Advanced File System Utilities Version 4.0D Release Notes These release notes for the Advanced File System (AdvFS) Utilities Version 4.0D describe enhancements, new features, and restrictions for this release. This entire kit can be installed on DIGITAL UNIX Version 4.0D and later. These release notes are included in your distribution kit on the Software Product CD-ROM. The PostScript file is AFA425_RELNOTES.PS and the text file is titled AFA425_RELNOTES.TXT. See the document that came with your CD for instructions on how to locate and print the release notes from the CD. Copies of the release notes are also included in the software subset and are located in the /usr/advfs directory after you complete your software installation. The release notes are included in these locations to ensure they are accessible from the product directory after the CD-ROM distribution disc is unmounted. Enhancements and New Features The following enhancements are included in Version 4.0 and later: o Integration with the Common Desktop Environment (CDE) o A completely new AdvFS graphical user interface (GUI), dtadvfs o AdvFS export of file system information, through SNMP, to clients such as Performance Manager o Support for remote file system management through the AdvFS GUI o A new manual, Advanced File System and Utilities for DIGITAL UNIX Guide to File System Administration The following enhancement is new in Version 4.0D: o Japanese Localization Subsets [C] Digital Equipment Corporation 1997. All rights reserved. Known Problems in this Release of the AdvFS GUI o If a bad file domain exists, the system will panic at boot time when the agent, advfsd, attempts to activate it. This will occur even if the bad domain has been removed from the /etc/fstab file. Workarounds must be done in single-user mode. Do either of the following: - Move the bad file domain from the /etc/fdmns directory to another directory. (This will make repairing the file domain difficult.) - Repair the file domain. Reboot to multiuser mode. o If you have a file domain with many filesets, none of which are mounted, the GUI may take a very long time to start. Solve this problem by mounting one of the filesets from the command line. o If your file system is running either the TruCluster[TM] Production Server Software or the TruCluster Available Server Software, the GUI will issue a message at startup and whenever you change the file system configuration. The message reminds you to use the asemgr utility to update its configuration database. See the TruCluster Software Products administration documentation for more information. To turn off the message, use the -N flag when starting the GUI: # advfsd -N o There is a known DECthreads bug that causes advfsd to consume all available cycles on a host. A patch is available for DECthreads that remedies the problem: CLD # HPAQ206J8. o There are some configurations where advfsd consumes considerable CPU and I/O resources. Following are some ways to handle this: - Reduce the polling frequency of advfsd from the default of five minutes. In the AdvFS GUI, choose Options from the AdvFS menu and change the setting for the Agent state monitor. - The more disk groups and volumes there are in LSM, the longer it takes to poll the system. If possible, decrease the number. - Decrease the number of unmounted filesets. It takes longer to gather statistics on unmounted filesets. Inactive domains (domains with no mounted filesets) 2 Advanced File System Utilities Release Notes are particularly slow. Use the disks.ignore file as explained below. - By default, the agent examines every disk on the system. When there are several offline HSC devices or spun-down disk drives, agent performance will be significantly reduced. Use the /var/opt/advfsd/disks.ignore file to ignore such disks. Each line of the disks.ignore file contains a DIGITAL UNIX disk name with no directory partition letter. For example, if you want to ignore /dev/rz3d, enter rz3 in the disks.ignore file. You cannot ignore an LSM volume by including the LSM volume name in the disks.ignore file; you must list the disks from which the LSM volume is built. To ignore a complete disk group, you must list all the disks in it. Because all partitions on the listed disks will be ignored, unexpected results may occur if a disk has partitions belonging to more than one disk group. The disks.ignore file is processed each time the disks are checked. This means that if a disk fails or becomes unavailable (such as in an Available Server Environment), you can add the disk name to the disks.ignore file and the agent will ignore it. Once the disk is available, remove the entry from the file. There is no need to stop the agent. - If neither dtadvfs nor Performance Manager is running, you can stop the agent with the following command: # /sbin/init.d/advfsd stop If you have stopped the agent and then want to run dtadvfs, restart the agent with the following command: # /sbin/init.d/advfsd start Wait a few minutes, then start the GUI. o If you don't want to start the agent by default at boot time but you still want to be able to run it, move the /sbin/rc3.d/S53advfsd file to another directory. Move the file back to the original location to start the agent automatically at boot time. If you want to remove the agent permanently, use the setld command. For example, for revision number 425, enter: # setld -d AFAADVDAEMON425 Advanced File System Utilities Release Notes 3 o The AdvFS GUI and agent log files can grow very large. Periodically check the sizes of the following files to see that they are not using too much disk space: /var/opt/advfsd/logs/advfsd /var/opt/dtadvfs/advfs_gui.log If it is necessary to remove the log files, exit the GUI. From the command line stop the agent and remove the two files. Restart the agent, wait a few minutes, and then restart the GUI. o If you run dtadvfs from a dtterm window, unset XFILESEARCHPATH so that the dtadvfs application defaults file can be loaded. o If you delete a file domain and the GUI still shows its associated volumes as in use, you must manually change the disk label on the device(s) by using either the disklabel(1) command or the CDE Disk Configuration utility. You must also manually change the disk label if you remove a volume from a file domain and the GUI does not show the volume as available. o If you attempt to perform several actions simultaneously, the GUI may not be able to track them. You may receive the error message Object key is invalid or the error message Can't get the object data, where object is host, file domain, fileset, clone, volume, device, or partition. Exit and restart the GUI. o If the GUI appears to be hung or unexplained error messages appear, check for the following: - Network overload: The GUI cannot get configuration data in a reasonable number of attempts. - System overload: The agent gets few or no CPU cycles. If neither of the above appears to be the problem, the agent is probably hung. Exit the GUI. From the command line stop the agent. Restart the agent, wait a few minutes, and then restart the GUI. o If you are running configuration tasks simultaneously, and more than one task fails, the error messages in the resulting error dialog boxes may be incorrect. o When you execute a task that locks a domain, like balance or defragment, the domain icon may not reflect the locked state. All tasks are still handled correctly. o The GUI does not save the preferences that are set in the Options dialog box, except for the agent state monitor interval. Each time the GUI is started, it uses a predefined set of default options. The agent state 4 Advanced File System Utilities Release Notes monitor interval is also saved between restarts of the agent. o If you rename a fileset that has not been previously mounted, you will not get an updated entry in the /etc/fstab file. You must edit the /etc/fstab file manually. o Single clicking a file domain, fileset, clone, or volume in an object dialog only highlights the object. Menu items in the object dialog still reference the original object. o Performing a sort on data fields marked unavail may produce unreliable results. o Adding or removing a volume from a file domain does not immediately change the fileset size that is displayed. The correct fileset size will appear when the GUI is next updated. After a few minutes, you may also manually update the GUI by selecting Refresh from the View menu. o If you create a new file domain, fileset, or clone, or if you add a volume, and the new entry does not appear in the GUI, exit and restart the GUI. o When you create a new file domain or fileset, you can only set the free space alert as a percentage of the available space. o If you change the size of a file domain or fileset, and a free space alert is set on the object, the free space alert value may no longer be appropriate. The free space alert values are evaluated using actual size (for example, kilobytes), not percentage of space. Reset the free space alert threshold value as needed. o If you are using the Japanese subset of the GUI, you must enter a space character after any text you type in a dialog box in order for the option buttons to be properly activated. o The Help buttons in the error dialog boxes do not work. o Since dtadvfs is an X and Motif application, it may be affected by bugs internal to X and Motif. In general, these can be ignored. o If you do not run dtadvfs within the CDE environment, strange characters may appear in the help text. o Full keyboard support as defined in the Motif style guide is not fully implemented for this release. o Double click a file domain, fileset, clone, or volume icon on an object tree to display a dialog box specific to it. The double-click function is not implemented for Advanced File System Utilities Release Notes 5 hosts, devices, or partitions. It is also not implemented for the volume icon in the Devices and Volumes window. Known Problems with AdvFS-LSM Interactions o Due to limitations in LSM, it is not possible to determine if an LSM volume is in use or not unless one of the following conditions is true: - The volume is mounted. - The volume is part of an existing AdvFS domain, mounted or not. If neither of the above is true, the GUI will treat the LSM volume as available. If such a volume is used to create a new file domain or is added to an existing file domain, any data on the LSM volume will be lost. o Do not use LSM to change the size of an LSM volume that is in use by an AdvFS file domain. AdvFS is unable to accommodate the change. o If you have added the LSM volume /dev/vol/volname to a file domain from the command line, the GUI does not recognize that it is the same as /dev/vol/rootdg/volname. In the Devices and Volumes window this volume will appear to be either unknown, if the domain has mounted filesets, or available, if the domain has no mounted filesets. If the volume appears to be available, and if you try to add it to a file domain, you will get an error message stating that it is already in use. o If you encapsulate a volume in use by AdvFS into LSM while the AdvFS GUI is running, the volume name in the AdvFS GUI will not update to reflect this change. Exit and restart the GUI to display the correct name for the volume. Known Problems with AdvFS-PM Interactions o Prior to Advanced Utilities Version 4.0A, some file system metrics were incorrectly reported to the Performance Manager (PM). These metrics will be reported incorrectly unless you upgrade PM to a version after Version 4.0. 6 Advanced File System Utilities Release Notes