[DRBD-user] adding drbd to existing gfs2 vg/lv setup

yvette hirth yvette at dbtgroup.com
Tue Feb 15 19:21:25 CET 2011

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


hi,

we would like to improve the currency of our backup files.

right now we have an ensemble of GFS2 LV's ("pri") as our primary data 
store, and a "matching ensemble" of XFS LV's ("bak") as our backup data 
store.  an hourly cron job rsync's all LV's in the ensemble from pri => 
bak.  it's incredibly reliable, but this reduces our mean backup 
currency by 1/2 hour.  one upside is that i've got snapshots that are 
only 1/2 hour old, and are daily backed up to tape.

the conversation seems to indicate that we can change the bak LV's from 
XFS to GFS2 and have drbd auto-sync the pri LV changes made to the bak 
LV's - yes?  this would reduce our backup currency from a mean of 1/2 
hour to theoretically, "atomic" (more likely "mere seconds").  i assUme 
we have to change from XFS to GFS2, as drbd doesn't appear to do file 
system conversions...

if our assumptions are correct, are there any guides / manuals / doc on 
how to do this?  it's most tempting to try, since if it doesn't work, 
the hourly cron rsync's could be simply reinstated.

many thanks in advance to any and all who can advise...

yvette




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