yum install dmapi* xfs* –nogpgcheck

Loaded plugins: rhnplugin, security

This system is not registered with RHN.

RHN support will be disabled.

Setting up Install Process

Examining dmapi-2.2.8-1.el5.centos.x86_64.rpm: dmapi-2.2.8-1.el5.centos.x86_64

Marking dmapi-2.2.8-1.el5.centos.x86_64.rpm to be installed

Examining xfsdump-2.2.46-1.el5.centos.x86_64.rpm: xfsdump-2.2.46-1.el5.centos.x86_64

Marking xfsdump-2.2.46-1.el5.centos.x86_64.rpm to be installed

Examining xfsprogs-2.9.4-1.el5.centos.x86_64.rpm: xfsprogs-2.9.4-1.el5.centos.x86_64

Marking xfsprogs-2.9.4-1.el5.centos.x86_64.rpm to be installed

Examining xfsprogs-devel-2.9.4-1.el5.centos.x86_64.rpm: xfsprogs-devel-2.9.4-1.el5.centos.x86_64

Marking xfsprogs-devel-2.9.4-1.el5.centos.x86_64.rpm to be installed

Resolving Dependencies

–> Running transaction check

—> Package dmapi.x86_64 0:2.2.8-1.el5.centos set to be updated

—> Package xfsdump.x86_64 0:2.2.46-1.el5.centos set to be updated

—> Package xfsprogs.x86_64 0:2.9.4-1.el5.centos set to be updated

—> Package xfsprogs-devel.x86_64 0:2.9.4-1.el5.centos set to be updated

–> Finished Dependency Resolution

Dependencies Resolved

====================================================================================================================================

Package Arch Version Repository Size

====================================================================================================================================

Installing:

dmapi x86_64 2.2.8-1.el5.centos /dmapi-2.2.8-1.el5.centos.x86_64 150 k

xfsdump x86_64 2.2.46-1.el5.centos /xfsdump-2.2.46-1.el5.centos.x86_64 746 k

xfsprogs x86_64 2.9.4-1.el5.centos /xfsprogs-2.9.4-1.el5.centos.x86_64 2.9 M

xfsprogs-devel x86_64 2.9.4-1.el5.centos /xfsprogs-devel-2.9.4-1.el5.centos.x86_64 967 k

Transaction Summary

====================================================================================================================================

Install 4 Package(s)

Update 0 Package(s)

Remove 0 Package(s)

Total size: 4.7 M

Is this ok [y/N]: y

Downloading Packages:

Running rpm_check_debug

Running Transaction Test

Finished Transaction Test

Transaction Test Succeeded

Running Transaction

Installing : xfsprogs 1/4

Installing : dmapi 2/4

warning: user mockbuild does not exist – using root

warning: group mockbuild does not exist – using root

Installing : xfsdump 3/4

warning: user mockbuild does not exist – using root

warning: group mockbuild does not exist – using root

Installing : xfsprogs-devel 4/4

Installed:

dmapi.x86_64 0:2.2.8-1.el5.centos xfsdump.x86_64 0:2.2.46-1.el5.centos xfsprogs.x86_64 0:2.9.4-1.el5.centos

xfsprogs-devel.x86_64 0:2.9.4-1.el5.centos

Complete!

[root@somehost ~]# mkfs.xfs /dev/mapper/mpath2p1

meta-data=/dev/mapper/mpath2p1 isize=256 agcount=16, agsize=3276757 blks

= sectsz=512 attr=0

data = bsize=4096 blocks=52428112, imaxpct=25

= sunit=0 swidth=0 blks, unwritten=1

naming =version 2 bsize=4096

log =internal log bsize=4096 blocks=25599, version=1

= sectsz=512 sunit=0 blks, lazy-count=0

realtime =none extsz=4096 blocks=0, rtextents=0

[root@somehost ~]# xfsdump -f xfsdump.txt /dev/mapper/mpath2p1

xfsdump: using file dump (drive_simple) strategy

xfsdump: version 2.2.46 (dump format 3.0) – Running single-threaded

============================= dump label dialog ==============================

please enter label for this dump session (timeout in 300 sec)

-> Test

session label entered: “Test”

——————————— end dialog ———————————

xfsdump: level 0 dump of gvlcblade11.gv.us.pri.wyeth.com:/mnt/xfs

xfsdump: dump date: Thu Sep 17 12:33:02 2009

xfsdump: session id: 21b4964c-4d56-4a4c-b285-421d0311057e

xfsdump: session label: “Test”

xfsdump: ino map phase 1: constructing initial dump list

xfsdump: ino map phase 2: skipping (no pruning necessary)

xfsdump: ino map phase 3: skipping (only one dump stream)

xfsdump: ino map construction complete

xfsdump: estimated dump size: 20800 bytes

xfsdump: /var/lib/xfsdump/inventory created

============================= media label dialog =============================

please enter label for media in drive 0 (timeout in 300 sec)

-> Test1

media label entered: “Test1″

——————————— end dialog ———————————

xfsdump: creating dump session media file 0 (media 0, file 0)

xfsdump: dumping ino map

xfsdump: dumping directories

xfsdump: dumping non-directory files

xfsdump: ending media file

xfsdump: media file size 21016 bytes

xfsdump: dump size (non-dir files) : 0 bytes

xfsdump: dump complete: 30 seconds elapsed

xfsdump: Dump Status: SUCCESS

By: Jonathan Buzzard

Jonathan Buzzard — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 09:56:49 +0000

Forgot to say you can always get the XFS tools from the centos-plus repository. Though for my mind they would be better off in the centos-extras repository.

By: Jonathan Buzzard

Jonathan Buzzard — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 09:55:38 +0000

I suspect that the move to including XFS is down to the fact that RedHat’s previous offering of ext3 or GFS really does suck. ext3 does not scale beyond 8TB unless you take 8KB blocks and even then it only goes to 16TB. When you have thumper type devices being common place it makes RedHat’s lineup weak.

It would have been nice if RedHat had managed to get CXFS out of the collapse of SGI, as it would have given a nice file system with the option of a robust clustered version (something GFS/GFS2 is not).

By: lberes

lberes — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 04:09:59 +0000

Hmm. I’ve just heard from a Red Hat employee during RH Summit 2009 that RHEL 5.4 has full XFS support but this is available only in selected countries and needs extra support contract/channel enablement. So either the Bugzilla entry is incorrect or the presenter was disiformed.

By: Matt Simmons

Matt Simmons — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 14:17:09 +0000

“Users of GFS2 that do not need high availability clustering…” have been using the wrong filesystem. Why would you ever have switched to GFS2 if you didn’t need clustering? For that matter, GFS2 never was really solid FOR clustering, was it? I thought OCFS was the better implementation?

I’m just going to stick with ext3 for my filesystems. It’s solid, well known and documented, and I don’t fall under any of the exclusions which would encourage me to switch.

Good write-up.

By: Joe

Joe — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 13:51:08 +0000

I wonder if Red Hat’s change of heart has anything to do with the rumor of Sun killing xfs development.