1gfs2(5) File Formats Manual gfs2(5)
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6 gfs2 - GFS2 reference guide
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10 Overview of the GFS2 filesystem
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14 GFS2 is a clustered filesystem, designed for sharing data between mul‐
15 tiple nodes connected to a common shared storage device. It can also be
16 used as a local filesystem on a single node, however since the design
17 is aimed at clusters, that will usually result in lower performance
18 than using a filesystem designed specifically for single node use.
19 GFS2 is a journaling filesystem and one journal is required for each
21 node that will mount the filesystem. The one exception to that is spec‐
22 tator mounts which are equivalent to mounting a read-only block device
23 and as such can neither recover a journal or write to the filesystem,
24 so do not require a journal assigned to them.
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28 lockproto=LockProtoName
29 This specifies which inter-node lock protocol is used by the
30 GFS2 filesystem for this mount, overriding the default lock pro‐
31 tocol name stored in the filesystem's on-disk superblock.
32 The LockProtoName must be one of the supported locking proto‐
34 cols, currently these are lock_nolock and lock_dlm.
35 The default lock protocol name is written to disk initially when
37 creating the filesystem with mkfs.gfs2(8), -p option. It can be
38 changed on-disk by using the gfs2_tool(8) utility's sb proto
39 command.
40 The lockproto mount option should be used only under special
42 circumstances in which you want to temporarily use a different
43 lock protocol without changing the on-disk default. Using the
44 incorrect lock protocol on a cluster filesystem mounted from
45 more than one node will almost certainly result in filesystem
46 corruption.
47 locktable=LockTableName
49 This specifies the identity of the cluster and of the filesystem
50 for this mount, overriding the default cluster/filesystem iden‐
51 tify stored in the filesystem's on-disk superblock. The clus‐
52 ter/filesystem name is recognized globally throughout the clus‐
53 ter, and establishes a unique namespace for the inter-node lock‐
54 ing system, enabling the mounting of multiple GFS2 filesystems.
55 The format of LockTableName is lock-module-specific. For
57 lock_dlm, the format is clustername:fsname. For lock_nolock,
58 the field is ignored.
59 The default cluster/filesystem name is written to disk initially
61 when creating the filesystem with mkfs.gfs2(8), -t option. It
62 can be changed on-disk by using the gfs2_tool(8) utility's sb
63 table command.
64 The locktable mount option should be used only under special
66 circumstances in which you want to mount the filesystem in a
67 different cluster, or mount it as a different filesystem name,
68 without changing the on-disk default.
69 localflocks
71 This flag tells GFS2 that it is running as a local (not clus‐
72 tered) filesystem, so it can allow the kernel VFS layer to do
73 all flock and fcntl file locking. When running in cluster mode,
74 these file locks require inter-node locks, and require the sup‐
75 port of GFS2. When running locally, better performance is
76 achieved by letting VFS handle the whole job.
77 This is turned on automatically by the lock_nolock module.
79 errors=[panic|withdraw]
81 Setting errors=panic causes GFS2 to oops when encountering an
82 error that would otherwise cause the mount to withdraw or print
83 an assertion warning. The default setting is errors=withdraw.
84 This option should not be used in a production system. It
85 replaces the earlier debug option on kernel versions 2.6.31 and
86 above.
87 acl Enables POSIX Access Control List acl(5) support within GFS2.
89 spectator
91 Mount this filesystem using a special form of read-only mount.
92 The mount does not use one of the filesystem's journals. The
93 node is unable to recover journals for other nodes.
94 norecovery
96 A synonym for spectator
97 suiddir
99 Sets owner of any newly created file or directory to be that of
100 parent directory, if parent directory has S_ISUID permission
101 attribute bit set. Sets S_ISUID in any new directory, if its
102 parent directory's S_ISUID is set. Strips all execution bits on
103 a new file, if parent directory owner is different from owner of
104 process creating the file. Set this option only if you know why
105 you are setting it.
106 quota=[off/account/on]
108 Turns quotas on or off for a filesystem. Setting the quotas to
109 be in the "account" state causes the per UID/GID usage statis‐
110 tics to be correctly maintained by the filesystem, limit and
111 warn values are ignored. The default value is "off".
112 discard
114 Causes GFS2 to generate "discard" I/O requests for blocks which
115 have been freed. These can be used by suitable hardware to
116 implement thin-provisioning and similar schemes. This feature is
117 supported in kernel version 2.6.30 and above.
118 barrier
120 This option, which defaults to on, causes GFS2 to send I/O bar‐
121 riers when flushing the journal. The option is automatically
122 turned off if the underlying device does not support I/O barri‐
123 ers. We highly recommend the use of I/O barriers with GFS2 at
124 all times unless the block device is designed so that it cannot
125 lose its write cache content (e.g. its on a UPS, or it doesn't
126 have a write cache)
127 commit=secs
129 This is similar to the ext3 commit= option in that it sets the
130 maximum number of seconds between journal commits if there is
131 dirty data in the journal. The default is 60 seconds. This
132 option is only provided in kernel versions 2.6.31 and above.
133 data=[ordered|writeback]
135 When data=ordered is set, the user data modified by a transac‐
136 tion is flushed to the disk before the transaction is committed
137 to disk. This should prevent the user from seeing uninitialized
138 blocks in a file after a crash. Data=writeback mode writes the
139 user data to the disk at any time after it's dirtied. This
140 doesn't provide the same consistency guarantee as ordered mode,
141 but it should be slightly faster for some workloads. The
142 default is ordered mode.
143 meta This option results in selecting the meta filesystem root rather
145 than the normal filesystem root. This option is normally only
146 used by the GFS2 utility functions. Altering any file on the
147 GFS2 meta filesystem may render the filesystem unusable, so only
148 experts in the GFS2 on-disk layout should use this option.
149 quota_quantum=secs
151 This sets the number of seconds for which a change in the quota
152 information may sit on one node before being written to the
153 quota file. This is the preferred way to set this parameter. The
154 value is an integer number of seconds greater than zero. The
155 default is 60 seconds. Shorter settings result in faster updates
156 of the lazy quota information and less likelihood of someone
157 exceeding their quota. Longer settings make filesystem opera‐
158 tions involving quotas faster and more efficient.
159 statfs_quantum=secs
161 Setting statfs_quantum to 0 is the preferred way to set the slow
162 version of statfs. The default value is 30 secs which sets the
163 maximum time period before statfs changes will be syned to the
164 master statfs file. This can be adjusted to allow for faster,
165 less accurate statfs values or slower more accurate values. When
166 set to 0, statfs will always report the true values.
167 statfs_percent=value
169 This setting provides a bound on the maximum percentage change
170 in the statfs information on a local basis before it is synced
171 back to the master statfs file, even if the time period has not
172 expired. If the setting of statfs_quantum is 0, then this set‐
173 ting is ignored.
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177 GFS2 doesn't support errors=remount-ro or data=journal. It is not pos‐
178 sible to switch support for user and group quotas on and off indepen‐
179 dently of each other. Some of the error messages are rather cryptic, if
180 you encounter one of these messages check firstly that gfs_controld is
181 running and secondly that you have enough journals on the filesystem
182 for the number of nodes in use.
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186 mount(8) for general mount options, chmod(1) and chmod(2) for access
187 permission flags, acl(5) for access control lists, lvm(8) for volume
188 management, ccs(7) for cluster management, umount(8), initrd(4).
189 The GFS2 documentation has been split into a number of sections:
191 gfs2_edit(8) A GFS2 debug tool (use with caution) fsck.gfs2(8) The GFS2
193 file system checker gfs2_grow(8) Growing a GFS2 file system
194 gfs2_jadd(8) Adding a journal to a GFS2 file system mkfs.gfs2(8) Make a
195 GFS2 file system gfs2_quota(8) Manipulate GFS2 disk quotas gfs2_tool(8)
196 Tool to manipulate a GFS2 file system (obsolete) tunegfs2(8) Tool to
197 manipulate GFS2 superblocks
198 gfs2(5)