The Red Hat GFS2 file system is included in the Resilient Storage Add-On. It is a native file system that interfaces directly with the Linux kernel file system interface (VFS layer). When implemented as a cluster file system, GFS2 employs distributed metadata and multiple journals. Red Hat supports the use of GFS2 file systems only as implemented in the High Availability Add-On.
Although a GFS2 file system can be implemented in a standalone system or as part of a cluster configuration, for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 release Red Hat does not support the use of GFS2 as a single-node file system. Red Hat does support a number of high-performance single node file systems which are optimized for single node and thus have generally lower overhead than a cluster file system. Red Hat recommends using these file systems in preference to GFS2 in cases where only a single node needs to mount the file system.
Red Hat will continue to support single-node GFS2 file systems for mounting snapshots of cluster file systems (for example, for backup purposes).
Red Hat does not support using GFS2 for cluster file system deployments greater than 16 nodes.
GFS2 is based on a 64-bit architecture, which can theoretically accommodate an 8 EB file system. However, the current supported maximum size of a GFS2 file system is 25 TB. If your system requires GFS2 file systems larger than 25 TB, contact your Red Hat service representative.
When determining the size of your file system, you should consider your recovery needs. Running the
fsck.gfs2 command on a very large file system can take a long time and consume a large amount of memory. Additionally, in the event of a disk or disk-subsystem failure, recovery time is limited by the speed of your backup media. For information on the amount of memory the
fsck.gfs2 command requires, see
Section 3.11, “Repairing a File System”.
When configured in a cluster, Red Hat GFS2 nodes can be configured and managed with High Availability Add-On configuration and management tools. Red Hat GFS2 then provides data sharing among GFS2 nodes in a cluster, with a single, consistent view of the file system name space across the GFS2 nodes. This allows processes on different nodes to share GFS2 files in the same way that processes on the same node can share files on a local file system, with no discernible difference. For information about the High Availability Add-On refer to Configuring and Managing a Red Hat Cluster.
While a GFS2 file system may be used outside of LVM, Red Hat supports only GFS2 file systems that are created on a CLVM logical volume. CLVM is included in the Resilient Storage Add-On. It is a cluster-wide implementation of LVM, enabled by the CLVM daemon clvmd, which manages LVM logical volumes in a cluster. The daemon makes it possible to use LVM2 to manage logical volumes across a cluster, allowing all nodes in the cluster to share the logical volumes. For information on the LVM volume manager, see Logical Volume Manager Administration
The gfs2.ko kernel module implements the GFS2 file system and is loaded on GFS2 cluster nodes.
When you configure a GFS2 file system as a cluster file system, you must ensure that all nodes in the cluster have access to the shared storage. Asymmetric cluster configurations in which some nodes have access to the shared storage and others do not are not supported. This does not require that all nodes actually mount the GFS2 file system itself.
This chapter provides some basic, abbreviated information as background to help you understand GFS2. It contains the following sections:
1.1. New and Changed Features
This section lists new and changed features of the GFS2 file system and the GFS2 documentation that are included with the initial release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.
