Re: question(s) about LVM snapshots

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]




On Oct 11, 2007, at 7:16 PM, William L. Maltby wrote:

On Thu, 2007-10-11 at 15:47 -0400, Tony Schreiner wrote:
I've recently begun to try out LVM snapshots and I have 2 things I'm
wondering about

My intention is to run backups off the snapshot. As a first
iteration, I left 15% of the disk for the snapshot LV.

1.
The HOWTO instructions suggest that the snapshot is in effect as long
as the snapshot LV exists, and use lvremove to disable the snapshot.
Is this the proper way?

I reviewd some code I wrote and tested during 8/06 and I did not remove
the logical volume. I just unmounted it. ISTR that my reading of stuff
at that time did *not* require the snapshot volume be removed.


2.
I chose 15% because the disk  is not that active and I think it will
be plenty for the duration of the backup I'm doing. Is there a way to
track how much space the snapshot is actually using?

My code seems to indicate that once the snapshot voluke is mounted, the
usual "df <options of your choice>" work just as on any other logical
volume.

BTW, this *may* have been LVM 1? Not sure now and haven't researched
since. But it did work great and the snapshot volume (IIRC) retains its
contents. This, I'm sure can be useful. Haven't really though about it
though.


Cheers,

Tony Schreiner
<snip sig stuff>

HTH (and that I'm correct)
--
Bill

When the snap shot volume is mounted, yes you can do df on it. But that shows you the state of the volume you take the snapshot of at the time of the snapshot. That's not what I want to know.

For example in my case

# vgdisplay
  --- Volume group ---
  VG Name               vg_data
.... snip ...
  VG Size               956.34 GB
  PE Size               4.00 MB
  Total PE              244824
  Alloc PE / Size       244824 / 956.34 GB
  Free  PE / Size       0 / 0

 # lvdisplay vg_data
  --- Logical volume ---
  LV Name                /dev/vg_data/lv_data
  VG Name                vg_data
... snip...
  LV Size                812.89 GB
  Current LE             208100
... snip ...

  --- Logical volume ---
  LV Name                /dev/vg_data/lv_backup
  VG Name                vg_data
,.. snip ...
  LV snapshot status     active destination for /dev/vg_data/lv_data
  LV Status              available
... snip ...
  LV Size                812.89 GB
  Current LE             208100
  COW-table size         143.45 GB
  COW-table LE           36724
... snip ...

the original volume has 208100 LEs, and the snapshot was created with 36724 LEs ( 85 % , 15 % ratio ).
mount the snapshot and do df

# df /data /data/backup
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/vg_data-lv_data
                      801G  289G  471G  39% /data
/dev/mapper/vg_data-lv_backup
                      801G  289G  471G  39% /data/backup


the snapshot on /data/backup is showing the disk free of the original.

If I'm understanding LVM snapshots, initially no blocks are changed on the snapshot volume, they get changed as the original volume changes until you disable the snapshot, and eventually you will run out of space to store that. That is what I'm trying to track.

Tony Schreiner
_______________________________________________
CentOS mailing list
CentOS@xxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos

[Index of Archives]     [CentOS]     [CentOS Announce]     [CentOS Development]     [CentOS ARM Devel]     [CentOS Docs]     [CentOS Virtualization]     [Carrier Grade Linux]     [Linux Media]     [Asterisk]     [DCCP]     [Netdev]     [Xorg]     [Linux USB]
  Powered by Linux