PERC H730P Mini - Multiple LV's

Dashrender

If your RAID controller doesn't support this (and if it's the same one we looked at before, it doesn't) then you will have to do this in software.

scottalanmiller

Last I knew, and this has come up a lot recently so I'm pretty sure, the PERC H730 does not have an LVM layer and cannot make volumes.

Dashrender

Right, so we are solving this by installing XS7 and during install choosing no SR location.

Then once inside XS7, creating a LVM logical volume that can then be used to mount a SR into.

Dashrender

The problem is, neither of us know how to do that.. still looking.

DustinB3403

The entire scope changed again, boss would like to now install to a class 10 SD card.

So once I have that (64Gb or greater) than I can install XS7 to the hosts.

Dashrender

@DustinB3403 said in PERC H730P Mini - Multiple LV's:

The entire scope changed again, boss would like to now install to a class 10 SD card.

So once I have that (64Gb or greater) than I can install XS7 to the hosts.

Eh? How did he get involved in the decision making process?

DustinB3403

@Dashrender said in PERC H730P Mini - Multiple LV's:

@DustinB3403 said in PERC H730P Mini - Multiple LV's:

The entire scope changed again, boss would like to now install to a class 10 SD card.

So once I have that (64Gb or greater) than I can install XS7 to the hosts.

Eh? How did he get involved in the decision making process?

Have to have a conversation with people who make the decision. Have to converse with people.

Dashrender

OK, my solution for this on a XS7 install, to the local drive:

install XS7 to the local disk (RAID or single disk, test only) We assume you are installing to /dev/sda
Use XC or SSH to XS Dom0 log in as root

 parted /dev/sda unit s print free

This command will output something like this.
https://i.imgur.com/RdeCbdD.png

You see the free space in the last row, you'll need the starting and ending numbers.

 parted /dev/sda mkpart ext2 8703385s  976773134s

https://i.imgur.com/gieTSvf.png

 parted print free

You should see something like this
https://i.imgur.com/ajTgk4W.png

You'll notice that our new partition is number 4 aka /dev/sda4

to get the XS UUID run

xe host-list

You'll see something like this
https://i.imgur.com/JNBmml9.png

You'll use the UUID in the next command.

Now to add this new partition to XS as a SR.

xe sr-create host-uuid=80a90bd4-646b-4b41-a6f3-31fc0795f720 content-type=user name-label="Local Storage" shared=false device-config:device=/dev/sda4 type=lvm

With output like this.
https://i.imgur.com/48o6tL3.png

now if you look in XC, you should see that you have a SR called Local Storage.
https://i.imgur.com/68Lp4Qj.png

Dashrender

@Dashrender said in PERC H730P Mini - Multiple LV's:

You see the free space in the last row, you'll need the starting and ending numbers.
 parted /dev/sda mkpart ext2 8703385s  976773134s
There will be no output, you just return to a prompt

So moving to Dustin's actual situation, he has a 14TB OBR10 - I don't know if XS will allow ext2 on a partition that large. We'll try it first, it might fail. If so, we'll try ext4

Dashrender

@travisdh1
This thread.

travisdh1

@Dashrender said in PERC H730P Mini - Multiple LV's:

@travisdh1
This thread.

Yeah, looks like a good procedure.

momurda

ext2 and ext3 don't know anything over the existence of 2TB, but you can use type lvm to do this locally(looks like you have done this). If XS doesn't have support for ext4 natively I don't think you can use ext4 file systems for anything in XS.
ext4 would work if you can mount it as an ext type SR in XS, but you probably cant, and will have to use lvm type locally for large SR
If you want thin provisioning on large shared SRs, use NFS instead of iscsi.

This was all in that Xenserver book I just got and read through.

There is also The Tobias reply to this topic
http://discussions.citrix.com/topic/373709-adding-storage-to-xenserver/

This Xenserver 7 blog that states why ext4 support is missing in XS 7 (although it is coming in the future)
https://www.citrix.com/blogs/2016/06/30/xenserver-7-building-the-foundations-of-a-great-future/

You may be wondering why the move to CentOS 7 didn’t automatically mean that XenServer 7 acquired various features and mechanisms that CentOS 7 happens to have, such as SELinux or the XFS filesystem. This is because the domain 0 Linux platform is a component of the XenServer system (rather than XenServer being an application that runs on top of Linux) and is therefore tightly integrated into the overall system – when we upgrade components of the system our first priority is to ensure a like-for-like upgrade which preserves the integrity, functionality, quality, performance and security of the system. If the new component comes with new mechanisms that didn’t exist in the older version, we carefully consider if and how we can integrate those new mechanisms into the XenServer system (for example moving from ext3 to XFS would require careful consideration for XenServer upgrade and rollback use-cases and therefore isn’t a transparent change) – these additional integrations may come in later releases than the underlying component upgrade.

BRRABill

@momurda said

This was all in that Xenserver book I just got and read through.

What book was that?

DustinB3403

@BRRABill I believe it's the XenServer Practical Guides and Tips book . . .

momurda

@BRRABill
• XenServer Administration Handbook: Practical Recipes for Successful Deployments

DustinB3403

Ha. . . . .

So everyone get ready for a kicker.

Did a 6.5 install to a 16GB usb with the same OBR10 array (15TB) and selected it as the default SR during installation.

And I now have a Local SR of 15TB on an XS6.5 installation, with no additional configuration....

Um WTF did we all do wrong before?

momurda

@DustinB3403
You were trying to use ext type for thin provisioning rather than the default for large SR of type lvm

DustinB3403

@momurda said in PERC H730P Mini - Multiple LV's:

@DustinB3403
You were trying to use ext type for thin provisioning rather than the default for large SR of type lvm

You'd think, but I went through this not to long ago, and I specifically didn't choose thin provisioning to test and had to add the SR manually.

momurda

Yes I remember, but it did work as type lvm eventually. Not sure why it didn't on install, ive not had a problem with it yet myself.
Also, is there a 'Guided using entire disk with lvm' option in XS installer?(I cant remember) perhaps that option is where the magic happens. Without it maybe you have to add the large SR manually.

stacksofplates

@momurda said in PERC H730P Mini - Multiple LV's:

ext2 and ext3 don't know anything over the existence of 2TB, but you can use type lvm to do this locally(looks like you have done this). If XS doesn't have support for ext4 natively I don't think you can use ext4 file systems for anything in XS.
ext4 would work if you can mount it as an ext type SR in XS, but you probably cant, and will have to use lvm type locally for large SR
If you want thin provisioning on large shared SRs, use NFS instead of iscsi.

This was all in that Xenserver book I just got and read through.

There is also The Tobias reply to this topic
http://discussions.citrix.com/topic/373709-adding-storage-to-xenserver/

This Xenserver 7 blog that states why ext4 support is missing in XS 7 (although it is coming in the future)
https://www.citrix.com/blogs/2016/06/30/xenserver-7-building-the-foundations-of-a-great-future/

You may be wondering why the move to CentOS 7 didn’t automatically mean that XenServer 7 acquired various features and mechanisms that CentOS 7 happens to have, such as SELinux or the XFS filesystem. This is because the domain 0 Linux platform is a component of the XenServer system (rather than XenServer being an application that runs on top of Linux) and is therefore tightly integrated into the overall system – when we upgrade components of the system our first priority is to ensure a like-for-like upgrade which preserves the integrity, functionality, quality, performance and security of the system. If the new component comes with new mechanisms that didn’t exist in the older version, we carefully consider if and how we can integrate those new mechanisms into the XenServer system (for example moving from ext3 to XFS would require careful consideration for XenServer upgrade and rollback use-cases and therefore isn’t a transparent change) – these additional integrations may come in later releases than the underlying component upgrade.

That's ridiculous. Id much rather have SELinux, XFS, and other advancements over backwards/forward compatibility. Give people real V2V tools and with that and xva's backwards/forward compatibility won't matter.