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authorgreg@kroah.com <greg@kroah.com>2004-03-31 18:17:38 -0800
committerGreg KH <gregkh@suse.de>2005-04-26 21:35:13 -0700
commit52a8572366c15cc2676e3fad433f366ba3bc279c (patch)
treee2ff53569160a011402d6257168396078ad627e5 /docs/persistent_naming/Testing_scsi_notes.txt
parent4012ff38d8b2d9ed145d6867102251f87bdc9a1b (diff)
[PATCH] clean up the OSDL document formatting a bit
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-Using UDEV to do Persistent storage device naming
-for large numbers of storage devices
-3/16/2004
-
-Here are some lessons we learned at OSDL recently on how to use
-UDEV (version 021) to do persistent device naming for lots of storage
-devices. We used what was available in udev for scsi devices. Here is
-an outline of this report:
-
-Background information - a list of resources we needed to get
-started.
-Setup - what we needed to create the right enviroment (kernel,
-patches, drivers)
-How udev works to assign persistent storage device names -
-what the documentation didn't tell us.
-Performance - A sanity test we ran to compare with and without
-persistent naming.
-
-
-BACKGROUND INFORMATION
-To get started, here are some references. Review the overview
-articles so that the rest of the information makes sense.
-
-Download the latest udev stuff from:
-http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/hotplug/
-
-mailing list:
-linux-hotplug-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
-
-Here is a nice overview article to get started (warning, this is from
-summer 2003 so many items indicated as "todo" have been done and
-configuration file name references have sometime changed):
-http://www.kroah.com/linux/talks/ols_2003_udev_paper/Reprint-Kroah-Hartman-OLS2003.pdf
-(also included when you download udev)
-
-More general info (also included in the udev package):
-http://kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/hotplug/udev-FAQ
-UDEV version 021 Announcement:
-http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-hotplug-devel&m=107827264803336&w=2
-
-"Managing Dynamic Naming"
-http://lwn.net/Articles/28897/
-
-If you are a fan of devfs, whatever you do, don't complain until you
-read everything you possibly can about udev. This for example:
-http://kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/hotplug/udev_vs_devfs
-
-You will need to create udev.rules to supply consistent names. (See
-etc/udev/udev.rules in the download). This article gives you some
-background about udev.rules, but avoids describing the "PROGRAM"
-key which is needed for our work. Read it for background:
-writing udev rules (current as of udev 018)
-http://www.reactivated.net/udevrules.php
-
-bitkeeper tree:
-bk://kernel.bkbits.net/gregkh/udev
-
-Libsysfs (used to get sysfs information):
-http://www-124.ibm.com/linux/papers/libsysfs/libsysfs-linuxconfau2004.pdf
-
-UDEV works using the way hotplug events are handled by the kernel.
-Several overview articles about hotplug include:
-Hotplug events
-http://lwn.net/Articles/52621/
-Overview of Hotplug
-http://linux-hotplug.sourceforge.net/
-
-Gentoo centric install info:
-http://webpages.charter.net/decibelshelp/LinuxHelp_UDEVPrimer.html
-
-rpms built against Red Hat FC2-test1 may be available at:
-http://kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/hotplug/udev-021-1.i386.rpm
-
-with the source rpm at:
-http://kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/hotplug/udev-021-1.src.rpm
-
-
-
-SETUP
-
-Here is a brief checklist of what you need on your system for this to
-work:
-
-Kernel must be a 2.6 kernel
-
-Must use CONFIG_HOTPLUG kernel config option, since the solution
-is based on hotplug capabilities.
-
-To test more than 256 scsi devices you need a patch to the scsi driver
-to support that many (available from IBM or SuSE). To see the patch
-we used, see this link:
-http://developer.osdl.org/maryedie/DCL/PSDN/lotsofdisks.patch
-
-Your storage device must support (via the driver) a unique identifier for
-persistent device naming. (Adaptec RAID device does not, for
-example.)
-
-Your device driver must support sysfs (new in 2.6 kernel). This is
-already done for scsi devices and most if not all block devices.
-
-A program (scsi_id) exists in the udev download
-( extras/scsi_id/scsi_id.c) for scsi devices. It can read the identifier and
-is needed for persistent naming.
-
-
-HOW UDEV WORKS TO ASSIGN PERSISTENT NAMES:
-
-There are three places where device information is stored that udev
-uses:
-(1) /sys maintained by sysfs
-(2) /etc/udev/udev.rules - where you can store the identifier to NAME
-mapping information.
-(3) The tdb (udev-021/tdb/tdb.c), trivial data base, that is held in
-memory and holds the valid system configuration. It is not saved
-between one boot to the next. It is constructed at boot time and
-updated with configuration changes.
-
-The persistent names are kept (at least this is one way to do it) in
-udev.rules (uuid and NAME), one entry per device. If you want to
-initially give your 1000 disk devices a default name and then make
-sure those names are preserved, here is how :
-
-Start with no special entry in udev.rules when do you an initial boot of
-your system with disks in place. Udev will assign default names (there
-are ways to control what you want for default too).
-
-Once the names are assigned, use a script supplied for scsi devices -
-udev-021/extras/scsi_id/gen_scsi_id_udev_rules.sh
-to generate the lines needed for udev.rules, one per device. Each line
-indicates the identifier and the NAME it was assigned. You could
-optionally create this manually if you prefer other names .
-
-[example entries in udev.rules for scsi disks]
-BUS="scsi", PROGRAM="scsi_id", RESULT="<uuid1>",NAME="<name1>"
-BUS="scsi", RESULT="<uuid2>",NAME="<name2>"
-...
-BUS="scsi", RESULT="<uuid1000>",NAME="<name1000>"
-
-(The actual file we used is the file udev.rules_1000_scsi_debug in this
-directory )
-
-Upon reboot, for each device a hotplug event occurs. The udev.rules
-file is scanned looking for the device type (BUS) in this case for "scsi".
-The first entry generated by the above program references a
-PROGRAM in the key field (scsi_id) which is called to probe the device
-and determine the unique identifier. sysfs is used to determine the
-major/minor number for the device. The result of the program
-execution (the uuid) is compared with the RESULT entry in the same
-udev.rules line.
-
--If it matches, then the NAME entered on this line is used. The uuid
-and major/minor number is saved in tdb (newly recreated upon boot).
-That device is created in /udev (the target directory name is
-configurable) with the assigned NAME.
-
--If it doesn't match, the RESULT (uuid) is preserved for use on the next
-udev.rules line as long as the bus type (scsi) is the same. So the result
-(the uuid) is compared on the next line, and the next until a match
-occurs.
-
--If no match occurs, the device will be assigned a default name.
-
--Tdb is updated with the resulting name assignment.
-
-
-Thus if the uuid and names are enumerated, they will be found,
-assigned, and are therefore permanent.
-
-If the device is removed from a live system, a hotplug event occurs,
-and it is removed from tdb and the /udev entry disappears.
-
-If it is re-inserted at a new location, the udev.rules file is scanned as
-above. The new major/minor number goes in tdb with the uuid , the
-name in udev.rules is found again, and the /udev name re-appears.
-
-
-
-PERFORMANCE
-
-Now the question becomes, how much longer does it take to scan the
-udev.rules table once there are 1000 entries?
-
-To test this, we created 1000 "scsi " devices using the scsi debug
-device driver supplied in the kernel. When this device driver is loaded
-you can specify how many fake scsi devices to create. There is no
-real I/O involved but it does respond to some scsi commands. It
-simulates the uuid by using the device number assigned when the
-device is created.
-
-Then we auto-generated entries into udev.rules with
-gen_scsi_id_udev_rules.sh. We then removed the devices and
-reassigned them to simulate a reboot. The delta between assigning
-defaults and assigning the names enumerated in the udev.rules file
-was 7 seconds (that's for 1000 drives).
-
-Scripts utilized the feature (described above) that saves the "RESULT"
-key after one scsi-id program call for later reference with other
-udev.rules entries (so only have one PROGRAM key is the moral of
-the story). If you repeated the PROGRAM key, you would
-unnecessarily call the program up to 999 times!
-
-The script that creates udev.rules did not work for 1000 drives (the
-input line is too long). We determined that a patch for this already
-existed but had not yet been checked in.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-