[DRBD-user] Re: Re: Effect of writing directly to DRBDbackingvolume while offline?

Simon Carey-Smith clipclopnz at gmail.com
Thu Jun 5 07:35:11 CEST 2008

Note: "permalinks" may not be as permanent as we would like,
direct links of old sources may well be a few messages off.


Great explanation of all three.  Should add this summary to the user manual 
somewhere.
Thanks a lot.

"Lars Ellenberg" <lars.ellenberg at linbit.com> 
wrote in message news:20080604204208.GA14131 at racke...
> On Wed, Jun 04, 2008 at 08:42:50PM +0200, Simon Carey-Smith wrote:
>> Does anyone have a simple explanation of the difference between these 3
>> commands, and in which situations to use them ?
>
> a data set may be
> inconsistent (invalid, not recoverable to any sane state, not usable)
>   - drbd refuses to let you access inconsistent data
> consistent, which may be
>   - up to date, or
>   - possibly outdated (we may or may not be up to date, we just don't
>     know yet, because we cannot talk to the peer), or
>   - outdated (we know we are out of date, because we know by other
>     means that the other node has been changed without being able to
>     replicate those changes to us)
>
> when drbd creates new meta data,
> it is initialized to "inconsistent, all dirty"
>
> when drbd connects two nodes,
> the state of the data sets is compared.
>
> it is slightly more complicated than the following, but basically:
>  if both nodes are inconsistent, nothing is synced.
>
>  if one node is inconsistent, and the other is consistent,
>  the inconsistent one becomes sync target.
>
>  if both are consistent, and our algorithm detects that one is a direct
>  successor of the other, the "newer", more up-to-date one becomes sync
>  source.
>
>  if both are consistent, but our algorithm detects that they have
>  _both_ been modified in diverging, incompatible ways, we recognize
>  that there must have been a period of "resource internal split brain".
>
>  the default behaviour after split brain recovery is to disconnect, and
>  refuse to connect again.  because you have two consistent data sets
>  that are different, you have to chose which one you want to use from
>  now on. this can be somewhat automated (dangerous!) by the "after
>  split brain handlers".
>
>  on resync, transfered are only blocks that have been changed
>  (marked dirty) since the last time the nodes have been in sync.
>
>> > "drbdadm invalidate $r"
>
> forcefully sets the data set to "inconsistent",
> and marks all block dirty - thus initiating a full sync,
> making this node sync target.
>
> use this if you have reason to believe that the information in the dirty
> bitmap does not match the changed blocks on disk, e.g. when you
> "accidentally" bypassed drbd (mounted directly), or when you replaced
> the drbd data store device but kept the external drbd meta data device.
>
>> > "drbdadm --over-write-data-of-peer $r"
>
> overrides DRBDs notion of the state, forcefully sets this node to
> "consistent". if it was already consistent, this becomes a no-op.
>
> if the other node is (still) inconsistent, this node will become
> sync source, effectively overwriting the data of the peer.
>
> if the other node is consistent as well, nothing will change,
> so you cannot use this to recover from diverging data sets.
>
> use this once, right after you newly created the drbd meta data area,
> on one node only, to pick the sync source of the initial sync.
>
>> > "drbdadm -- --discard-my-data connect $r"
>
> if "after split brain" was detected, and therefore the nodes refuse to
> talk to each other, you can pick one to become sync target.
>
> this forcefully marks this node as inconsistent, but in contrast to the
> "invalidate" it does not mark any additional blocks as dirty, so we only
> need to transfer the union of marked-as-dirty blocks.
>
> use this to recover from diverging data sets.
>
> -- 
> : Lars Ellenberg                           http://www.linbit.com :
> : DRBD/HA support and consulting             sales at linbit.com :
> : LINBIT Information Technologies GmbH      Tel +43-1-8178292-0  :
> : Vivenotgasse 48, A-1120 Vienna/Europe     Fax +43-1-8178292-82 :
> __
> please don't Cc me, but send to list -- I'm subscribed 






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