We’ve been working on an application that will repair corrupted Xsan volumes. If you have a volume you wouldn’t mind potentially shredding and would like to test the app for us then please let me know.
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Xsan: Stripe Group Down Errors
If you are getting Stripe Group Down errors in your Xsan logs then this usually means there is a problem with your workstation accessing LUNs in the environment. This can be an issue with a given workstation having problems seeing the SAN fabric or it can be a problem with any other system seeing the fabric. You will notice the system having the error indicated in the logs. Check Apple System Profiler (keep in mind Apple System Profiler sometimes requires a reboot to refresh the LUNs it has access to via Fibre Channel) to see if the indicated LUNs are present. If all LUNs give an error (one per line)…
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Xsan: Create a Volume
Once you have created your SAN you will want to build a volume. The volume is what is logically shown to end users running as Xsan clients and by default will automatically mount for them when they log into their computer. Creating the volume is a straight forward matter. To begin, open Xsan Admin and you will see a screen similar to the one below. Xsan Admin Click on Volumes in your SAN Assets side bar and you will see a blank listing of Volumes. Here, click on the + sign in the bottom right hand side of the screen. This will begin the volume creation wizard at the SAN…
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Xsan: Adding Client Computers
Now that you have created your volume you will want to move on to adding computers that can access your volume. This is one place where Xsan 2 is very different than Xsan 1.x. To add a computer that has access to your volume, click on Computers in your SAN Assets list. From here, click on the + sign in the lower right hand corner of your screen. This will invoke a list of computers that have the Xsan software installed (as can be seen below). You can add clients of 1.4.2 or 2.x to your SAN. You can also add clients running 10.5.0 through 10.5.2; however, you will receive…
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Xsan: Installation
Install Xsan software and Reboot. This will install a bin, config, debug, examples, man and ras folder into your /Library/FileSystems/Xsan folder. The bin folder will contain the Xsan command line binary files that allow you to do all of what you can do within Xsan Admin (and more). The config folder will begin with only a uuid file. Once you setup the SAN it will fill in with more information. Next you will want to place the Xsan Admin application in your dock and open it for the first time. Once open, you will be faced with the Introduction screen. Xsan 2.0 Introduction Screen Here you will click Continue. In…
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Free Quantum Courseware
http://www.quantum.com/ServiceandSupport/StorageCareLearning/Index.aspx
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Keyspan Serial Adapter
When you’re doing Xsan deployments you often run into situations where a serial adapter comes in handy. It might be the serial port on an Xserve, a Promise Vtrak, an Xserve RAID, a managed switch, a Fibre Channel switch or a UPS but it seems like it’s just a super useful little thing to have. Now, since the MacBook and MacBook pro do not have serial ports that leaves you hanging a little. So, this little guy comes in pretty handy: http://www.keyspan.com/products/usa19hs/
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Brocade buying Foundry
$3 Billion dollars is a lot of money, but I can’t think of a company more worth it. Foundry makes amazing Ethernet switches. Brocade makes good Fibre Channel switches and SAN products. Foundry routers are not a shabby lot either. It will be interesting to see whether Brocade uses this to go head to head against Cisco. Juniper has been trying to go head-to-head with Cisco for awhile. Now, with a new Brocade + Foundry and Juniper, Cisco will need to stay sharp or see serious parts of its business get eroded away.
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The Final Cut Server Command Line
Final Cut Server has a fairly robust, albeit fairly unsupported command line. The following is a list of some useful commands, along with their paths and functions: The following are in /Library/Application Support/Final Cut Server/Final Cut Server.bundle/Contents/Resources/sbin: fcsvr_run allows you to interact with the database, amongst other things. To interact with the database use psql as the first positional parameter and then pxdb as the second, to identify which database you will interact with. You can then run a select statement in quotations to do a variety of tasks, such as tallying up the number of assets in a database, etc. Once you have certain information you can then use grep…
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Promise RAID: Enable LUN Masking
Using the Promise RAID it is possible to split up an Array into multiple LUNs, which would then be presented to the OS and able to be formatted at will. These do not have to correspond to a Physical segmentation as was the case with the Apple Xserve RAID but instead can be as small or as large as the actual disk array allows. Once split up you can run the LUNs through a fibre channel switch and mount them at will on various servers (although unless the file system supports clustering on only one at a time). If you are using HFS+ for the file system you will then…