Apple XSAN 1.1 Migration Guide

Xsan
Migration Guide

Includes instructions for upgrading from
Xsan 1.0 to Xsan 1.1

K

Apple Computer, Inc.

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Contents

1

Preface 5 About This Guide

5

Notation Conventions

Chapter 1 7 General Information About Upgrading

7

Mac OS X or Mac OS X Server?

7

Migrating Without Interruption

8

About Primary and Standby Controllers

8

If You Don’t Have a Standby Controller

9

Where to Get the Updates

10

Version Compatibility

Chapter 2 11 Upgrading to Xsan 1.1 on Mac OS X v10.3.9 “Panther”

Chapter 3 17 Upgrading to Xsan 1.1 on Mac OS X v10.4 “Tiger”

17

Why You Must First Upgrade to Xsan 1.1 on Mac OS X v10.3.9

17

Why You Must Update to Xsan 1.1 Twice

3

4

Contents

About This Guide

This guide shows how to upgrade to Xsan 1.1.

Follow the instructions in this guide to upgrade your Xsan file system from Xsan 1.0 on
Mac OS X or Mac OS X Server version 10.3 to Xsan 1.1 on Mac OS X or Mac OS X Server
version 10.3.9 “Panther” or version 10.4 “Tiger.”

For general information about upgrading, read Chapter 1.

For instructions about how to upgrade from Xsan 1.0 to Xsan 1.1 on Mac OS X or
Mac OS X Server version 10.3, read Chapter 2.

For instructions about how to upgrade from Xsan 1.0 to Xsan 1.1 on Mac OS X or
Mac OS X Server version 10.4, read Chapter 3.

Preface

Notation Conventions

The following conventions are used in this book wherever shell commands or other
command-line items are described.

Notation Indicates

monospaced font

$

[text_in_brackets]

(one|other)

underlined

[...]

<anglebrackets>

A command or other terminal text

A shell prompt

An optional parameter

Alternative parameters (type one or the other)

A parameter you must replace with a value

A parameter that may be repeated

A displayed value that depends on your SAN configuration

5

6 Preface

About This Guide

General Information About

1

Upgrading

1

This chapter contains general information that you
should be aware of before you upgrade your Xsan
storage area network (SAN).

Mac OS X or Mac OS X Server?

The Xsan file system, the Xsan Admin application, and the Xsan User Quotas
application run identically on Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server. Any statement in this
guide about Mac OS X also applies to Mac OS X Server.

Migrating Without Interruption

The instructions in this guide show you how to upgrade without interfering with the
availability of your Xsan volumes. If you follow the instructions, clients and applications
can access the SAN volumes during the upgrade.

This constant availability is based on the ability of the Xsan software to switch control
of a volume from one metadata controller to another if the first becomes unresponsive.
This process, called “failover,” requires you to have at least two metadata controllers in
your SAN.

Note:

Even if you have two controllers in your SAN, there will be a brief period (when
the controller you are upgrading is restarting) during which your SAN has only one
functioning controller. If you can’t afford to risk this single point of failure even for a
short time, you should temporarily add a third controller to your SAN. You can do this
by temporarily promoting a suitable client computer to the role of controller. See
“Promoting a Client to Standby Controller” on page 9.

7

If Volume Availability During the Upgrade Is Not Important

If your SAN volumes don’t need to be available during the upgrade, you can stop the
volumes and then perform the upgrade as you would any software upgrade, without
relying on controller failover. However, if you are upgrading to Mac OS X or Mac OS X
Server v10.4, be sure that you choose to perform an update installation, not a clean
installation. Otherwise, you’ll lose your volume and SAN configuration files.

About Primary and Standby Controllers

Each Xsan volume is hosted by a metadata controller, called the volume’s “primary
controller.” To ensure availability of the volume and to protect against data loss, you
usually set up at least one other computer, called a “standby controller,” to act as a
backup. If a volume’s primary controller or the file system processes running on it
become unresponsive, the standby controller takes control of the volume during
controller failover.

On a controller that is hosting more than one volume, it’s possible for a single volume
to fail over to a standby controller while other volumes hosted by the controller
continue unaffected. The volume that failed over now has a different primary controller
than the other volumes. So, in a SAN with more than one volume, each volume can,
through the process of failover, end up on a different primary controller.

The instructions in this guide take advantage of failover to maintain volume availability
without your having to know which controller is hosting a volume. All you need to be
sure of is that there is another controller ready to host volumes that are currently
hosted on the controller you are upgrading.

If You Don’t Have a Standby Controller

If you have set up your SAN with a single metadata controller, you can do one of the
following during the upgrade:

Â

Unmount and stop all of your SAN volumes for the duration of the upgrade.
(The volumes will be unavailable during the upgrade.)

Â

Temporarily promote a client computer to the role of controller during the upgrade.
(Clients will be able to use the volumes during the upgrade.)

Note:

You should consider permanently adding a second controller to your SAN. Losing
a metadata controller without a standby can result in the loss of all data on a volume
and means that your volumes are not available during controller upgrades. Including a
standby controller in your SAN configuration is highly recommended.

8 Chapter 1

General Information About Upgrading