[Gluster-users] Would difference in size (and content) of a file on replicated bricks be healed?

[Whit Blauvelt]

Not sure if you're asking your questions precisely enough. The clues may be
in your inclusions, but I'm not going to read all that to figure it out so
I'll ask directly:

> Short description of my test
> ----------------------------
> * 4 replicas on single machine
> * glusterfs mounted locally
> * Create file on glusterfs-mounted directory: date >data.txt

Did you write it through a gluster (or nfs) mount of the gluster file
system, or sneak around behind it with a direct local mount of the
partition? 

> * Append to file on one of the bricks: hostname >>data.txt

Again, through a gluster/nfs mount, or a local mount?

> * Trigger a self-heal with: stat data.txt

Again, stat'ing it on a gluster/nfs mount, or a local mount?

> => Modified file on the brick is still different from the three
> other bricks.

Again ... well you know.

> Q1: Is the modified file supposed to get corrected in my case?
> 
> Q2: Is my test-case invalid for what gluster is supposed to handle?

If you're writing to files through mounts which gluster isn't handling,
you'll get inconsistent stuff. Eventually gluster should catch up. But by
design you should do everything through gluster. (An exception may be if you
want a faster local file read ... anything that writes or touches the file
should be through gluster in any case.)

Best,
Whit