The avconvert command is a new addition in OS X Lion that allows administrators to quickly and easily convert video from one format to another using presets for video conversion. The presets are mostly common Apple formats tuned to specific devices. In its simplest form, avconvert uses a preset, a source and then an output to convert the source to the output using the preset to define the format to use for conversion. A useful preset is the 640×480 one. To convert this using this idea: /usr/bin/avconvert --preset Preset640x480 --source /Convert/test.mov --output Converted/test.mov While some of the presets are pretty self explanatory, I haven’t gone through them all to see…
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Rorke Aurora Galaxy and Xsan
With Apple bundling Xsan into Lion and opening up more storage options than before, it seems like time to start exploring alternatives to Promise Vtrak’s for Xsan storage. ActiveStorage makes a very nice RAID chassis and should be shipping metadata controller appliances soon. I’ve discussed both here before and they make for very nice kit. But in order to have an ‘ecosystem’ you really need a little biodiversity. And the Xsan environment needs to become more of an ecosystem and less of a vendor lock-in situation. So another option that I’d like to discuss is the Rork Aurora Galaxy. These little firecrackers have a lot of potential upside: 4 8Gbps…
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Installing Windows Clients for Xsan & StorNext
There are a lot of environments that attach Windows client computers to an Xsan or StorNext filesystem. In the past I’ve looked at using different versions of StorNext to communicate with Xsan, but in this article we’re actually going to take a look at Quantum’s StorNext FX2 client software. Before getting started, you’ll want to have the StorNext media, have the serial number added to the metadata controllers, have the HBA (fibre channel card) installed, have the fibre patched into the HBA, have the IP addresses for the metadata controllers documented and have a copy of the .auth_secret file obtainable from the metadata controllers once they’ve been properly licensed. To…
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ActiveSAN
For those concerned about the disappearance of the highly rack dense systems that are fibre channel enabled from Apple’s portfolio, now there is ActiveSAN:
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The Qlogic Command Line
For many environments, a Qlogic switch can be as simple as plugging it into the wall to get working. The web interface is a great tool and appropriate for many a configuration, but the interactive shell environment on the switches gives a few more options. Let’s first get logged into the switch. The switch will have an IP address, so telnet into that address (I’ll use the my IP rather than the default IP of 10.0.0.1 that the switches ship with): telnet 192.168.210.87 Once you provide a password you’ll be placed into an Interactive Command Line Interface SHell environment, which Qlogic calls CLISH. Establishing connection… Please wait. ***************************************************** *…
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Adding Xsan Clients to StorNext Environments
There are a lot of people who keep saying that StorNext is the same thing as Xsan. StorNext is similar to Xsan, but not identical. Apple makes their own changes to the StorNext code before recompiling and shipping. One need only look at the output of a cvlabel command on each to see this very quickly. The similarities mean that you can mix and match Xsan clients to StorNext controllers and match up StorNext controllers to Xsan clients (although you can’t match StorNext controllers to Xsan controllers). The differences mean that you might have a tiny amount of work on your hands to get the mix and matched controllers/clients to…
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Troubleshooting StorNext Mounts in Linux
StorNext and Xsan go pretty well together. I wrote up an article going on two years ago for Xsanity on setting up RedHat clients for Xsan environments at http://www.xsanity.com/article.php?story=2009011213072797&query=stornext. But I didn’t go into much detail on troubleshooting. There isn’t a ton, beyond the traditional steps you take in Mac OS X, when troubleshooting Xsan clients as there isn’t a lot that can go wrong. But, let’s look at how I normally proceed when I only have one volume that will not mount. The first step is to stop and then start up cvfs. To stop cvfs, run the following command: /etc/init.d/cvfs stop To then start it back up: /etc/init.d/cvfs…
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The Xserve Has Been Discontinued
The Xserve has officially been discontinued by Apple and will no longer be sold after January, 2011. Mac OS X Server will still be available on Mac Mini and Mac Pro (which will be the only option for Metadata Controllers on Mac OS X). Apple has produced a transition guide, available here. I do like the Mac Mini server, I just can’t seem to fit a fibre channel card into them. Before the Xserve, we used to buy Marathon rack mount kits for G3 and G4 systems. I would anticipate that a new business will spring up that takes the place of the Xserve, putting Apple logic boards and CPUs…
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Replacing Xsan Metadata LUNs
Recently I’ve been noticing a trend where organizations with Xsan (and sometimes StorNext) are replacing older metadata LUNs with newer faster LUNs. This often involves replacing an Xserve RAID that sometimes has tens of thousands of hours of spin time on them with a Promise E-class or an ActiveRAID. The trend isn’t just with people I interact with though, as Duncan McCracken mentioned this at MacSysAdmin 2010 and Kuppusamy Ravindran (aka ravi) mentioned it back in 2008 in a post at Xsanity (he actually went way further and looked at actually splitting Metadata and Journaling, a post that is definitely worth a read). But as the pace seems to quicken…
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Removing A LUN Label in Xsan
In Xsan Admin you can easily label LUNs that are available on your Fibre Channel fabric. Using the cvlabel command, you can also easily label a LUN that isn’t on a Fibre Channel fabric. Labeling a LUN writes data to the LUN, thus allowing Xsan to somewhat mark its territory (insert vivid imagery of an Xsan shaped like a dog taking a whiz on a poor thumb drive). If you then look at that LUN from a Mac OS X system without Xsan installed, the computer will have greyed out options in Disk Utility and will not be able to treat the LUN as a “disk.” You also can’t use…