[Gluster-users] Strange behaviour in AFR - directory read only from first brick?

[Arnulf Heimsbakk]

Hi,

I find GlusterFS as a refreshing alternative to traditional cluster
file systems. I have currently experimented with unify and AFR. When
experimenting with AFR with two bricks I found a strange behaviour. It
seems that the directory is only read from the first brick.

I created two bricks and run client side AFR. In the client config the
bricks is represented as follows:

subvolumes brick1 brick2

Then I simulated a crash with loss of files.

1. AFR is up
2. touch file f1
3. brick1 crashes
4. ls on mount point, f1 exists and everything is normal (ls read from brick2)
5. file system repair removes f1 from brick1
6. gclusterfsd start on brick1
7. ls on mount point does not show f1 anymore (ls read only from brick1?)
8. cat f1 on mount point replicates file and it becomes visible

I have replicated this error a numerous times. Every time i have
removed user_xattr from the exported directories.

GlusterFS version 1.3.8
XFS backend filesystem
Debian Etch i686

Is there a fix for this behaviour or is there a configuration solution
which eliminates this problem?
Or is this problem considered to be a split brain case?
Does this affect AFRd namespaces (i did not test that)?

Arnulf Heimsbakk
Sysadmin @ Norwegian Meteorological Institute
-- 
"When all else fails, read the instructions." ~ L. Iasellio