[Lustre-discuss] 2.6.23 client systems with any compatible server

[Andreas Dilger]

On Feb 22, 2008  10:59 -0800, Ron wrote:
> I want to have a lustre client running on a system with 2.6.23.12
> kernel. (The reason is that there is a special patch that is required
> for these 60+ Quad-Core AMD Opteron systems that we have and the patch
> is currently only available for this 2.6.23.12 kernel).
> 
> Does anyone have a recommendation of how I should get a client and
> then a compatible server?
> For the server, we only need minimal throughput, we just would like to
> see if Lustre can manage a filesystem created on a 40 TB disk system
> attached via a qlogic fibre channel adapter.  We were planning to run
> the mgs, mdt, and several OSTs on a single system. There are no kernel
> constraints for the server. (We currently have a redhat base x86_64
> distribution loaded.)
> 
> I have tried a lustre CVS client (20080116) for the 2.6.23.12, but
> seem to have run into a compatibility issue with the 1.6.4.*-
> vanilla_2.6.18.8 server.

You should be able to build a "patchless" lustre client for kernels >
2.6.16, though I'm not sure if we have all of the kernel API changes
for > 2.6.22 in the Lustre code.  The issue is that even though Lustre
clients no longer require kernel patches, the kernel APIs change without
notice or documentation, so there is always _something_ broken when a
new kernel is released.

Could you also elaborate on the "1.6.4.* compatibility issue"?  There
shouldn't be any compatibility problems between 1.6 releases, though
the current b1_6 development branch has a feature (adaptive timeouts)
which is likely to be removed before the final release.  I would suggest
getting the specific Lustre release you want by CVS tag (v1_6_4_3 probably)
instead of the CVS tip.

Cheers, Andreas
--
Andreas Dilger
Sr. Staff Engineer, Lustre Group
Sun Microsystems of Canada, Inc.