Administrator's Guide
The metaserver is responsible for storing all global QFS file system information, tracking chunk locations, and coordinating chunk replication/recovery. This section will discuss basic metaserver administration. Configuration
The metaserver configuration is normally stored in a file called
MetaServer.prp. The Deployment Guide includes several minimal sample
configurations. For the complete set of configuration parameters see the
Configuration Reference.
metaserver /path/to/MetaServer.prp
To initialize file system by creating initial empty file system's checkpoint and log segment -c command line option can be used:
metaserver -c /path/to/MetaServer.prp
-c option should not be used when running meta server with existing QFS file system, in order to prevent data loss in the case when meta server starts with no "latest" checkpoint file.
The directories that store metaserver checkpoints (metaServer.cpDir) and transaction logs (metaServer.logDir) are pruned periodically by the meta server; otherwise they will fill up and run out of space. Pruning parameters are described in meta server annotated configuration file section "Meta data (checkpoint and trasaction log) store."
Checkpoint and log pruning scrips required by the prior versions are now obsolete have been removed.
From time to time the metaServer.cpDir and metaServer.logDir should be backed up, as they can be used to restore a file system which has had a catastrophic failure. A backup consists of:
- The latest checkpoint file in metaServer.cpDir
- ALL of the transaction logs in metaServer.logDir
The simplest way to back up a file system image is to use tar to archive these
files.
Given the following configuration:
metaServer.cpDir = /home/qfs0/state/checkpoint
metaServer.logDir = /home/qfs0/state/transactions
A possible solution would be to periodically do the following:
tar --exclude '*.tmp.??????' -czf /foo/bar/qfs0-backup-`date +%d-%H.tar.gz` checkpoint transactions -C /home/qfs0/state`
Note: this simple script includes all checkpoint files, which is inefficient; only the latest checkpoint file is required for the backup.
QFS meta data backup script is available here.
To restore a backup, it need only be extracted to the appropriate metaServer.cpDir and metaServer.logDir directories of a fresh metaserver head node.
Using the configuration from the previous example:
cd /home/qfs0/state && tar -xzf /foo/bar/qfs0-backup-31-23.tar.gz
Once the metaserver is started, it will read the latest checkpoint into memory and replay any transaction logs. Files that were allocated since the backup will no longer exist and chunks associated with these files will be deleted. Files that have been deleted since the backup, however, will show up as lost (as their chunks will have been deleted) but the restored file system image will still reference them. After a restore, you should run a file system integrity check and then delete the lost files it identifies. Lastly, any other file modifications since the backup will be lost.
Note: The location of the metaServer.cpDir and metaServer.logDir should not change.
The qfsfsck tool can be employed in three ways:
- Verify the integrity of a running file system by identifying lost files and/or files with chunk placement/replication problems.
- Validate the active checkpoint and transaction logs of a running file system.
- Check the integrity of a file system archive/backup (checkpoint plus a set of transaction logs).
In order to verify the integrity of a running file system by identifying lost files or files with chunk placement problems, run:
qfsfsck -m metaServer.hostname -p metaServer.port
The output will look something like this if everything is okay:
Lost files total: 0
Directories: 280938
Directories reachable: 280938 100%
Directory reachable max depth: 14
Files: 1848149
Files reachable: 1848149 100%
Files reachable with recovery: 1811022 97.9911%
Files reachable striped: 34801 1.88302%
Files reachable sum of logical sizes: 37202811695550
1 Files reachable lost: 0 0%
2 Files reachable lost if server down: 0 0%
3 Files reachable lost if rack down: 0 0%
4 Files reachable abandoned: 0 0%
5 Files reachable ok: 1848149 100%
File reachable max size: 4011606632
File reachable max chunks: 128
File reachable max replication: 3
Chunks: 19497647
Chunks reachable: 19497647 100%
Chunks reachable lost: 0 0%
Chunks reachable no rack assigned: 0 0%
Chunks reachable over replicated: 0 0%
Chunks reachable under replicated: 0 0%
Chunks reachable replicas: 22715209 116.502%
Chunk reachable max replicas: 3
Recovery blocks reachable: 1858706
Recovery blocks reachable partial: 0 0%
Fsck run time: 6.45906 sec.
Files: [fsck_state size replication type stripes recovery_stripes
stripe_size chunk_count mtime path]
Filesystem is HEALTHY
When there are lost or abandoned files, and/or files with placement problems,
they will be placed in one of the four categories listed below. The number
before each category indicates the fsck_state associated with that category.
1 Files reachable lost: 0 0% # files lost, these files cannot be recovered
2 Files reachable lost if server down: 0 0% # these files could be lost with one chunk server down
3 Files reachable lost if rack down: 0 0% # this files could be lost with a rack down
4 Files reachable abandoned: 0 0% # file which failed to be allocated, automatically pruned
Each problem file will also be listed, prefixed by the fsck_state and several
other attributes, followed by the header line seen below:
Files: [fsck_state size replication type stripes recovery_stripes stripe_size chunk_count mtime path]
The fsck_state identifies which problem category a given file is in. For
example:
1 64517075 2 2 128 0 65536 128 2012-09-22T11:36:40.597073Z /qfs/ops/jarcache/paramDB_9f68d84fac11ecfeab876844e1b71e91.sqlite.gz
3 56433403 2 2 128 0 65536 128 2011-10-05T15:02:28.057320Z /qfs/ops/jarcache/paramDB_7912225a0775efa45e02cf0a5bb5a130.sqlite.gz
3 55521703 2 2 128 0 65536 128 2012-08-28T15:02:07.791657Z /qfs/ops/jarcache/paramDB_f0c557f0bb36ac0375c9a8c95c0a51f8.sqlite.gz
means there is one completely lost file, and two other files that could be lost after the failure of a single rack.
In order to validate the checkpoint and transaction logs of a running metaserver, the metaServer.checkpoint.lockFileName parameter must be configured in the metaserver (as it is used to synchronize access to the checkpoint files and transaction logs). The lock file, if specified in metaServer.checkpoint.lockFileName, will be created when the second checkpoint is created.
Note: qfsfsck will attempt to load the file system image into memory, so
make sure there is enough memory available on the head node to do this.
To run this check:
qfsfsck -L metaServer.checkpoint.lockFileName -l metaServer.logDir -c metaServer.cpDir
Given the following configuration:
metaServer.checkpoint.lockFileName /home/qfs0/run/ckpt.lock
metaServer.cpDir = /home/qfs0/state/checkpoint
metaServer.logDir = /home/qfs0/state/transactions
the check would be executed like so:
qfsfsck -L /home/qfs0/run/ckpt.lock -l /home/qfs0/state/transactions -c /home/qfs0/state/checkpoint
If everything is okay, the output will look something like this:
09-25-2012 20:39:01.894 INFO - (restore.cc:97) restoring from checkpoint of 2012-09-25T20:00:26.971544Z
09-25-2012 20:39:01.894 INFO - (replay.cc:63) open log file: /home/qfs0/state/transactions/log.55710
09-25-2012 20:39:24.010 INFO - (restore.cc:97) restoring from checkpoint of 2012-09-25T20:03:09.383993Z
09-25-2012 20:39:24.010 INFO - (replay.cc:63) open log file: /home/qfs0/state/transactions/log.55710
09-25-2012 20:39:24.010 INFO - (replay.cc:559) log time: 2012-09-25T20:00:24.161876Z
09-25-2012 20:39:24.010 INFO - (replay.cc:559) log time: 2012-09-25T20:09:43.533466Z
09-25-2012 20:39:24.010 INFO - (replay.cc:63) open log file: /home/qfs0/state/transactions/log.55711
09-25-2012 20:39:24.011 INFO - (replay.cc:559) log time: 2012-09-25T20:09:43.533721Z
09-25-2012 20:39:24.011 INFO - (replay.cc:559) log time: 2012-09-25T20:19:43.829361Z
09-25-2012 20:39:24.011 INFO - (replay.cc:63) open log file: /home/qfs0/state/transactions/log.55712
09-25-2012 20:39:24.011 INFO - (replay.cc:559) log time: 2012-09-25T20:19:43.829674Z
09-25-2012 20:39:24.012 INFO - (replay.cc:559) log time: 2012-09-25T20:29:44.712673Z
otherwise qfsfsck will exit in error.
Checking a file system image backup is very similar to that of checking a running metaserver's checkpoint and transaction logs, except no lock file (metaServer.checkpoint.lockFileName) is required. The backup must be extracted to the same set of paths from which it was archived. Therefore it should be extracted to the location specified by metaServer.cpDir and metaServer.logDir of its associated metaserver.
Given the following configuration:
metaServer.cpDir = /home/qfs0/state/checkpoint
metaServer.logDir = /home/qfs0/state/transactions
and an archive located at: /foo/bar/qfs0-backup-31-23.tar.gz created from
/home/qfs0/state
The following commands can be used to verify the backup:
mkdir -p /home/qfs0/state
cd /home/qfs0/state
tar -xzf /foo/bar/qfs0-backup-31-23.tar.gz
qfsfsck /home/qfs0/state/transactions -c /home/qfs0/state/checkpoint
If everything is okay, the output will look something like this:
09-25-2012 20:39:01.894 INFO - (restore.cc:97) restoring from checkpoint of 2012-09-25T20:00:26.971544Z
09-25-2012 20:39:01.894 INFO - (replay.cc:63) open log file: /home/qfs0/state/transactions/log.55710
09-25-2012 20:39:24.010 INFO - (restore.cc:97) restoring from checkpoint of 2012-09-25T20:03:09.383993Z
09-25-2012 20:39:24.010 INFO - (replay.cc:63) open log file: /home/qfs0/state/transactions/log.55710
09-25-2012 20:39:24.010 INFO - (replay.cc:559) log time: 2012-09-25T20:00:24.161876Z
09-25-2012 20:39:24.010 INFO - (replay.cc:559) log time: 2012-09-25T20:09:43.533466Z
09-25-2012 20:39:24.010 INFO - (replay.cc:63) open log file: /home/qfs0/state/transactions/log.55711
09-25-2012 20:39:24.011 INFO - (replay.cc:559) log time: 2012-09-25T20:09:43.533721Z
09-25-2012 20:39:24.011 INFO - (replay.cc:559) log time: 2012-09-25T20:19:43.829361Z
09-25-2012 20:39:24.011 INFO - (replay.cc:63) open log file: /home/qfs0/state/transactions/log.55712
09-25-2012 20:39:24.011 INFO - (replay.cc:559) log time: 2012-09-25T20:19:43.829674Z
09-25-2012 20:39:24.012 INFO - (replay.cc:559) log time: 2012-09-25T20:29:44.712673Z
otherwise qfsfsck will exit in error.
WORM (or Write Once, Read Many) is a special file system mode which makes it
imposible to delete files from the file system. This feature is useful for
protecting critical data from deletion. The qfstoggleworm tool is used to
turn WORM mode on and off.
To turn WORM mode on do the following:
qfstoggleworm -s metaServer.host -p metaServer.port -t 1
Likewise, to turn WORM mode off do the following:
qfstoggleworm -s metaServer.host -p metaServer.port -t 0
When a QFS instance is running in WORM mode, a file can only be created if it
ends with a .tmp suffix. Once stored in the file system, it can then be
renamed without the .tmp suffix. For example, to write foo.bar to a QFS
instance running in WORM mode, it would have to be created as foo.bar.tmp then
moved into place as foo.bar. Once moved, the file cannot be deleted or
modified, unless WORM mode is disabled.
The QFS web interface qfsstatus.py provides a rich set of real-time
information, which can be used monitor file system instances.
The web server configuration is normally stored in a file called webUI.cfg.
See the Configuration Reference for a complete set of web UI configuration
parameters. Also the sample servers used in the examples include a typical web
UI configuration. Running
qfsstatus.py /path/to/webUI.cfg
The following sample image of the web reporting interface is for a QFS instance with 1 metaserver and 1 chunk server, configured with three chunk directories. The host file system size is ~~18GB, out of which ~~10GB is used (not by QFS) and ~~8GB is available.
The following table describes some UI elements:
| vega:20000 | The metaserver host name and port number. |
|---|---|
| Chunk Servers Status | Opens a page with chunk servers statistics. One could select various chunk server parameters to be displayed, the refresh interval and delta. |
| Metaserver Status | Opens a page with metaserver statistics. One could select various metaserver parameters to be displayed, the refresh interval and delta. |
| Total space | Total space of the host file system(s) where QFS stores chunks. |
| Used space | Space used by QFS. |
| Free space | Available space in the host file system(s) where QFS stores chunks. When the free space becomes less than a % threshold (given by a metaserver configuration value) the metaserver stops using this chunk directory for chunk placement. |
| WORM mode | Status of the write-once-read-many mode. |
| Nodes | Number of nodes in different states in the file system. |
| Replications | Number of chunks in various states of replication. |
| Allocations | File system-wide count of QFS clients, chunk servers, and so on. |
| Allocations b+tree | Internal b+tree counters. In this example, root directory + dumpster directory make up the 2 in fattr. |
| Chunk placement candidates | Out of all chunk servers, how many are used for chunk placement, which are assigned racks. |
| Disks | Number of disks in the file system. Note: our recommendation is to use one chunk directory per physical disk. |
| All Nodes | Table of one row per chunk server, describing a summary for each chunk server. |
A metaserver or chunk server ping can be used to dump the file system status. All of the information presented by the web interface is available via a ping. This makes it fairly easy to build automation around a QFS file system.
You can use qfsping to ping a metaserver:
qfsping -m -s metaServer.hostname -p metaServer.portg
The command is similar for a chunk server ping:
qfsping -c -s chunkServer.hostname -p chunkServer.port
Parsing the output of a ping is beyond the scope of this document but the Python
web interface qfsstatus.py provides an example of this and more.
The chunk server is the workhorse of QFS file system and is responsible for storing and retrieving file chunk data. This section will discuss basic chunk server administration.
The chunk server configuration is normally stored in a file called
ChunkServer.prp. The Deployment Guide includes several minimal sample
configurations. For the complete set of configuration parameters see the
Configuration Reference.
chunkserver /path/to/ChunkServer.prp
Hibernation is used to temporarily take a chunk server offline, such as for maintenance of the physical server. When a chunk server is hibernated, the metaserver will not actively attempt to re-replicate or recover chunks hosted by the hibernated chunk server for the specified hibernation period. However, chunks will be passively recovered if they're necessary to fulfill a request.
This feature is useful in preventing replication/recovery storms when performing node or rack level maintenance.
The qfshibernate tool is used to hibernate a chunk server:
qfshibernate -m chunkServer.metaServer.hostname -p chunkServer.metaServer.port -c chunkServer.hostname -d chunkServer.clientPort -s delay (in seconds)
Given the following metaserver configuration:
chunkServer.metaServer.hostname = 192.168.1.1
chunkServer.metaServer.port = 10000
To hibernate a chunk server at 192.168.10.20 (chunkServer.hostname) running on a client port of 1635 (chunkServer.clientPort) for 30 minutes one would execute the following command:
qfshibernate -m 192.168.1.1 -p 10000 -c 192.168.10.20 -d 1635 -s 1800
This would instruct the metaserver at 192.168.1.1:10000 to hibernate the chunk server at 192.168.10.20:1635 for 1800 seconds or 30 minutes. Upon hibernation the chunk server will exit.
- Running qfshibernate again with the same chunk server will update hibernation window.
- The longer the hibernation window, the greater the likelihood of data loss. A window of no more than an hour is recommended for this reason.
Evacuation can be used to permanently or temporarily retire a chunk server volume. It is recommended that evacuation be used instead of hibernation if the expected down time exceeds one hour.
To evacuate a chunk server, create a file named evacuate in each of its chunk directories (chunkServer.chunkDir). This will cause the chunk server to safely remove all chunks from each chunk directory where the evacuate file is present. Once a chunk directory is evacuated, the chunk server will rename the evacuate file to evacuate.done.
To evacuate a chunk server with following chunk directories configured:
chunkServer.chunkDir /mnt/data0/chunks /mnt/data1/chunks /mnt/data2/chunks
one could use the following script:
1.!/bin/bash
for data in /mnt/data*; do
chunkdir=$data/chunks
if [ -e $chunkdir ]; then
touch $chunkdir/evacuate
fi
done
This will cause the chunk server to evacuate all chunks from
/mnt/data0/chunks, /mnt/data1/chunks, and /mnt/data2/chunks. As each chunk
directory is evacuated, the chunk server will rename its evacuate file to
evacuate.done.
To check the status of the evacuation:
cd /mnt && find -name evacuate.done | wc -l
Once the count returned equals 3, all chunk directories have been evacuated and it's safe to stop the chunk server.
Note: the metaserver web UI will also list all chunk server evacuations and their status.
QFS includes a set of client tools to make it easy to access the file system. This section describes those tools.
| Tool | Purpose | Notes |
|---|---|---|
cpfromqfs |
Copy files from QFS to a local file system or to stdout | Supported options: skipping holes, setting of write buffer size, start and end offsets of source file, read ahead size, op retry count, retry delay and retry timeouts, partial sparse file support. See ./cpfromqfs -h for more. |
cptoqfs |
Copy files from a local file system or stdin to QFS | Supported options: setting replication factor, data and recovery stripe counts, stripes size, input buffer size, QFS write buffer size, truncate/delete target files, create exclusive mode, append mode, op retry count, retry delay and retry timeouts. See ./cptoqfs -h for more. |
qfscat |
Output the contents of file(s) to stdout | See ./qfscat -h for more information. |
qfsput |
Reads from stdin and writes to a given QFS file | See ./qfsput -h for more information. |
qfsdataverify |
Verify the replication data of a given file in QFS | The -c option compares the checksums of all replicas. The -d option verifies that all N copies of each chunk are identical. Note that for files with replication 1, this tool performs no verification. See ./qfsdataverify -h for more. |
qfsfileenum |
Prints the sizes and locations of the chunks for the given file | See ./qfsfileenum -h for more information. |
qfsping |
Send a ping to metaserver or chunk server | Doing a metaserver ping returns list of chunk servers that are up and down. It also returns the usage stats of each up chunk server.\Doing a chunk server ping returns a the chunk server stats. See ./qfsping -h for more. |
qfshibernate |
Hibernates a chunk server for the given number of seconds | See ./qfshibernate -h for more information. |
qfsshell |
Opens a simple client shell to execute QFS commands | By default this opens an interactive shell. One can bypss the interactive shell and execute commands directly by using the -q option. See ./qfsshell -h for more. |
qfsstats |
Reports qfs statistics | The -n option is used to control the interval between reports. The RPC stats are also reported if the -t option is used. See ./qfsstats -h for more. |
qfstoggleworm |
Set the WORM (write once read many) mode of the file system |