[Linux-cluster] increasing gfs size to add journals on existing file system

[Bob Peterson]

----- "Brett Cave" <brettcave at gmail.com> wrote:
| Hi,
| 
| I am trying to add an extra node to my GFS cluster, but dont have
| enough journals. I dont have any more free space to add journals (see
| this thread
| http://www.mail-archive.com/linux-cluster@redhat.com/msg05624.html )
| 
| What would be the best solution to use (I can increase the SAN vdisk
| which should allow me to resize, but wondering if there is another
| way).
| 
| Regards,
| Brett

Hi Brett,

That issue has always been a design problem with GFS.  You need to
increase the size of the device before doing gfs_jadd.  Don't make
the mistake of running gfs_grow immediately because that will consume
your new storage for file system space and still leave you no room
for any new journals.  Only run gfs_grow after you've added the
journals you need.

We eliminated the problem in GFS2, so another option would be to
use gfs2_convert to convert the file system to GFS2 and then use
gfs2_jadd.  Of course, GFS2 and gfs2_convert are still pretty new, so
they carry a certain amount of risk, as with all new software.  Some
old versions of gfs2_convert had bad problems, so if you want to go
this route, make sure you make a current backup before you do anything.
Second, make sure you gfs_fsck before you convert so that your file system
is consistent before running gfs2_convert.  Third, make sure you have the
latest and greatest gfs2_convert, so if you're on RHEL5.3, for example,
make sure you've got all the latest z-stream updates.  If you build from
source, make sure you compile from the most recent source code.

Regards,

Bob Peterson
Red Hat File Systems