[Gluster-users] back to problems: gluster 3.5.4, qemu and debian 8

Michael Mol mikemol at gmail.com
Sun Jul 19 04:34:31 UTC 2015


That's because they're playing out of Gluster's own playbook:
http://www.gluster.org/community/documentation/index.php/Virt-store-usecase

The point is that your data corruption issues are vastly more likely to
have come from having write-behind enabled than having read-ahead enabled.
Having write-behind enabled is like juggling your data with with a partner.
Having write-behind disabled is like you and your partner handing data to
each other, rather than tossing it. Having read-ahead disabled is like
asking your partner for a page of data, and having him give you that page
of data. Having read-ahead enabled is like asking your partner for a page
of data, and having him give you a fifty page report, because he thinks you
may need the extra information--except you already made allowances yourself
in asking for that full page of data; the only data you *knew* you needed
was a single table in that page.)

As another example of why you wouldn't normally need read-ahead enabled in
gluster, I could easily write a small books' worth of theory into an email
detailing the concept further, but I've already given sufficient
information to illustrate the relevant concepts; anything further would be
unnecessary detail I'm only guessing you might need. ;)

The read-ahead setting is about performance, not about data integrity.
Virtual machines will be running an operating system. That operating system
will be running block-device drivers and filesystem drivers. Both of those
types of drivers have their own tunable concepts of read-ahead, so any
further read-ahead at the gluster layer is unnecessary.

(I'm not suggesting you enable read-ahead in prod; it's pointless. I'm just
trying to point out that read-ahead shouldn't *break* anything for you. At
the same time, if you enable it, making no other changes, and it *does*
break things, that's something people would want to know about.)


On Sat, Jul 18, 2015 at 2:42 PM Roman <romeo.r at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi!
> Thanks for reply.
>
>
> https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Storage/2.0/html/Quick_Start_Guide/chap-Quick_Start_Guide-Virtual_Preparation.html
> reading this, RH recommends to keep read-ahead off for gluster volumes
> used for VM-s.
>
> 2015-07-18 18:56 GMT+03:00 Michael Mol <mikemol at gmail.com>:
>
>> I think you'll find it's the write-behind that was killing you.
>> Write-behind opens you up to a number of data consistency issues, and I
>> strongly disrecommend it unless you have a rock-solid infrastructure from
>> the writer all the way to the disk the data ultimately sits on.
>>
>> I bet that if you re-enabled read-ahead, you won't see the problem. Just
>> leave write-behind off.
>>
>> On Sat, Jul 18, 2015, 10:44 AM Roman <romeo.r at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> solved after I've added (thanks to Niels de Vos) these options to the
>> volumes:
>>
>> performance.read-ahead: off
>>
>> performance.write-behind: off
>>
>>
>> 2015-07-15 17:23 GMT+03:00 Roman <romeo.r at gmail.com>:
>>
>> hey,
>>
>> I've updated the bug, if some1 has some ideas - share plz.
>>
>> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1242913
>>
>>
>> 2015-07-14 19:14 GMT+03:00 Kaushal M <kshlmster at gmail.com>:
>>
>>  Just a wild guess. What is the filesystem used for the debian 8
>> installation? It could be the culprit.
>>
>> On Tue, Jul 14, 2015 at 7:27 PM, Roman <romeo.r at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > I've done this way: installed debian8 on local disks using netinstall
>> iso,
>> > created a template of it and then cloned (full clone) it to glusterfs
>> > storage backend. VM boots and runs fine... untill I start to install
>> > something massive (DE ie). Last time it was mate failed to install due
>> to
>> > python-gtk2 package problems (complaing that it could not compile it)
>> >
>>
>> > 2015-07-14 16:37 GMT+03:00 Scott Harvanek <scott.harvanek at login.com>:
>> >>
>> >> What happens if you install from a full CD and not a net-install?
>> >>
>> >> Limit the variables.  Currently you are relying on remote mirrors and
>> >> Internet connectivity.
>> >>
>> >> It's either a Proxmox or Debian issue, I really don't think it's
>> Gluster.
>> >> We have hundreds of Jessie installs running on GlusterFS backends.
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Scott H.
>> >> Login, LLC.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Roman
>> >> July 14, 2015 at 9:30 AM
>> >> Hey,
>> >>
>> >> thanks for reply.
>> >> If it would be networking related, it would affect everything. But it
>> is
>> >> only debian 8 which won't install.
>> >> And yes, i did iperf test between gluster and proxmox nodes. Its ok.
>> >> Installation fails on every node, where i try to install d8. Sometimes
>> it
>> >> goes well (today 1 of 6 tries was fine). Other distros install fine.
>> >> Sometimes installation process finishes, but VM won't start, just hangs
>> >> with errors like in this attached.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Best regards,
>> >> Roman.
>> >> Scott Harvanek
>> >> July 14, 2015 at 9:17 AM
>> >> We don't have this issue, I'll take a stab tho-
>> >>
>> >> Have you confirmed everything is good on the network side of things?
>> >> MTU/Loss/Errors?
>> >>
>> >> Is your inconsistency linked to one specific brick? Have you tried
>> running
>> >> a replica instead of distributed?
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >> Gluster-users mailing list
>>
>> >> Gluster-users at gluster.org
>> >> http://www.gluster.org/mailman/listinfo/gluster-users
>> >> Roman
>> >> July 14, 2015 at 6:38 AM
>> >> here is one of the errors example. its like files that debian installer
>> >> copies to the virtual disk that is located on glusterfs storage are
>> getting
>> >> corrupted.
>> >> in-target is /dev/vda1
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Best regards,
>> >> Roman.
>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >> Gluster-users mailing list
>> >> Gluster-users at gluster.org
>> >> http://www.gluster.org/mailman/listinfo/gluster-users
>> >> Roman
>> >> July 14, 2015 at 4:50 AM
>> >> Ubuntu 14.04 LTS base install and then mate install were fine!
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Best regards,
>> >> Roman.
>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >> Gluster-users mailing list
>> >> Gluster-users at gluster.org
>> >> http://www.gluster.org/mailman/listinfo/gluster-users
>> >> Roman
>> >> July 13, 2015 at 7:35 PM
>> >> Bah... the randomness of this issue is killing me.
>> >> Not only HA volumes are affected. Got an error during installation of
>> d8
>> >> with mate (on python-gtk2 pkg) on Distributed volume also.
>> >> I've checked the MD5SUM of installation iso, its ok.
>> >>
>> >> Shortly after that on the same VE node I installed D7 with Gnome
>> without
>> >> any problem on the HA glusterf volume.
>> >>
>> >> And on the same VE node I've installed D8 with both Mate and Gnome
>> using
>> >> local storage disks without problems. There is a bug somewhere in
>> gluster or
>> >> qemu... Proxmox uses RH kernel btw:
>> >>
>> >> Linux services 2.6.32-37-pve
>> >> QEMU emulator version 2.2.1
>> >> glusterfs 3.6.4
>> >>
>> >> any ideas?
>> >> I'm ready to help to investigate this bug.
>> >> When sun will shine, I'll try to install latest Ubuntu also. But now
>> I'm
>> >> going to sleep.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Best regards,
>> >> Roman.
>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >> Gluster-users mailing list
>> >> Gluster-users at gluster.org
>> >> http://www.gluster.org/mailman/listinfo/gluster-users
>> >>
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > Best regards,
>> > Roman.
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > Gluster-users mailing list
>> > Gluster-users at gluster.org
>> > http://www.gluster.org/mailman/listinfo/gluster-users
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Roman.
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Roman.
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Gluster-users mailing list
>> Gluster-users at gluster.org
>> http://www.gluster.org/mailman/listinfo/gluster-users
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Best regards,
> Roman.
>
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