Re: [RFC] LVM/RAID/FS integration

From: Phillip Susi
Date: Mon Jul 09 2007 - 14:10:24 EST


Kent Overstreet wrote:
The trouble is it's completely impractical with current tools; we need
tighter integration between md and LVM. Basically, we need a new type
of VG; you'd only be able to make it out of PVs that are the same size
(or close). Then, when you create an LV you decide what kind of
redundancy you want; the LVM internally creates multiple LVs and raids
them together to make the LV the fs sees.

In theory LVM is meant to handle the raid bits as well, once the mirror target is improved to properly handle error correction, and the raid5 target stabilizes. Thus md won't be needed, you will just need an interface between the filesystem and lvm.

This could, sort of, be done in userspace, but I think it'll work
better if dm and md are better integrated in the kernel. I thought i'd
throw out my ideas before I get too far in. Thoughts?

This is the kind of thing that should go in userspace. The filesystem should just fire off events that tell a userspace daemon things like "the raid5 volume is now at x% use" and let it choose the policy, possibly by asking lvm to resize the underlying volume, then sending a message back to the fs that the volume has been resized, and it can start using the extra space.

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