EVMS User Guide

Christine Lorenz

IBM

Joy Goodreau

IBM

Kylie Smith

IBM

September 16, 2004


Table of Contents
Preface
1. What is EVMS?
1.1. Why choose EVMS?
1.2. The EVMS user interfaces
1.3. EVMS terminology
1.4. What makes EVMS so flexible?
1.5. Plug-in layer definitions
2. Using the EVMS interfaces
2.1. EVMS GUI
2.2. EVMS Ncurses interface
2.3. EVMS Command Line Interpreter
3. The EVMS log file and error data collection
3.1. About the EVMS log file
3.2. Log file logging levels
3.3. Specifying the logging levels
4. Viewing compatibility volumes after migrating
4.1. Using the EVMS GUI
4.2. Using Ncurses
4.3. Using the CLI
5. Obtaining interface display details
5.1. Using the EVMS GUI
5.2. Using Ncurses
5.3. Using the CLI
6. Adding and removing a segment manager
6.1. When to add a segment manager
6.2. Types of segment managers
6.3. Adding a segment manager to an existing disk
6.4. Adding a segment manager to a new disk
6.5. Example: add a segment manager
6.6. Removing a segment manager
6.7. Example: remove a segment manager
7. Creating segments
7.1. When to create a segment
7.2. Example: create a segment
8. Creating a container
8.1. When to create a container
8.2. Example: create a container
9. Creating regions
9.1. When to create regions
9.2. Example: create a region
10. Creating drive links
10.1. What is drive linking?
10.2. How drive linking is implemented
10.3. Creating a drive link
10.4. Example: create a drive link
10.5. Expanding a drive link
10.6. Shrinking a drive link
10.7. Deleting a drive link
11. Creating snapshots
11.1. What is a snapshot?
11.2. Creating snapshot objects
11.3. Example: create a snapshot
11.4. Reinitializing a snapshot
11.5. Expanding a snapshot
11.6. Deleting a snapshot
11.7. Rolling back a snapshot
12. Creating volumes
12.1. When to create a volume
12.2. Example: create an EVMS native volume
12.3. Example: create a compatibility volume
13. FSIMs and file system operations
13.1. The FSIMs supported by EVMS
13.2. Example: add a file system to a volume
13.3. Example: check a file system
14. Clustering operations
14.1. Rules and restrictions for creating cluster containers
14.2. Example: create a private cluster container
14.3. Example: create a shared cluster container
14.4. Example: convert a private container to a shared container
14.5. Example: convert a shared container to a private container
14.6. Example: deport a private or shared container
14.7. Deleting a cluster container
14.8. Failover and Failback of a private container on Linux-HA
14.9. Remote configuration management
14.10. Forcing a cluster container to be active
15. Converting volumes
15.1. When to convert volumes
15.2. Example: convert compatibility volumes to EVMS volumes
15.3. Example: convert EVMS volumes to compatibility volumes
16. Expanding and shrinking volumes
16.1. Why expand and shrink volumes?
16.2. Example: shrink a volume
16.3. Example: expand a volume
17. Adding features to an existing volume
17.1. Why add features to a volume?
17.2. Example: add drive linking to an existing volume
18. Selectively activating volumes and objects
18.1. Initial activation using /etc/evms.conf
18.2. Activating and deactivating volumes and objects
19. Mounting and unmounting volumes from within EVMS
19.1. Mounting a volume
19.2. Unmounting a volume
19.3. The SWAPFS file system
20. Plug-in operations tasks
20.1. What are plug-in tasks?
20.2. Example: complete a plug-in operations task
21. Deleting objects
21.1. How to delete objects: delete and delete recursive
21.2. Example: perform a delete recursive operation
22. Replacing objects
22.1. What is object-replace?
22.2. Replacing a drive-link child object
23. Moving segment storage objects
23.1. What is segment moving?
23.2. Why move a segment?
23.3. Which segment manager plug-ins implement the move function?
23.4. Example: move a DOS segment
A. The DOS plug-in
A.1. How the DOS plug-in is implemented
A.2. Assigning the DOS plug-in
A.3. Creating DOS partitions
A.4. Expanding DOS partitions
A.5. Shrinking DOS partitions
A.6. Deleting partitions
B. The MD region manager
B.1. Characteristics of Linux RAID levels
B.2. Creating an MD region
B.3. Active and spare objects
B.4. Faulty objects
B.5. Resizing MD regions
B.6. Replacing objects
C. The LVM plug-in
C.1. How LVM is implemented
C.2. Container operations
C.3. Region operations
D. The LVM2 plug-in
D.1. Container operations
D.2. Region operations
E. The CSM plug-in
E.1. Assigning the CSM plug-in
E.2. Unassigning the CSM plug-in
E.3. Deleting a CSM container
F. JFS file system interface module
F.1. Creating JFS file systems
F.2. Checking JFS file systems
F.3. Removing JFS file systems
F.4. Expanding JFS file systems
F.5. Shrinking JFS file systems
G. XFS file system interface module
G.1. Creating XFS file systems
G.2. Checking XFS file systems
G.3. Removing XFS file systems
G.4. Expanding XFS file systems
G.5. Shrinking XFS file systems
H. ReiserFS file system interface module
H.1. Creating ReiserFS file systems
H.2. Checking ReiserFS file systems
H.3. Removing ReiserFS file systems
H.4. Expanding ReiserFS file systems
H.5. Shrinking ReiserFS file systems
I. Ext-2/3 file system interface module
I.1. Creating Ext-2/3 file systems
I.2. Checking Ext-2/3 file systems
I.3. Removing Ext-2/3 file systems
I.4. Expanding and shrinking Ext-2/3 file systems
J. OpenGFS file system interface module
J.1. Creating OpenGFS file systems
J.2. Checking OpenGFS file systems
J.3. Removing OpenGFS file systems
J.4. Expanding and shrinking OpenGFS file systems
K. NTFS file system interface module
K.1. Creating NTFS file systems
K.2. Fixing NTFS file systems
K.3. Cloning NTFS file systems
K.4. Removing NTFS file systems
K.5. Expanding and shrinking NTFS file systems
List of Tables
1. Organization of the EVMS User Guide
1-1. EVMS user interfaces
2-1. Accelerator keys in the Main Window
2-2. Accelerator keys in the views
2-3. Accelerator keys in the selection window
2-4. Accelerator keys in the configuration options window
2-5. Widget navigation keys in the configuration options window
3-1. EVMS logging levels
16-1. FSIM support for expand and shrink operations
List of Figures
4-1. GUI start-up window
4-2. Ncurses start-up window
4-3. CLI volume query results
List of Examples
6-1. Add the DOS Segment Manager
6-2. Remove the DOS Segment Manager
7-1. Create a 100MB segment
8-1. Create "Sample Container"
9-1. Create "Sample Region"
10-1. Create a drive link
11-1. Create a snapshot of a volume
12-1. Create an EVMS native volume
12-2. Create a compatibility volume
13-1. Add a JFS File System to a Volume
13-2. Check a JFS File System
14-1. Create a private cluster container
14-2. Create a shared cluster container
14-3. Convert a private container to shared
14-4. Convert a shared container to private
14-5. Deport a cluster container
15-1. Convert a compatibility volume
15-2. Convert an EVMS volume
16-1. Shrink a volume
16-2. Expand a volume
17-1. Add drive linking to an existing volume
20-1. Add a spare disk to a compatibility volume made from an MDRaid5 region
21-1. Destroy a volume and the region and container below it