[Lustre-discuss] [Lustre-devel] Integrity and corruption - can file systems be scalable?

[Peter Braam]

On Fri, Jul 2, 2010 at 3:18 PM, Dmitry Zogin <dmitry.zoguine at oracle.com>wrote:

>  Peter,
>
> That is right - some of them do not. My point was that Veritas fs already
> has many things implemented, like parallel fsck, copy-on-write
> checkpoints,etc. If it was used as a backend for the Lustre, that would be
> the perfect match. ZFS has some of its features, but not all.
>
>
Parallel fsck doesn't help once you are down to one disk (as pointed out in
the post).

The post also mentions copy on write checkpoints, and their usefulness has
not been proven.  There has been no study about this, and certainly in many
cases they are implemented in such a way that bugs in the software can
corrupt them.  For example, most volume level copy on write schemes actually
copy the old data instead of leaving it in place, which is a vulnerability.
 Shadow copies are vulnerable to software bugs, things would get better if
there was something similar to page protection for disk blocks.

But, let's say, adding things like that into the Lustre itself will make it
> even more complex, and now it is very complex already . Certainly, things
> like checkpoints can be added at MDT level - consider an inode on MDT
> pointing to another MDT inode, instead of the OST objects - that would be a
> clone. If the file is modified, then, the MDT inode becomes pointing to an
> OST object which keeps changed file blocks only. This will be sort of the
> checkpoint allowing to revert the file back. Well, this is is known to help
> restoring the data in case of the human error, or an application bug, it
> won't help to protect from HW induced errors.
>

Again, pointing to other objects is subject to possible software bugs.

I wrote this post because I'm unconvinced with the barrage of by now
endlessly repeated ideas like checkpoints, checksums etc, and the falsehood
of the claim that advanced file systems address these issues - they only
address some, and leave critical vulnerability.

Nicolas post is more along the lines that I think will lead to a solution.

Peter




> But, the parallel fsck issue is sort of standing alone - if we want fsck to
> be faster, we better make it parallel at every OST level - that's why I
> think this has to be done on the backend side.
>
> Dmitry
>
>
>
> Peter Braam wrote:
>
> Dmitry,
>
>  The point of the note is the opposite of what you write, namely that
> backend systems in fact do not solve this, unless they are guaranteed to be
> bug free.
>
>  Peter
>
> On Fri, Jul 2, 2010 at 2:52 PM, Dmitry Zogin <dmitry.zoguine at oracle.com>wrote:
>
>> Hello Peter,
>>
>> These are really good questions posted there, but I don't think they are
>> Lustre specific. These issues are sort of common to any file systems. Some
>> of the mature file systems, like Veritas already solved this by
>>
>> 1. Integrating the Volume management and File system. The file system can
>> be spread across many volumes.
>> 2. Dividing the file system into a group of file sets(like data, metadata,
>> checkpoints) , and allowing the policies to keep different filesets on
>> different volumes.
>> 3. Creating the checkpoints (they are sort of like volume snapshots, but
>> they are created inside the file system itself). The checkpoints are simply
>> the copy-on-write filesets created instantly inside the fs itself. Using
>> copy-on-write techniques allows to save the physical space and make the
>> process of the file sets creation instantaneous. They do allow to revert
>> back to a certain point instantaneously, as the modified blocks are kept
>> aside, and the only thing that has to be done is to point back to the old
>> blocks of information.
>> 4. Parallel fsck - if the filesystem consists of the allocation units - a
>> sort of the sub- file systems, or cylinder groups,  then the fsck can be
>> started in parallel on those units.
>>
>> Well, the ZFS does solve many of these issues, but in a different way,
>> too.
>> So, my point is that this probably has to be solved on the backend side of
>> the Lustre, rather than inside the Lustre.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Dmitry
>>
>> Peter Braam wrote:
>>
>>  I wrote a blog post that pertains to Lustre scalability and data
>> integrity.  You can find it here:
>>
>>  http://braamstorage.blogspot.com
>>
>>  Regards,
>>
>>  Peter
>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
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>>
>>
>>
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