Some time ago, I did a little article for Xsanity on using Xsan with removable media. The other day, while helping a friend prepare to give a talk on Xsan I learned a nice little tidbit. It’s just a little addendum to that that brings a smile to my face and makes me a little thankful: If you tell Xsan Admin to flash the LUN so that you can identify which LUN you are labeling the USB drive lights up. Sometimes it’s the little things, man…
-
-
xsanctl
The xsanctl command allows you to manage basic events on an Xsan. The following options are available to xsanctl: disksChanged – Causes the FSS to scan the available LUNs mount – Mounts a volume ping – Verifies FSS (File System Server) responsiveness sanConfigChanged – Causes the FSS to reload the volume configuration file unmount – Unmounts a volume These options are used following the xsanctl command and are then followed with any options they themselves may have. For example, if you want to mount a volume you would run the xsanctl command followed by the mount option/verb and then the name of a volume, like so (assuming volume name of…
-
Scripting Compellent
As with EMC, Compellent allows you to manage servers, volumes, server folders, volume folders, views, and of course mappings programatically. This provides the automation minded engineer with a full-on suite for managing their Compellent-based SAN. All of this is made possible using CompCU.jar. I keep a scripts folder and keep the jar file there, which can initially be downloaded from the Compellent site. Unlike a traditional shell script the scripts are to be placed into a text file and replayed against the SAN. If you are using VMware or Xen then you can combine the automation in Compellent along with the automation available with the command line interface for those…
-
Metadata Video @ 318
Metadata cartoon over on 318: http://www.318.com/techjournal/xsan/318-on-metadata
-
Enabling Spotlight for Xsan
Spotlight has had a pretty checkered past with Xsan. But things are looking a little better and if you want to try enabling it again, once you’ve fully updated to 2.2 you can do so without too much fanfare. Simply locate the config file for the name of the volume you wish to enable spotlight for, which is in /Library/FileSystems/Xsan/config and is named with the name of the volume followed by a .cfg file extension. Once located, open the file in your favorite text editor (ie – pico, vi, etc). Then, locate the entry for EnableSpotlight, which should be set to No. Change the No to a Yes. You can…
-
dotclean and Extended Attributes on Xsan
If you’ve been upgrading Xsan from version to version without doing a nuke + pave of your volume then you might still not be using extended attributes. Instead you might still be using ._ files, or AppleDouble files. Apple has a script included with Xsan, dotclean, which will go ahead and perform the conversion, although it does take awhile to run according to how many files you have. In order to kick it off, first unmount the volume for all except the controller that will do the conversion. Next, simply open Xsan Admin, click on Volumes and then the volume you wish to enable it for. From here, click on the…
-
Hey Spotlight, Skip This Folder…
Whether it’s an Xsan with a wacky mdworker thread, a regular old box trying to scan a whole bunch of files you want it to skip or even a directory that you want to keep private, you can tell Spotlight not to scan a specified folder on your system. Simply use the following command, with the working directory of the shell as whatever directory you want skipped: touch .metadata_never_index In other words, create a file called .metadata_never_index in a folder and Spotlight will skip it. This isn’t to say it skips subfolders…
-
Comic on Backing up Final Cut Server
-
6TB of Hot Swappable Drives for $600
IcyDock makes a 4 port chassis for SATA drives that allows you to build your own RAID out of large and inexpensive drives. The resultant JBOD can then be formatted into RAID0 or RAID1 (software RAID) and presented to backup applications (ie – Retrospect) as offline storage. Amazon sells an IcyDock, populated with 1.5TB drives for a total of 6TB, which is how I’m now snapshotting my VMs in my lab. I’m also using it as the backup destination for my home Kerio server. Works nicely so far. You can also buy the IcyDock with no drives and likely populate them with 2TB drives, although I haven’t tested this yet…
-
Video on Creating Productions in Final Cut Server