NetApp: Checking LUN stats

From time to time a NetApp admin wants to know which of his/her LUNs is eating up i/o or which is busy at a point in time. Following cli command is very handy.

lun stats -c -i

As an example:

lun stats -c 5 -i 5

Which is saying show LUN stats with a count of 5 times at an interval of 5 seconds.

The output will look like.

Read Write Read Write Average Queue Lun

Ops Ops kB kB Latency Length

1 33 26 272 0.22 0.09 /vol/fc_vmware2/fc_vmware2/fc_vmware2.lun

0 0 3 0 20.00 26.03 /vol/sql12/sql12/sql12

0 0 0 3 0.00 2.01 /vol/sql21/sql21/sql21

0 2 0 1 0.10 1.01 /vol/fc_vmware1/fc_vmware1/fc_vmware1.lun

0 2 0 5 0.23 4.09 /vol/exchlog1/exchlog1/exchlog1.lun

0 0 0 2 4.33 4.09 /vol/exchdb1/exchdb1/exchdb1.lun

—

1 6 21 66 0.72 1.00 /vol/fc_vmware2/fc_vmware2/fc_vmware2.lun

0 0 0 0 0.00 0.09 /vol/sql1/sql1/sql1

0 1 0 0 0.00 0.09 /vol/fc_vmware1/fc_vmware1/fc_vmware1.lun

—

7 64 116 1154 0.38 1.00 /vol/fc_vmware2/fc_vmware2/fc_vmware2.lun

0 1 0 5 0.00 0.09 /vol/sql21/sql21/sql21

3 0 28 0 7.00 2.01 /vol/sql2/sql2/sql2

0 1 0 0 0.00 0.08 /vol/fc_vmware1/fc_vmware1/fc_vmware1.lun

0 0 0 0 0.00 4.00 /vol/exchlog4/exchlog4/exchlog4.lun

—

0 3 6 20 0.00 0.08 /vol/fc_vmware2/fc_vmware2/fc_vmware2.lun

0 0 0 0 0.00 0.08 /vol/sql11/sql11/sql11

0 0 0 0 0.00 3.00 /vol/exchlog3/exchlog3/exchlog3.lun

0 2 0 1 0.00 1.02 /vol/fc_vmware1/fc_vmware1/fc_vmware1.lun

Read Write Read Write Average Queue Lun

Ops Ops kB kB Latency Length

0 7 7 45 0.92 1.00 /vol/fc_vmware2/fc_vmware2/fc_vmware2.lun

0 0 0 3 0.00 1.00 /vol/sql21/sql21/sql21

0 0 0 0 0.00 0.08 /vol/sql1/sql1/sql1

0 1 0 0 0.00 0.09 /vol/fc_vmware1/fc_vmware1/fc_vmware1.lun

Showing the read/write in ops/kBs as well as latency of a LUN.

My Mobile Computing Arsenal

I’m asked all the time either “what is it that you carry in your laptop/messenger bag” or “what critical things would/do you carry in your mobile computing life.” Figured that it would be simpler just to post the list.

- Bontrager messenager bag

- Laptop – either my 13″ MacBook Pro or my Dell E6510

- Motorola Droid

- BlueAnt V1 bluetooth headset – for use with Droid, Skype or Google Voice/Chat

- Klipsch S4 headphones

- Power Supply – either for the Macbook or the E6510.

- Mouse

- Spare MacBook or E6510 Battery

- 12ft Cat5e cable

- AirPort Express

- MacAlly USB/Firewire 2.5 external drive

- GoldX® PlusSeries QuickConnect Hi-Speed USB 12 in 1 kit

- Mini DisplayPort to DVI adapter

- DVI to VGA adapter

- 6 to 1 Mini card reader

- 1 8gb flash drive

- 1 16gb flash drive

- USB adapter/charger for Droid

- USB adapter/charger for BlueAnt V1

- USB to Serial Adapter (IOGear)

- USB to Audio out/Mic in

- USB to power for MacAlly External Drive

- AC/DC to USB adapter

- Cisco Serial Cable

- Small spool of velcro

- Surefire 6P with LED flashlight

- 4 Spare AA batteries

- 2 Spare 3volt SureFire Batteries

- Leatherman 830160 Surge Pocket Multitool with Leather Sheath

- Leatherman 934870 40 Bit Assortment with Nylon Sheath

- Mini Notebook pad

- 1 pencil

- 2 pens

- 1 highlighter

- 1 fine tipped Sharpie

Connecting USB to Serial on OS X

I do a lot of router, switch and firewall configuration all of which requires connecting via serial for the initial configuration. I’ve always looked for a quick and easy solution to use my Macbook Pro for this purpose but in the past I’ve always resorted to remembering the /dev device name for my USB to Serial adapter. In writing this I hope this little HOWTO will help other Macbook users.

Step 1: Purchase a USB to Serial Adapter. I recommend the IOgear GUC232A. Install the OS X driver provided by IOGear.

Step 2: Download iTerm.

Step 3: Install iTerm.

Step 4: Launch iTerm.

Step 5: Since iTerm defaults to the local cli of your system do a quick listing of the /dev directory.

Inspect the output of the “ls” look for at all the tty* devices.

Step 5: Connect your USB to Serial adapter.

Step 6: Re-run command to list the directory contents of /dev. There should be a new tty device listed which is your USB to serial adapter.

In this case my GUC232A is the tty.PL2303-00001004.

Step 7: Now lets setup a iTerm “Bookmark” with the serial connection settings that are needed.

Step 8: Click on the “+” button to add a new iTerm Bookmark.

Step 9: In the Bookmark Name field put in whatever you’d like but I would recommend something that tells you what this bookmark is doing.

Step 10: In the “Command” field put in a command that looks like.

screen /dev/tty.PL2303-00001004 9600

9600 is the speed of which you’d like the serial communication to be. When finished click “OK”

Step 11: Close the Bookmarks window and when back to the main iTerm window press the keyboard combination…

command+b

This will bring up the Bookmarks side panel with all your Bookmarks.

To launch the new serial setting simply click on the bookmark.

Apple’s AirPort Extreme: A Presonal Review

Recently I was asked to setup an Apple AirPort Extreme for a friend. So I was luck enough to spend a couple days with it before I installed it. This blog post is just a few thoughts I had about the AirPort Extreme and couple issues that I found with the unit.

Don’t get me wrong the Air Port Extreme is beautiful to look at. I assume that Apples design process for their engineers is “We need you to fit all those electronics into this package.” This goes for all their products which are all equally aesthetically pleasing.

The Good:

• 3 GigE Switch ports. Very handy if you are setting up a home network and require a GigE for streaming audio and video.
• A USB port that can share out printers or USB storages devices via afp or smb. Multiple devices can be connected shared from it via a USB hub.
• Setup is a breeze with the Apple AirPort Utility, but the AirPort Utility is also a con.
• UPDATED: With the purchase of Apple’s Airport Express an Airport Extreme’s wireless network can be extended in rooms that have weak coverage. Also with an Airport Express a wired network can be Bridged using the Extreme’s wireless.

The Bad:

• Price: AirPort Extreme runs roughly $180. Ouch!
• The top of the unit gets REALLY warm.
• Since the AirPort Utility is required for the setup and changes of the device you have to have the utility installed on either a Mac or a Windows based PC. A web interface would have been much better.
• No DynDNS or any other Dynamic DNS options. This is really handy if you are connecting back into your home via the internet. That is if your provider does not use static IPs with your cable or dsl modem.

How to Restore a Virtual Machine from a Netapp Snapshot

Step 1. SSH into the Netapp Filer to which contains the virtual machine that you wish to restore.

Step 2. Once SSH into the Filer check to see what snapshots are available. Run a…

df -h

..to display all the volumes, which should display something like.

/vol/vmware0/ 200GB 143GB 56GB 72% /vol/vmware0/
/vol/vmware0/.snapshot 50GB 975MB 49GB 2% /vol/vmware0/.snapshot
/vol/vmware1/ 200GB 143GB 56GB 72% /vol/vmware1/
/vol/vmware1/.snapshot 50GB 975MB 49GB 2% /vol/vmware1/.snapshot
/vol/vmware2/ 640GB 253GB 386GB 40% /vol/vmware2/
/vol/vmware2/.snapshot 0GB 17GB 0GB —% /vol/vmware2/.snapshot
/vol/vmware3/ 640GB 187GB 452GB 29% /vol/vmware3/
/vol/vmware3/.snapshot 0MB 11MB 0MB —% /vol/vmware3/.snapshot

Step 3. Now run snap list plus the volume name to display the snapshot of that volume.

snap list vmware3

Output should like something like.

Volume vmware3
working…
%/used %/total date name
———- ———- ———— ——–
0% ( 0%) 0% ( 0%) Mar 13 12:00 hourly.0
0% ( 0%) 0% ( 0%) Mar 13 11:00 hourly.1
0% ( 0%) 0% ( 0%) Mar 13 10:00 hourly.2
0% ( 0%) 0% ( 0%) Mar 13 09:00 hourly.3
0% ( 0%) 0% ( 0%) Mar 13 08:00 hourly.4
0% ( 0%) 0% ( 0%) Mar 13 07:00 hourly.5
0% ( 0%) 0% ( 0%) Mar 13 00:00 nightly.0
0% ( 0%) 0% ( 0%) Mar 12 00:00 nightly.1

Pick a snapshot that you believe was the last known good data.

* Note: your volume name may differ.

Step 4. Now list the current luns and the their path.

lun show all

This should display something like the following.

/vol/vmware0/vmware0/vmware0.lun 200g (214748364800) (r/w, online, mapped)
/vol/vmware1/vmware1/vmware1.lun 200g (214748364800) (r/w, online, mapped)
/vol/vmware2/vmware2/vmware2.lun 320.0g (343645618176) (r/w, online, mapped)
/vol/vmware3/vmware3/vmware3.lun 320.0g (343645618176) (r/w, online, mapped)

Step 5. With the source LUN path we’ll now let create a cloned lun of the vmware volume from the snapshot. Since this is a cloned volume it will consume no space as it uses the block pointers from the snapshot from the base lun. The command to create the lun clone is…

lun clone create [-o noreserve] -b

Example:

lun clone create /vol/vmware3/restore.lun -o noreserve -b /vol/vmware3/vmware3/vmware3.lun nightly.1

* Note: be sure to use the “-o noreserve” otherwise this may cause issues with space.

Step 6. To make the cloned lun viewable by the VMware vCenter interface it needs to be added to an igroup viewable to the ESX host servers/clusters. Now it is possible to create a new igroup and add the new storage and ESX hosts to it but it is much easier to just use the one currently in use. To view the igroups on a Filer the command is…

igroup show

…this should display something like:

vmware (iSCSI) (ostype: vmware):
iqn.1998-01.com.vmware:elm-30c07ddd (logged in on: prod1, iscsi1)
iqn.1998-01.com.vmware:teak-5f0894ae (logged in on: prod1, iscsi1)
iqn.1998-01.com.vmware:bamboo-7434706b (logged in on: prod1, iscsi1)

Step 7. So from the above there is a “vmware” igroup that several ESX hosts are attaching to. So to map the cloned lun to the “vmware” igroup the command is as follows:

lun map /vol/vmware3/restore.lun vmware

Step 8. Now from the VMware vCenter select a ESX host server.

Step 9. Click on the “Configuration” Tab.

Step 10. Select “Storage Adapters.”

Step 11. Click “Rescan.”

Step 12. Now click “Storage” and the cloned lun should be listed.

Step 13. Right click on the new cloned datastore it should start with “snapXXXXXXXXX” and select open.

Step 14. At this point the all the virtual machines that are in the clone should be listed in the new window. In the window’s right pane you should be able to right click on the directory containing the VM(s) that you want to restore and copy them.

Step 15. Now go back to the vCenter interface and Right click on the datastore that you want to copy the restored VM to and select open.

Step 16. In the new window right pane select paste. This should copy the VM from the cloned lun to the production lun storage.

Things that Apple Needs to Improve

For the record I’m primarily a Linux user I run linux on my work laptop, home workstation and server. I’ve always admired Mac’s from a far and secretly wanted one, though I never confessed this to my fellow linux friends. About a week ago I purchased my first Mac a shinny new MacBook and so far I’ve enjoyed getting familiar with it – but… Along the way I’ve found a few things that I think that Apple needs to improve on. They are as follows.

• Network Share Mapping/Mounting – This really needs to improve. I mean SMB/CIFS shares have been around for what 15+ years and “Go -> Connect to Server” is the best that Apple can muster!?! Even linux does a better job.

• Make and Sell Real docking stations (revolutionary in design) – The Bookendz docks for MacBooks and Macbook Pro’s are fugly and from an aesthetic perspective do not go with the beauty that Mac’s are. Apple should really look at developing something that uses magnetic induction charging and wirelessly interfaces with the dock that USB/Firewire devices and Speakers are connected to. No one wants to fuss with the cable mess that Macbooks offer when going between home and work.

• Develop an email client that interfaces with Exchange. Sorry Apple but Microsoft has won in the corporate environment with Exchange. This was grasped when developing the iPhone but lost with OS X. Asking customers to pay another $100 to buy Microsoft office to get Entourage on top of their already expensive apple computer is a bitter pill.

Just food for though from a new Mac user.

NM Ubuntu LoCo and Our EPC Project gets mentioned by Ubuntu Podcast

How very cool!  Our local Ubuntu user group the Ubuntu NM LoCo gets mentioned during the Ubuntu Podcast for our EPC project.  Please check it out.

http://ubuntupodcast.net/

Music Collection as a Service?

I’m a huge music fan.  My music tastes range from Antonio Vivaldi to Slayer and anything in between.  As a music fan I have a large collection of digital music that I’ve collected over the years,  I created my first mp3 in 1992, that I maintain some 300+gb.  To maintain the collection I have to buy not one but two drives, one for the main collection and one for backup copies, each time my collection grows beyond it’s current storage.  This is getting pricey and to be honest kind of a pain to run a weekly backup for the collection and store one drive off site in the event something happens to my home (i.e. fire, flood, whatever).

We all know that there’s been a constant battle between those who would like to have their music in a digital format that they can use anywhere any time and the RIAA whom wants to control, to their fault, the format and how we use music. I suggest a compromise.  I as a consumer do not want the hassle of maintaining a digital music collection but I want my music in a digital form that can be used anywhere anytime. So why not offer a service that instead of downloading music can browsed through any or all music ever and stream any genre, artist, albums. singles, playlist that I like to any device.  I would gladly pay for such a service.  It’s a win/win for both the consumer and the RIAA.

One way of doing this is to open Apple’s iTunes store for streaming.  Apple already has agreements with the various music companies and the RIAA,  it has a huge collection already online, and an interface that is user friendly.

Just an idea.

Ubuntu November 2007 Cummunity Report

See what the Ubuntu Teams are up to..

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/TeamReports/November2007