[Gluster-users] couple separate issues: automounting and OpenOffice

[Benjamin Karhan]

i only just subscribed to the lists, so if either topic has been
   discussed to death i'd be happy to be referred to a thread...
   but... that aside here goes:

i've been using (playing with at home, and testing as a possible
   replacement for a large amount of core storage at work) GlusterFS
   for about a year now... IMHO, it is rapidly approaching the
   "perfect" solution for a variety of enterprise applications...
   as even my remote "wishlist" features have been discussed or are
   already part of the future development path...

i've run into two problems... both relatively minor in scope...
   but both would provide continuous irritation to a user base
   forced to deal with them 24/7...

Problem #1: initial "timeout"/lag-time with auto-mounting...
   i have added GlusterFS mounts into my AutoFS configuration...
   (directly modelling after the example on the GlusterFS site)
   and the result is completely successful, with one single
   continual irritation... whenever a remote mount is initially
   requested... instead of actually finishing the request before
   returning, it seems there is a "long" latency (but probably less
   than a second) period before the remote filesystem is actually
   available... and an immediate request for access to a file/dir
   (i.e. ls(1), or opening a file on an unmounted filesystem directly)
   will result in (for example):

 	ls: <mountpoint>: Transport endpoint is not connected

   subsequent requests, however, succeed just fine... and the filesystem
   remains stable and accessible, until AutoFS unmounts it again
   due to inactivity...
   i'm seeking any suggestions to experiment with regarding
   tuning/minimizing this latency... i've tried endless combinations
   of varying the options to AutoFS, mount, and glusterfs itself,
   but nothing has really seemed to improve the situation...

Problem #2: this one is strange... i have noticed that OpenOffice
   (versions 2.0.4 and 2.3.0, at least, on CentOS 4 and 5 respectively)
   fail to open files on GlusterFS mounts... instead returning the
   following error:

   	General input/output error while accessing <filename>

   the reason this is strange... is that other versions of OpenOffice
   (like 1.1.5 on CentOS 4, and 2.2.1 on SlackWare) don't suffer
   from this problem at all..
   this problem is generally less serious than the first, primarily
   due to it's limitted scope, but it does reveal that there is
   something fundamentally different with access to the file via
   GlusterFS, which can cause access failures...
   i can't blame FUSE, mount, AutoFS, etc... because i've tested
   endless other combinations (SSHFS and NTFS over FUSE, for example)
   and not run into this same error...
   as above i'm just hoping for some ideas as to what might be going on,
   and, best case, some suggestions or guidance about overcoming the problem,
   if possible...

anyways... those are my "bug reports"...
   hopefully, if it's just a matter of "you need to do this" or
   "your configuration needs this"... that'd be the happiest circumstance...
BTW: i am currently running GlusterFS v1.4.0rc7... on systems that
   have ALL been loaded with "GlusterFS" patched FUSE...
   the OSes i've been primarily testing with are: CentOS 4 (4.7),
   CentOS 5 (5.2), SlackWare (all versions), and Aurora Linux (Corona
   release - based on Fedora Core 6)...

last but not least... i'd like to give my appreciation to everyone
   involved with the GlusterFS project... it is, by far, the most
   enjoyable (both conceptually and functionally) high performance
   filesystem solution i've worked with to date, and i'm hoping
   to move from "testing" to "working with" it...

B. Karhan
simon at pop.psu.edu
PRI/SSRI Unix Administrator