This chapter discusses the following:
Appliance Manager is a web-based interface that lets you configure, manage, and monitor a storage server solution. You can use Appliance Manager to do the following:
Perform initial system configuration using the Setup Wizard
Manage and install SGI software licenses
Configure the system components
Perform general system administration tasks
Monitor the state and performance of the storage server, including the following:
CPU utilization
Disk utilization
Network throughput
Services
Review historical data describing the state and performance of the storage server
View connected clients and determine how each of these contribute to the current workload
Detect and investigate problems
Create CXFS filesystems, add and delete CXFS client-only nodes, monitor CXFS filesystems and nodes, and download CXFS client software to client-only nodes
Monitor the Data Migration Facility (DMF), perform certain DMF configuration tasks, and download DMF client software to DMF client nodes
Note: DMF is a hierarchical storage management system for SGI environments. Consult the release notes for the procedure to activate the DMF monitoring screens. Create, delete, and manage NFS and CIFS exported filesystems
Note: Reverse lookup for NFS clients must be properly configured in the DNS server because the NFS server will always try to do a reverse lookup on client IP addresses. Improper configuration will cause delays. Create, delete, and manage iSCSI block-level devices
To access the Appliance Manager features, click one of the menu options displayed across the top of the Appliance Manager screen. As you page through Appliance Manager, your location is shown below the menu options. You can also click an item in this path to directly access that location. For example, Figure 1-1 shows the screen you would see if you selected the CPU Utilization item from the Resources category on the Monitoring menu page. The menu path is shown in this guide in the following format:
Monitoring -> Resources -> CPU Utilization
The menu options are as follows:
| Summary | Displays a graphic summary of system utilization, including CXFS filesystem and node status (if CXFS is licensed and installed), number of alerts, CPU usage, disk space, disk throughput, network throughput, current clients, and uptime. See “System Summary” in Chapter 4. |
| Monitoring | Lets you monitor features in the following categories:
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| Management | Lets you perform tasks in the following categories:
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| Site Map | Displays an index of direct links to each screen that Appliance Manager displays. |
| Help | Displays this guide, the release notes, and legal information about Appliance Manager. |
| Log In | Displays the management log-in screen, in which you enter the administration password that enables you to make changes with Appliance Manager and use the Management screens. (No password is required to use the Monitoring screens.) You must also enable cookies. |
| Log Out | Allows you to exit from the management function but still access monitoring functions. (After you have logged in, the menu selection changes to Log Out.) |
| Note: Features documented in this guide are only available if the required software is installed for DMF and CXFS. |
| Note: The snapshot feature is not available with CXFS or DMF filesystems, or for iSCSI exported block devices. |
The XVM snapshot feature provides the ability to create virtual point-in-time images of an XFS filesystem without causing a service interruption.
The snapshot feature requires a minimal amount of storage because it uses a copy-on-write mechanism that copies only the data areas that change after the snapshot is created.
Snapshot copies of a filesystem are virtual copies, not actual media backup for a filesystem. You can, however, use a snapshot copy of a filesystem to create a backup dump of a filesystem, allowing you to continue to use and modify the filesystem while the backup runs.
You can also use a snapshot copy of a filesystem to provide a recovery mechanism in the event of data loss due to user errors such as accidental deletion. A full filesystem backup, however, is necessary in order to protect against data loss due to media failure.
Creating filesystem snapshots requires that you first create a snapshot repository in which original copies of regions of data that have changed on the filesystem are stored. If you plan to use the snapshot feature, you must allow room for the snapshot repository on the RAID when you create the filesystems.
Snapshots are read-only. The oldest snapshot will be deleted automatically after all space in the snapshot repository has been used. You cannot delete intermediate snapshots.
Appliance Manager includes pages designed to aid the administration and maintenance of a DMF configuration. By default, it presents the most commonly altered parameters for inspection and alteration. However, the expert mode presents a far larger number of parameters. You should use expert mode with care. Both normal mode and expert mode exclude those parameters that are deprecated or are specific to resource scheduler or resource watcher stanzas.
The DMF pages allow you to edit the contents of existing stanzas; creating new stanzas and deleting old ones is not supported. Also, some parameters can be dangerous to change; these are displayed but may not be altered. This includes those that control the search order of volume groups or media-specific processes (MSPs) when recalling files.
To allow you to work around these restrictions, there is a page that allows the DMF configuration file to be edited directly. You may find the dmf.conf(5) man page and the DMF 4 Administrator's Guide for SGI InfiniteStorage useful.
There is also a page that invokes the dmcheck command, which performs a syntax and sanity check on a DMF configuration. You should run this after making any changes.
Most common DMF configurations are supported; however, there are some limitations. Specifically, the following are assumed to be true:
The OpenVault mounting service is preferred. Ejection and injection of tape volumes from and into a tape library is disabled if the Tape Management Facility (TMF) is in use, but the other functions are supported for both OpenVault and TMF.
All tapes that are ejected and injected using the Appliance Manager interface are for use by a DMF volume group or allocation group. Other tapes may reside in the library, but they cannot be managed by the Appliance Manager pages.
Each DMF library server only manages a single tape library. Appliance Manager will refer to the library by using the name of the library server. Use of more than one tape library per library server is not supported by the tape injection and ejection pages.
Each DMF drive group is associated with an OpenVault drive group or a TMF device group of the same name.