[LU-7694] Which version of e2fsprogs is recommended with Lustre 2.5 ?

• Status: Resolved
• Project: Lustre
• Affects Version/s: Lustre 2.5.3
• Type: Question/Request
• Priority: Major
• Reporter: Gregoire Pichon
• Assignee: Andreas Dilger
• Resolution: Won't Fix
• Labels: e2fsprogs

Description

I read from the HPDD community wiki that the latest version of e2fsprogs (master-lustre branch) should always be used.

However, the Lustre lfsck tool has been removed from the sources since version 1.42.13.wc2. The last version including lfsck tool is 1.42.13.wc1: http://git.whamcloud.com/tools/e2fsprogs.git/commit/3cbd1ceb9cff9c45a1584c0539b2e8b439a00ae1 .

Since Lustre 2.5 does not have the support of the live "lustre filesystem check" features, it would be no more possible to perform the cross target filesystem checks with latest e2fsprogs version.

So, which version of e2fsprogs should better be used with Lustre 2.5 ?

Comments

[Peter Jones]

As mentioned on our call, Andreas is on vacation but will be the best candidate to provide a definitive answer to this upon his return.

[Andreas Dilger]

Do you actually use the old e2fsprogs-based lfsck at customer sites? My understanding is that the old lfsck tool is basically unusable on large filesystems because of poor database performance and the fact that the databases become stale compared to the actual filesystem. Also, the old lfsck tool does not work with DNE.

If you are not using the old lfsck then definitely the new e2fsprogs are the right ones to use even for older Lustre releases. Note that it isn't strictly required to run lfsck against the filesystem, and if there are some problems with filesystem consistency they could be repaired when the filesystem is updated to a newer Lustre release that contains the new in-kernel LFSCK functionality.

If you do need to use the old lfsck tool, then we could look into backporting some of the critical fixes to the older e2fsprogs. However, one of the reasons that the old lfsck functionality was removed is that it was causing some problems with newer e2fsprogs changes and I didn't feel there was much value to continue supporting this functionality as it becomes increasingly incompatible compared to new Lustre features.

[Gregoire Pichon]

After discussing your last comment with our support team, they agreed about lfsck tool being unusable on large production filesystems.
Therefore, we are going to deliver the latest lustre e2fsprogs version along with Lustre 2.5.
Thanks.

[Peter Jones]

Thanks Grégoire