ADIC Bicycle Accessories 1.3 User Manual

Release Notes

®

A

Product: StorNext FX 1.3
SNFX Client Operating Systems:

SGI IRIX 6.5.26, 27, and 28 (MIPS 64-bit)
Solaris 9 and 10 (SPARC 64-bit)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Server 3.0,
Updates 4, 5, and 6 (32-bit Intel and AMD; 64-bit for Itanium, Opteron, and EM64T)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Server 4.0, Updates 1 and 2
(32-bit Intel and AMD; 64-bit Itanium, Opteron, and EM64T)
Red Hat Linux 9.0 (32-bit)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9, Service Pack 2 (SLES);
(32-bit Intel and AMD, 64-bit Itanium, Opteron, and EM64T)
IBM AIX 5.2, 5.3 (Power Architecture 64-bit)
HP-UX 11i v2 (PA-RISC and 64-bit Itanium)
Windows 2000, Server 2003, and XP (32-bit Intel and AMD)

Date: April, 2006

Contents

Page Topic

2 Purpose of this Release
2 New Features
3 Operating System Level Requirements

Operating System Level Requirements3
4 Certified System Components
4 System Requirements
7 Configuring LDAP
8 Resolved Issues
8 Resolved Issues
12 Known Issues
21 Documentation

© April 2006, ADIC

DIC and StorNext are registered trademarks of Advanced Digital Information
Corporation. All other product, company, or service names mentioned herein
are the property of their r espective owners.

6-01663-01 Rev A

Purpose of this Release

StorNext FX (SNFX) 1.3 includes several new features and enhancements that extend its capabilities.
These release notes describe these new features and enhancements, as well as currently known issues
and issues that were resolved for this release. These notes also provide drive and auxiliary firmware
compatibility information.

SNFX is a client only version software that is licensed to run in Apple managed environments and used with
an Apple metadata controller. If is fully interoperable and compatible with Apple Xsan.

The first version of SNFX was released with Apple Xsan 1.0. Subsequent releases of SNFX and Apple
Xsan followed this compatibility:

• SNFX 2.5 interoperable and compatible with Xsan 1.1

• SNFX 2.6 interoperable and compatible with Xsan 1.2

• SNFX 1.3 interoperable and compatible with Xsan 1.3

With the release of SNFX 1.3, the version numbering is changed to more closely align with the Apple Xsan
release versioning. This was done to help minimize confusion of compatible SNFX releases with Apple Xsan
releases and to maintain consistency with the Apple Xsan product. The product has not changed, only the
release numbering.

Visit www.adic.com
information and updates about SNFX.

and www.adic.com/adicSupportShell.jsp?Page=supportBulletins for additional

New Features

New features and functionality for SNFX 1.3 include:

• 2TB LUN: 2TB LUN support enables customers to configure LUNS up to and greater than 2TB. This
allows for fewer volumes to store large amounts of data.

• Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP): Simplifies configuration and administration of
mixed environments. LDAP (Active Directory) centralizes the ACL translation necessary for
Windows and UNIX systems to access a shared data set. All Windows servers are pointed to a
single LDAP system for centralized and simplified management of file permissions.

Special Configuration Requirements

For SNFX 1.3, the File System client RAM requirement has changed to a minimum of 512 MB.

2 April 2006, ADIC

Operating System Level Requirements

The following table lists the required operating system levels required to successfully operate SNFX 1.3.

SNFX 1.3 Requirements

Operating System

Platform

AIX 5.2, 5.3 (Power Architecture 64-bit)
HP-UX 11i v2 (PA-RISC and 64-bit Itanium)
IRIX 6.5.26, 27, and 28 (MIPS 64-bit)
Red Hat Linux Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Server 3.0 - Updates 4, 5, and 6

(32-bit Intel and AMD; 64-bit Itanium, Opteron, and EM64T)
Required kernels:
U4 - 2.4.21-27.EL or 2.4.21-27.Elsmp

U5 - 2.4.21-32.0.1.EL or 2.4.21-32.0.1.ELsmp
U6 - 2.4.21-37.EL

Both the kernel and kernel source RPM packages must be installed. Install
all tools necessary to build a kernel module (including compilers) on all
Linux clients and server systems.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Server 4.0 - Updates 1 and 2 (32-bit
Intel and AMD; 64-bit Itanium, Opteron, and EM64T)

Required kernels:
Update 1 - 2.6.9-11

Update 2 - 2.6.9-22

Operating System Levels

Red Hat Linux 9 client only (32-bit Intel and AMD)
Required kernel: 2.4.20-31.9.legacy

Solaris S o la ris 9 an d 10 (SPARC 64-bit)

NOTE: Prior to installing StorNext on a Solaris 10 machine, you must install
the Solaris 10 Recommended Patch Cluster dated March 10, 2006 or later.

To gain support for LUNs greater than 2TB on Solaris10, the following
patches are required:

• 118822-23 (or greater) Kernel Patch

• 118996-03 (or greater) Format Patch

• 119374-07 (or greater) SD and SSD Patch

• 120998-01 (or greater) SD Headers Patch

SuSE Linux SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9, Service Pack 2 (SLES); (32-bit Intel and

AMD, 64-bit Itanium, Opteron, and EM64T); kernel 2.6.5-7.191-default.
Both the kernel and kernel source RPM packages must be installed. Install

all tools necessary to build a kernel module (including compilers) on all
Linux clients and server systems.

Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 (32-bit Intel and AMD)

April 2006, ADIC 3

Operating System

Platform

Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (32-bit Intel and AMD)
Windows XP Service Pack 2 (32-bit Intel and AMD)

Operating System Levels

Certified System Components

This table lists certified system components that support SNFX 1.3.

Component Description

Browsers Netscape 7.x

Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 and later
Mozilla 1.4 and later
FireFox 1.0 and later

HBA Emulex LP8000, LP850, LP9000, LP90002

QLogic: QLA2200, QLA2310, QLA2340, QLA2342
NFS Versions 3
Multi-pathing Failover

Software

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS 3.0, Update 3
HP SecurePath - version: 3.0c

• Windows 2000
HP SecurePath - version: 4.0c-7

• Windows 2003
EMC PowerPath - version: 3.0.6

For information on supported HBA drivers, refer to the RAID vendor’s
documentation.

System Requirements

Note

To successfully install SNFX 1.3, the following system requirements must be met:

• S

NFX 1.3 Requirements

• Windows Memory Requirements on page 5

SNFX 1.3 Requirements

The following requirements assume that SNFX is the only application running
on your system.

For each SNFX mounted file system, these requirements must be met.

System/Component Requirement

AIX SNFX clients: A minimum of 512 MB of RAM is required.
IRIX SNFX clients: A minimum of 512 MB of RAM is required.

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System/Component Requirement

HP-UX SNFX clients: A minimum of 1 GB of RAM is required.
Solaris SNFX clients: A minimum of 512 MB of RAM is required.
Linux SNFX clients: A minimum of 512 MB of RAM is required.
Windows 2000

Windows Server 2003
Windows XP

Network LAN using TCP/IP
(all clients and servers
must be interconnected)

SAN SNFX clients: An FC-HBA or equivalent SAN communication device

Client Hard Disk SNFX requires 200 MB of hard disk space for binaries, documentation,

Disk Drives SNFX only supports the file system when it is running on FC-3 SCSI

SNFX clients: A minimum of 512 MB of RAM is required.

For the SNFX metadata traffic, ADIC requires that a separate, dedicated,
switched Ethernet LAN be used.

where the storage is visible and accessible to multiple SAN clients.
SNFX does not support multiple hosts connected throug h an FC hu b

device because the resulting propagation of Loop Initialization Protocol
resets can cause data corruption.

configuration, and log files.

drives.

Windows Memory Requirements

The SNFX 1.3 release has a number of performance enhancements that enable it to better react to
changing customer load. These enhancements come with additional memory requirements. Because the
Windows operating system has unusual memory resource limitations it is sometimes necessary to adjust
StorNext memory tuning settings to provide optimal operation.

When running multiple file systems in the Windows environment the StorNext memory tuning parameters
must be adjusted or the machine will run out of memory. This can be seen is by bringing up task manager
and watching the Non-paged tag in the Kernel Memory pane in the lower right hand corner. Microsoft
warns that the maximum amount of non-paged memory consumed cannot exceed 256MB. However, the
actual amount varies depending on your configuration. For example, o n a machine with 256MB of memo ry
ADIC testing has found that non-paged memory must not exceed 96MB.

Non-paged memory is the most critical resource limitation but not the only one. For example, Microsoft
warns that paged memory consumptio n must no t exceed 470MB. Similarly, the actual amount also varies
depending on configuration.

Memory exhaustion can be observed in the following ways:

• commands failing

• messages in the system log about insufficient memory

• fsmpm process mysteriously dying

• repeated FSM reconnect attempts

• messages in the application log and cvlog.txt file about socket failures with the status code (10555)
which is ENOBUFS

• messages in the system log about ConvertExtent failed with error 20

April 2006, ADIC 5

The solution is to adjust a few parameters on the Cache Parameters tab in the SNFX control panel
(cvntclnt). These parameters control how much memory is consumed by the directory cache, the buffer
cache, and the local file cache.

As always, an understanding of the customer's wor kload aid in determining the correct values. Tuning is not
an exact science, and requires some trial-and-error to come up with values that work best in the customer's
environment.

CAUTION

The settings in the Cache Parameters tab are relevant to the selected
file system only . When running multiple file systems it is necessary to
adjust the Cache Parameters settings for EACH file system. Also, the
total amount of memory consumed is the SUM of the Cache
Parameters settings for ALL file systems.

Settings and Parameters

• Directory Cache Size - The first setting to consider is the Directory Cache Size. The default is 10
(MB). If you do not have large directories, or do not perform lots of directory scans, this number can
be reduced to 1 or 2MB. The impact will be slightly slower directory lookups in directories that are
frequently accessed. Also, in the Mount Options tab, you should set the Paged DirCache option
to allocate the specified memory from paged pool instead of the default non-paged pool.

• Buffer Cache NonPaged Pool Usage - The next parameter is the Buffer Cache NonPaged Pool
Usage; the value is in percent (%) and represents the percentage of available non-paged pool that
the buffer cache will consume. By default, this value is 75%. This should typically be set to 25 or at
most 50 for two or more file systems to avoid over-consumption of the non-paged pool. The
minimum value is 10 and the maximum value is 90. Associated with this setting are the Data Buffer
Cache Minimum and Data Buffer Cache Maximum settings. These settings specify the minimum
and maximum amount of paged plus non-paged memory (in megabytes) consumed for buffer
cache for the selected file system.

• Watermarks - The following parameters control how many file structures are cached on the client;
they are. These are controlled by the Meta-data Cache Low Water Mark, the Meta-data Cache
High Water Mark and the Meta-data Cache Max Water Mark. Each file structure is represented
internally by a data structure called the cvnode. The cvnode represents all the states about a file
or directory. The more cvnodes that there are encached on the client, the fewer trips the client has
to make over the wire to contact the FSM.

Each cvnode is approximately 1462 bytes in size and is allocated from the non-paged pool. The
cvnode cache is periodically purged so that unused entries are freed. The decision to purge the
cache is made based on the Low, High, and Max water mark values. The Low default is 1024, the
High default is 3072, and the Max default is 4096.

These values should be adjusted so that the cache does not bloat and consume more memory than
it should. These values are highly dependent on the customer's workload and access patterns.
Values of 512 for the High water mark will cause the cvnode cache to be purged when more than
512 entries are present. The cache will be purged until the low water mark is reached, for example

128. The Max water mark is for situations where memory is very tight. The normal purge algorithms
takes access time into account when determining a candidate to evict from the cache; in tight
memory situations (when there are more than the maximum entries in the cache), these constraints
are relaxed so that memory can be released. A value of 1024 in a tight memory situation should
work.

6 April 2006, ADIC

Configuring LDAP

The following information describes how to configure th e new StorNext LDAP feature in addition to outlining
recent changes to Windows configuration tools.

Using LDAP

SNFX 1.3 introduces support for Light Directory Access Protocol, or LDAP (RFC 2307). Th is feature allows
customers to use Active Directory/LDAP for mapping Windows User ID's (SIDs) to UNIX User ID/Group
ID's.

Changes to "Nobody" mapping

As with previous releases, if a Windows user cannot be mapped to a Unix ID, the user is mapped to Nobody.
SNFX 1.3 allows administrators change the value of Nobody by using the file system configuration
parameters:

UnixNobodyUidOnWindows 60003
UnixNobodyGidOnWindows 60004

These parameters are located in the file system configuration file on the server and are manually modified
by the Xsan Administrator GUI.

Changes to UNIX File & Directory Modes

When a file or directory is created on Windows, the UNIX modes are now controlled by the following file
system configuration paramet ers :

UnixDirectoryCreationModeOnWindowsDefault 0755
UnixFileCreationModeOnWindowsDefault 0644

In previous releases StorNext used per user mode masks. SNFX 1.3 allows one set of values for all users
of each file system.

Note

The default values allow more open access to Windows-created files from
UNIX systems than in previous versions. Administrators can manually change
these values in the file system configuration file on the server or use the
Windows or Web GUI.

LDAP Refresh Timeout

Due to the changes in the Windows Active Directory user mappings, services for UNIX can take up to 10
minutes to be propagated to StorNext clients.

User ID Mapping Precedence

If multiple mappings are found for a given Windows user, the following precedence takes place:

• NIS/PCNFSD - If mapping exists

• Fabricated ID's - If configured "on"

• LDAP/RFC 2307 - If defined in Active Directory

• Nobody - If no other mapping found

April 2006, ADIC 7