ZFS plugin works almost perfectly on Netgear ReadyDATA

[tuxmin]

Hi Proxmox team,

you may be interested to know that I successfully tested the new ZFS plugin (comstar provider, 64k blocksize) on a ReadyDATA 516
The ReadyDATA storage systems are running ReadyDATAOS but under the hood they are nexenta based.

root@Storage01:~# uname -a
SunOS Storage01 5.11 NexentaOS_134f i86pc i386 i86pc Solaris

So I thought it's worth a try.

Here's a list of things that were working out of the box:

- VM creation/deletion with multiple LUNs
- running multiple VMs under IO high load
- Snapshots: creation/deletion/reverting
- cloning
- backup/restore

all in all I must say it works pretty stable!


There is one flaw, though. All the changes that the ZFS plugin does on the storage device directly are not reflected in the GUI. I.e. from the GUI you cannote tell that a LUN has been created. You cannt even tell that storage space has been reserved.
I contacted the Netgear support in order to find out how this could happen. Actually I didn't even expect that they would reply anything but "unsupported scenario" from their side, however, they appear pretty helpful. Here's what they wrote me:

* I can see why Proxmox is pursuing the ZFS plugin (allows them to address a wide variety of ZFS storage products). A CLI-created volume does show up in the UI ("Volume01"), but you may have to follow our reservation scheme for shares and LUNs to show up in the UI. Do you know what command Proxmox is using to create LUNs?
* When the plug-in supports creation of snapshots, we can work with you on a naming scheme so that the snaps show in our UI. In short, you will need to prefix the name with "m_".

Would you possibly be willing to extend the ZFS plugin in order to support the Netgear ReadyDATA devices?
I would happily do the testing or provide any more necessary information you would need.



Best,

alex

 

[mir]

Assuming:
- pool is named 'tank'
- volume to be crated is named 'vm-100-disk-1'
- volume size '10240k'

Create a volume: zfs create -b 4k -V 10240k tank/vm-100-disk-1
Create a LUN: stmfadm create-lu -p wcd=false -p guid=600144f3e1d40049f7e895e870eb9633 /dev/zvol/rdsk/tank/vm-100-disk-1
Create view: stmfadm add-view 600144f3e1d40049f7e895e870eb9633

There is currently a patch prepared for nexenta which has special requirements for creating the LUN.

 

[tuxmin]

Hi Mir,

thanks for your answer!
Do you also know which cammands are used to create snapshots?

And what does your last remark imply? What special requirements would that?
Will the ZFS plugin possibly not work at all on non-nexenta-base products anymore?


Cheers,

alex

 

[mir]

snapshot: zfs snapshot tank/vm-100-disk-1@<user-name-entered-in-gui>

Nexenta Core will also only recognize a LUN provided the LUN is created with Nexenta API.

The ZFS plugin uses the generic ZFS commands which is part of the basic ZFS install so it should work on any ZFS based OS.

 

[aderumier]

snapshot: zfs snapshot tank/vm-100-disk-1@<user-name-entered-in-gui>

Nexenta Core will also only recognize a LUN provided the LUN is created with Nexenta API.

The ZFS plugin uses the generic ZFS commands which is part of the basic ZFS install so it should work on any ZFS based OS.

Hi, I'm not sure nexenta core have nexentastor api. (only nexentastor community and nexentastor commercial).

 

[tuxmin]

Maybe I should have noted that the ReadyDATAOS does not provide the Nexenta-API!
The Netgears guys are working on some API but afaik it will not be compatible to nexenta, VAAI
or anything else out in the wild... sigh...

Cheers,

alex