[Gluster-devel] Is it possible to turn an existing filesystem (with data) into a GlusterFS brick ?

[Pranith Kumar Karampuri]

On Fri, Nov 11, 2016 at 6:24 PM, Saravanakumar Arumugam <sarumuga at redhat.com
> wrote:

>
>
> On 11/11/2016 06:03 PM, Sander Eikelenboom wrote:
>
>> L.S.,
>>
>> I was wondering if it would be possible to turn an existing filesystem
>> with data
>> (ext4 with files en dirs) into a GlusterFS brick ?
>>
> It is not possible, at least I am not aware about any such solution yet.
>
>>
>> I can't find much info about it except the following remark at [1] which
>> seems
>> to indicate it is not possible yet:
>>
>>         Data import tool
>>
>>         Create a tool which will allow importing already existing data in
>> the brick
>>         directories into the gluster volume.
>>         This is most likely going to be a special rebalance process.
>>
>> So that would mean i would always have to:
>> - first create an GlusterFS brick on an empty filesystem
>> - after that copy all the data into the mounted GlusterFS brick
>> - never ever copy something into the filesystem (or manipulate it
>> otherwise)
>>   used as a GlusterFS brick directly (without going through a GlusterFS
>> client mount)
>>
>> because there is no checking / healing between GlusterFS's view on the
>> data and the data in the
>> underlying brick filesystem ?
>>
>> Is this a correct view ?
>>
>> you are right !
> Once the data is copied into Gluster, it internally creates meta-data
> about data(file/dir).
> Unless you copy it via Gluster mount point, it is NOT possible to create
> such meta-data.
>

No, it is possible. You just need to be a bit creative.

Could you let me know how many such bricks you have which you want to
convert to glusterfs. It seems like you want replication as well. So if you
give me all this information. With your help may be we can at least come up
with a document on how this can be done.


>
> Thanks,
> Saravana
>
>
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>



-- 
Pranith
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