Solaris 10: Configuring ZFS Scrub via SMF

Solaris 10: Configuring ZFS Scrub via SMF

Abstract:
The new packaging routines for OpenSolaris omit the use of pre and post installation routines common to SVR4 packaging, for the purpose of simplification. The new SMF (Service Management Facility) can be leveraged to provide these capabilities. The creation of a regular repetitive operation such as ZFS Scrub can be packaged and run via SMF. This can be wrapped in an OpenSolaris feature called "Visual Panels" to provide a GUI.


Background:
When Solaris had been merged with SVR4, the SVR4 Package standard was implemented for software installation and FMLI (Form and Menu Language Interpreter) would handle textual based GUI's. Some SVR4 variants released XFMLI, in order to wrap "fmli" into a standard X Windows GUI. With the creation of OpenSolaris, the iPkg was created through the inclusion of a Debian Linux developer. With the release of Solaris 10, SMF, a new mechanism to manage hierarhal service under Solaris was created, to merge both start/stop scripts as well as inetd servies. Shortly after Solaris 10's release, ZFS was released, in order to provide for enhanced file system management. OpenSolaris added "Visual Panels", to help provide a facility to replace "fmli".

ZFS:
The ZFS system performs error detection and correction through the use or CRC and parity, depending on the level of redundancy the user requires (and selects.) The "zpool" command handles most of the bottom-end functionality. The occasional "scrub" should be performed on-line via "zpool scrub" command, to ensure the integrity of on-line data, forcing the ZFS system to check all of the CRC's, and apply available parity information against silent data corruption.

The availability of scrub information can be acquired via the "zpool status" command, but it was not persistent across reboots. To simulate this bug without a reboot, the "zpool export" and "zpool import" commands can be used, after which time any scrub information would disappear. Constantin Gonzalez implemented CR6878281 to make this information persistent. A work-around needed to be created in order to make available information persistent.

ZFS has the ability to retain user defined properties at the file system level, but not at the zpool level. A user-defined property to hold the last scrub date at the upper most file system level can be implemented as a work-around for the work-around to provide a persistent location for the zpool last scrub data element. The "zfs" command handles many of the higher-layer features.

In order to set the property, the "zfs set =" can be used. To find the formerly set property, the "zfs get " can be used. To delete the property, the "zfs inherit " can be used, which forces Solaris to delete and not create a new property, since the parent zpool does not have that property in existence!


SMF:
The Service Management Facility can be used to start, stop, and monitor various infrastructures within the operating system. The "svcs" command will show the active services with their states while the "svcadm" command will allow for the adjusting of those states. Start, stopping, and restarting of services can be done with "svcadm start ", "svcadm stop ", and "svcadm restart ".


Visual Panels:
A modern Java based system, "Visual Panels" ascribes to a client-server model, where any platform can run the GUI. (Ben Rockwood at cuddletech.com has a short introduction to it.) The Panels talk to "Management Beans" located in a "JMX Management Agent", which do all the heavy lifting. There already exists an "SMF Bean" which can do the "SMF" configuration changes for custom panels. The "NetBeans" development platform allows for wiring.

Tying Everything Together.
Consantin Gonzalez produced a video series to describe how this can all be tied together in OpenSolaris. This is a great model for developers to use in order to migrate their system to modern Solaris infrastructures. Constantin has moved his main blogging to a new location.

Some of the ZFS Scrub concepts were based upon Tim Fosters (new location) Auto-Snapshot work.