Previous Changes

Updated

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server

The Linux host settings – SCSI disk timeouts – custom udev rules

The previous documented setting was:

ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="block", ATTRS{vendor}=="DataCore", ATTRS{model}=="virtual disk ", RUN+="/bin/sh -c 'echo 80 > /sys/block/%k/device/timeout'"

This has been changed to

SUBSYSTEM=="block", ACTION=="add", ATTRS{vendor}=="DataCore", ATTRS{model}=="Virtual Disk ", RUN+="/bin/sh -c 'echo 80 > /sys/block/%k/device/timeout'"

The order of the ACTION and SUBSYSTEM settings have been swapped around as it had been found that the previous settings could cause some Linux distributions to not use the expected 80 second timeout value and default instead back to a timeout value which would cause inconsistent failover/failback during SANsymphony virtual disk failed redundancy events. Also, the ATTRS{model} section did not have the correct upper-case letters for the model’s name. Please also note that there are 4 white-space characters included at the end of the ATTRS{model} string.

Updated

This document has been reviewed for SANsymphony 10.0 PSP 11. No additional settings or configurations are required.

Updated

RedHat Enterprise Linux

Ubuntu LTS

Updated

This document has been reviewed for SANsymphony 10.0 PSP 9. No additional settings or configurations are required.

Updated

Formatting a virtual disk may take longer than expected

If the virtual disk is mounted on the Linux host using the -o discard mount option formatting the disk will automatically use ‘TRIM/UNMAP’ commands during the format process which can result in a significantly longer wait time for the format to complete. Use either the mkfs command with the ‘nodiscard’ switch or mount the virtual disk without the –o discard option. Refer to the mkfs and mount man pages for your specific Linux distribution for more information.

Removed

All information regarding SANsymphony-V 9.x as this version is end of life (EOL). Please see End of life notifications for DataCore Software products for more information.

Added

RedHat Enterprise Linux

RedHat Enterprise Linux 8.x added to compatibility list. Currently this version is considered ‘Not Supported’ for SANsymphony 9.0 PSP 4 Update 4 and ‘Not Qualified’ for all versions of SANsymphony 10.x.

Updated

RedHat Enterprise Linux

Added footnotes for those versions of RedHat that may be at (or near to) the end of their RedHat Life Cycle subscription service that are considered ‘Not Qualified’.

Updated

Added footnotes for those versions of SUSE that may be at (or near to) the end of their SUSE Long Term Service Support (LTSS) that are considered ‘Not Qualified’.

Added

RedHat Enterprise Linux 7.5 – 7.6

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12.0 SP 4 and 15

These versions are currently considered 'Not Qualified' for SANsymphony 10.x versions and 'Not Supported' for SANsymphony-V 9.0 PSP 4 Update 4 (and earlier).

Updated

Multipath configuration settings

Minor informational additions to the ‘devices’ sections to highlight that there are two possible device_loss_tmo settings that can be used, depending on the version of SANsymphony that is serving the virtual disks. See the notes section for more details.

Updated

Multipath configuration settings

For SANsymphony 10.0 PSP 8 or later use a dev_loss_tmo setting of 60.

Earlier versions of SANsymphony use a dev_loss_tmo setting of infinity.

Added

RedHat Enterprise Linux 7.4

This version is now qualified for SANsymphony 10.0 PSP 7 Update 2 or later. Earlier versions of SANsymphony 10.x are considered 'Not Qualified'.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP 3

This version is now qualified for SANsymphony 10.0 PSP 7 Update 2 or later. Earlier versions of SANsymphony 10.x are considered 'Not Qualified'.

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

This version is now qualified for SANsymphony 10.0 PSP 7 Update 2 or later. Earlier versions of SANsymphony 10.x are considered 'Not Qualified'.

Added

Added SCSI UNMAP compatibility table.

Added

Affects all Linux distributions

A manual rescan on the host is needed to discover new paths after using SANsymphony’s evacuation feature. See the section Evacuating a DataCore Server from the online help.

Symptoms include the host reporting "alua not supported" and/or "failed to read S.M.A.R.T. values" for evacuated virtual disks until the new paths are discovered.

Updated

Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

This version is now ‘supported’ for SANsymphony 10.x versions and 'Not Supported' for SANsymphony-V 9.0 PSP 4 Update 4 (and earlier).

Added

Ubuntu 18.x

This version is currently considered 'Not Qualified' for SANsymphony 10.x versions and 'Not Supported' for SANsymphony-V 9.0 PSP 4 Update 4 (and earlier).

Updated

This document has been reviewed for SANsymphony 10.0 PSP 7. No additional settings or configurations are required.

Removed

The information here has been removed as it is now superseded by the information in:

The DataCore Server- Best Practice Guidelines

What was previously 'Appendix C' has now been moved to 'Appendix B'.

Added

RedHat Enterprise Linux 7.4

This version is currently considered 'Not Qualified' for SANsymphony 10.x versions and 'Not Supported' for SANsymphony-V 9.0 PSP 4 Update 4 (and earlier).

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12.0 SP 3

This version is currently considered 'Not Qualified' for SANsymphony 10.x versions and 'Not Supported' for SANsymphony-V 9.0 PSP 4 Update 4 (and earlier).

Ubuntu 17.x

This version is currently considered 'Not Qualified' for SANsymphony 10.x versions and 'Not Supported' for SANsymphony-V 9.0 PSP 4 Update 4 (and earlier).

Updated

RHEL 6.9 - This version is 'Not Supported' for SANsymphony – V 9.x and earlier and 'Not Qualified' for SANsymphony versions 10.x

RHEL 7.3 - This version is now qualified for SANsymphony 10.0 PSP 6 and greater when using ALUA (earlier versions of SANsymphony are still considered 'not qualified').

Updated

RHEL 7.2 - This version is now qualified for SANsymphony 10.0 PSP 6 and greater when using ALUA

Updated

A note about Multipathing Support has been added with regard to expected versions of 'Multipathing Tools' that should be installed.

RHEL 7.3

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12.0 SP 2

These versions are 'not supported' for SANsymphony-V 9.x and 'not qualified' for SANsymphony 10.x.

Ubuntu 15.x

This version is 'not supported' for SANsymphony-V 9.0 PSP 4 Update 4 'Without ALUA'. Previously it was, incorrectly, marked as 'not qualified'.

Removed

The information has been moved to the 'SANsymphony with SAP HANA - Sizing Guidelines' document.

Updated

Expanded the note under this section that refers to a URL from SUSE's own Knowledgebase that explains how to make the required SCSI Disk Device timeout setting permanent over a reboot.

Added

Oracle VM Server Version 3.4 has now been qualified with SANsymphony-V 10.0 PSP 6 or greater.

Added

Added link:

Video: Configuring Linux hosts to use DataCore virtual disks

Updated

Automatic and Manual reclamation

These two sections have been re-written with more detailed explanations and technical notes.

Updated

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11.0 SP 4

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12.0 SP 1

Both of these versions are now 'Supported' using ALUA with Fibre Channel front-end connections. Note: iSCSI Front End connections are still considered 'Not Qualified'

Updated

This document has been reviewed for SANsymphony 10.0 PSP 5. No other updates were required.

Added

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Versions 7.1 – 7.2

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Versions 6.7 – 6.8

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 (no Service Pack) and 12 Service Pack 1

Updated

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Version 5.5 – 5.10

Previously this version was listed as 'not qualified' with ALUA enabled hosts and SANsymphony-V 9.x. This has now been changed to 'Not Supported with mirrored or dual virtual disks'.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Version 6.6

Previously this version was listed as 'Not Qualified' with ALUA enabled hosts and SANsymphony-V 10.x. This version is now 'Qualified' with ALUA enabled hosts and SANsymphony-V 10.x.

Added

This includes an example of a 3-node SAP HANA configuration.

Updated

SANsymphony-V 8.x and all versions of SANsymphony 9.x before PSP4 Update 4 are now ‘End of Life’. Please see: End of Life Notifications.

Added

A new section has been added with settings specific to SAP HANA.

Updated

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11.0 Service Pack 3 using ALUA are certified with SAP HANA versions SPS09 and SPS10.

Updated

The multipath.conf settings for all qualified Linux distributions are now identical so there is only one section for all Linux distributions listed here.

The setting dev_loss_tmo infinity requires the additional setting fast_io_fail_tmo to be present in the multipath.conf file – this was omitted previously from the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server requirements; and that the fast_io_fail_tmo value is set to 5 – this was previously set to 30 for Red Hat Enterprise Linux requirements.

Added

Ubuntu 14.04 LTS has now been qualified with SANsymphony-V 10.x.

Added

Ubuntu requires manual intervention to redetect failed paths to a DataCore Server.

Added

All RHEL or SUSE Linux specific ‘known issues’ with SANsymphony-V will now be documented here.

Updated

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11.0 with Service Pack 3 is now qualified with SANsymphony-V 10.x using ALUA-only settings.

Updated

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.0 is now qualified with SANsymphony-V 10.x using ALUA-only settings.

Added

Added new entry in the multipath.conf file

no_path_retry	 fail

This is required for any Oracle RAC/GFS configured hosts.

Hosts using ALUA with the ‘Preferred Server’ setting configured for ALL.

Updated

Updated the table for all Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server Versions Single virtual disks are now always considered supported.

Updated

Updated the table for all Red Hat Enterprise Linux Versions 5.0 - 5.10. It was previously listing versions 5.0 – 5.2 only.

Added

Disk Timeouts – Added an example for use of the cat command to determine the current SCSI Disk Timeout and a note that some versions of Linux may revert to the default settings after a reboot and how to resolve this.

Updated

Updated the table for SANsymphony-V 10.x

Added

Red Hat Enterprise Linux – 6.5 with ALUA is now qualified for use with SANsymphony-V 9.x

Added

Added information for 'ATA Trim' commands and Automatic Reclamation from disk pools.

Updated

Red Hat Enterprise Linux only

Added a new Multipath.conf entry requirement - fast_io_fail_tmo - which is required to support the dev_loss_tmo value of ‘infinity’ else the value may default back to 10 minutes instead. NB: Check with your Vendor to make sure your specific Linux Kernel version supports these options.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Enterprise Linux

DataCore recommends that the Multipath.conf entry path_grouping_policy be ‘group_by_prio’ instead of ‘failover’. NB: The ‘failover’ option is considered unqualified for RHEL version 6.5.

Added an optional Multipath.conf entry user_friendly_names which will create simpler, easier to read, disk device names for users to work with. NB: Check with your Vendor to make sure your specific Linux Kernel version supports this option.

Updated

This document combines all of DataCore’s Linux-related information from older Technical Bulletins into a single document including:

Technical Bulletin 2a: "‘Other’ Linux hosts"

Technical Bulletin 2b: "Redhat Enterprise Linux 6.x hosts" Technical Bulletin 2c: "SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11.x hosts"

Technical Bulletin 8: "Formatting host’s File Systems on virtual disks created from disk pools" Technical Bulletin 11: "Disk Timeout Settings on hosts"

Technical Bulletin 16: "Reclaiming Space in disk pools"

Added

Added new tables to show which versions are explicitly qualified, unqualified and not supported with either SANsymphony-V 8.x or 9.x, and if the configuration is with or without ALUA enabled hosts. Note that the minimum requirement for SANsymphony-V 8.x is now 8.1 PSP1 Update 4 to guarantee expected behavior for qualified versions of Linux.

Added

Appendix A

This section gives more detail on the Preferred Server and Preferred Path settings with regard to how it may affect a host.

Appendix B

This section incorporates information regarding "Reclaiming Space in disk pools" (from Technical Bulletin 16) that is specific to Linux hosts.

Updated

Host Settings - SUSE Linux Enterprise Server with/without ALUA enabled.

dev_loss_tmo - For SLES 11 SP2 or greater, please make sure that multipath-tools-0.4.9-0.70.72.1 or greater is installed for the ‘infinity’ setting to work properly.

Improved explanations to most of the required Host Settings and DataCore Server Settings generally.