How To Build A Low Cost SAN

Krishna Kumar
April 9, 2009

1 OBJECTIVE
In today's world there is a obvious need of information sharing in every department and network
storage can help us to achieve this most growing challenge. Here in this article we are focusing our
concentration to make a San which has following features:
• Low cost and easily affordable
• Ensured Scalability
• High Reliability
• Easily Manageable
• High Performance
• Ensured Security
• High availability

2 Available Options For SAN

There are some options available to make a reliable San which is quite complex and expensive. These
are iSCSI, NBD, ENBD and FIBER CHANNEL. iSCSI, NBD, ENBD works on TCP/IP layer which
has much overhead. Luckily we have a protocol which can easily serve our purpose in a affordable cost
and less overhead. All we typically need is some dual-port Gig-E cards, a GiG-Ethernet switch and
some disks. This is a very simple and lightweight protocol and it is known as ATA OVER ETHERNET.
AoE comes with linux kernel as a kernel module. AoE does not rely on network layers above Ethernet,
such as the IP and TCP that iSCSI requires. While this makes AoE potentially faster than iSCSI, with
less load on the host to handle the additional protocols, it also means that AoE is not routable outside a
LAN. AoE is intended for SANs only. In this regard it is more comparable to Fiber Channel over
Ethernet than iSCSI. It export block devices (SATA HARD DISKS) over the network with a very high
throughput when coupled with a quality Ethernet switch. A qaulity Ethernet switch can maximize
throughput and minimize collisions through integrity checking and packet ordering. While using AoE
in a large scalable enterprise environment, we can take the help of RED HAT cluster aware tools like
CLVM, GFS, DLM, DRBD, HEARTBEAT etc-etc.

3 Cost Comparison among AoE, FC & iSCSI

Cost Comparison
Server
Technology Speed Switch Cabling Storage/TB
Interface
AoE 2Gb $99 $15-$30 $25-$35 $400-$500
$400-
iSCSI 1Gb $500-$1000 $25-$35 $1000-$5000
$600
Fiber $800- $175- $4000-
4Gb $1200-$2000
Channel $3600 $225 $10000
4 Comparison of AoE vs iSCSI

4.1 These are the following advantages of AoE over iSCSI

• AoE is cheap and simpler software stack. The advantage of AoE is that you don't have the
overhead of translating ATA to SCSI then back to ATA if you are using ATA drives. So there is a
performance pickup.
• Server processing load for iSCSI is much higher than AoE for equivalent throughput. AoE can
spare processing cycles. iSCSI requires TCP/IP and its requisite complexity.
• AoE is not a routable protocol. Therefore it provides you inherent security.
• AoE Ethernet frames are passed by standard switches.
• AoE and iSCSI both have initiator support for Windows and Linux.

4.2 Disadvantages of AoE over iSCSI

• If you need features such as encryption, routability and user-based access in the storage
protocol, iSCSI is a better choice.
• AoE is not much suitable for critical enterprise applications. AoE is not as scalable as iSCSI or
Fiber Channel when you consider location i.e., with Fiber Channel and iSCSI, you can scale
your storage throughout. This is primarily due to the inability of AoE to route AoE traffic.
• ATA disks are not as reliable as their SCSI counterparts.

5 Available AoE Targets

There are following AoE Targets (server) available on GPL:
• Kvblade
• Aoeserver
• Vblade-Kernel
• Vblade
• Ggaoed
• Qaoed

6 Feature Comparison of available AoE Targets

You can export your block-devices over the network by any of the available tar- gets. But the thing is
how we can export our block devices in a much configured and manageable way so that it can help us
to achieve our targets. These are the following features available by which you can configure your
block devices, either by command-line or by configuration file. These are the acronym followed in this
table for AoE targets:
• KV - Kvblade
• AOES - Aoeserver
• VB-KER - Vblade-kernel
• VB - Vblade
• GGOLD - Ggaoed base version
 • GGNW - Ggaoed updated version
• QD - Qaoed base version
• SD - Sqaoed (ported version of qaoed on Solaris 10)
Small description of all the features are given in terms and terminology section.
Features
FEATURE KV AOESVB-KER VB GGOLDGGNW QD SD
Shelf Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y
Slot Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y
Interface Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y
Device-path Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y
Conf-file N N N N Y Y Y N
MTU N N N N Y Y Y N
Mac-filtering N Y N Y Y Y Y N
ACL-listing N N N N Y Y Y N
Buffer Count N N Y Y Y Y N N
Sectors N N Y N N N N N
Queing N N N N Y Y N N
Logging-info N N N N Y Y Y N
Direct-Mode N N N Y Y Y Y N
Sync-Mode N N N Y N N N N
Read-only Mode N N N Y Y Y Y N
UUID N N N N Y Y Y N
Write Cache N N N N N N Y N
Policy N N N N Y Y Y N
Trace-i/o N N N N Y Y N N
Jumbo-Frames Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y
On GPL Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y
Reliability Low Med Low High High Med HighMed
Usability Low Med Low High High Med HighMed

7 AoE TARGET SETUP

The brief description of these targets and their setup procedure is described in this section. The
objective of this setup is to export the block device on the network. If you don't have spare block
device then you can treat your loop device as a block device using losetup command. In this section, all
the experiments are done on loop devices. We can replace /dev/loop0 by /dev/sda2 if we have spare
disks on our box.

7.1 KVBLADE

About Kvblade
Kvblade is a kernel module implementing the target side of the AoE protocol. Users can command the
module through sysfs to export block devices on speci- fied network interfaces. The loopback device
should be used as an intermediary for exporting regular files with kvblade.
Compilation and Installation
Download kvblade alpha3 :
[root@node1 ]# wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/aoetools/kvblade-alpha- 3.tgz
Untar this package:
[root@node1 ]# tar -xzvf kvblade-alpha-3.tgz
[root@node1 ]# cd kvblade-alpha-3
Compilation of this kernel module was done on FC7 (fedora 7):
[root@node1 kvblade-alpha-3]# uname -r
2.6.21-7.fc7xen
Do the following manipulation in kvblade.c file at line no. 3 and at line no. 66 : at line no. 3 : change
linux/config.h |> linux/autoconf.h at line no. 66: change ATA SERNO LEN |> ATA ID SERNO LEN
Since, linux kernel always keep changes their file name, api and data structures. So, we have done
above manipulation for successful compilation of this kernel module.
[root@node1 ]# make
[root@node1 kvblade-alpha-3]# make install
[root@node1 kvblade-alpha-3]# insmod kvblade.ko
Now your kvblade has cleanly compiled and installed on your system. Just run the following command
to verify it:
[root@node1 kvblade-alpha-3]# lsmod | grep kvblade
kvblade 17992 0

Creation of Block Devices

If you don't have free devices like /dev/sda4 or /dev/sda5 then you can treat your loop device as your
block device by using following command:
[root@node1 kvblade-alpha-3]# dd if=/dev/zero of=file.img bs=1M count=400
[root@node1 kvblade-alpha-3]# losetup /dev/loop0 file.img

Export those Block Devices by Kvblade

[root@node1 kvblade-alpha-3]# ./kvadd 0 0 eth0 /dev/loop0
Now you have exported your block device over network.

7.2 AOESERVER

About Aoeserver
Aoeserver is an in-kernel Ata Over Ethernet Storage target driver used to emu- late a Coraid
EtherDriver Blade. It is partly based on vblade and the aoe-client from the Linux 2.6-kernel.

Compilation and Installation

Download the src:
[root@node1 ]# svn checkout http://aoeserver.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ aoe- server
[root@node1 ]# cd aoeserver/aoeserver
Compilation of this kernel module has done on FC10 (fedora10) having kernel version 2.6.27.5-
117.fc10.i686
Comment line no. 362 and 380 of /aoeserver/linux/drivers/block/aoeserver/aoeproc.c file :
at line 362: /* remove proc entry(PROCFSNAME, &proc root) */
at line 380: /* remove proc entry(PROCFSNAME, &proc root) */
Now run make command:
[root@node1 aoeserver]# make
[root@node1 aoeserver]# make install
Insert the module:
[root@node1 aoeserver]# sh load.sh

Creation of Block Devices

[root@node1 aoeserver]# dd if=/dev/zero of=file1.img bs=1M count=400
[root@node1 aoeserver]# losetup /dev/loop1 file1.img

Export those Block Devices by Aoeserver

[root@node1 aoeserver]# echo add /dev/loop1 0 1 eth0 > /proc/aoeserver

7.3 VBLADE-KERNEL

About Vblade-kernel
Vblade-kernel is an AoE target emulator implemented as a kernel module for Linux 2.6.* kernels.

Compilation and Installation

Download vblade kernel:
[root@node1 krishna]# wget http://lpk.com.price.ru ~lelik/AoE/vblade-kernel- 0.3.4.tar.gz
[root@node1 krishna]# tar -xzvf vblade-kernel-0.3.4.tar.gz
[root@node1 krishna]# cd vblade-kernel-0.3.4
This kernel module has compiled on FC7 having kernel version 2.6.21-7.fc7xen Do the following
change in vblade.h file: at line no. 27 : linux/config.h {> linux/autoconf.h Do the following change in
main.c file : (skb linearize(skb, GFP ATOMIC) < 0) {> (skb linearize(skb) Now run make command to
compile:
[root@node1 vblade-kernel-0.3.4]# make
[root@node1 vblade-kernel-0.3.4]# insmod vb.ko

Creation of Block Devices

[root@node1 vblade-kernel-0.3.4]# dd if=/dev/zero of=file2.img bs=1M count=200
[root@node1 vblade-kernel-0.3.4]# losetup /dev/loop2 gile2.img
Export those Block Devices by Vblade-kernel
[root@node1 vblade-kernel-0.3.4]# echo add do /dev/loop2 > /sys/vblade/drives
[root@node1 vblade-kernel-0.3.4]# echo add eth0 0 2 32 8 > /sys/vblade/do/ports
Here eth0 is the interface, 0 is shelf, 2 is slot, 32 is the buffer(length of the request queue) and 8 is the
maximum number of sectors per request.

7.4 VBLADE

About Vblade
Vblade is the virtual EtherDrive (R) blade, a program that makes a seekable file available over an
ethernet local area network (LAN) via the ATA over Ethernet (AoE) protocol. Seekable file is typically
a block device like /dev/md0 but even regular files will work. Sparse files can be especially convenient.
When vblade exports the block storage over AoE it becomes a storage target. Another host on the same
LAN can access the storage if it has a compatible aoe kernel driver.

Compilation and Installation

Download vblade:
[root@node1 krishna]# wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/aoetools/vblade- 19.tgz
[root@node1 krishna]# tar -xzvf vblade-19.tgz
[root@node1 krishna]# cd vblade-19
[root@node1 krishna]# make
[root@node1 vblade-19]# make install

Creation of Block Devices

[root@node1 vblade-19]# dd if=/dev/zero of=newfile3.img bs=1M count=200
[root@node1 vblade-19]# losetup /dev/loop3 newfile3.img

Export those block devices by Vblade

[root@node1 vblade-19]# ./vbladed 0 3 eth0 /dev/loop3

7.5 GGAOED
Ggaoed is an AoE (ATA over Ethernet) target implementation for Linux. It utilizes Linux kernel AIO,
memory mapped sockets and other Linux features to provide the best performance. GGAOED comes in
two avour: Ggaoed base version and Updated Ggaoed.

7.5.1 Ggaoed base version

About it
This is the base version of ggaoed-0.9.tar.gz (release-0.9) released in July 2008. This can be
downloaded from following site: http://code.google.com/p/ggaoed/downloads/list
Compilation and Installation
Running ggaoed requires Linux kernel 2.6.22 or later. So, Its better that to run ggaoed on your box you
can have FC10 installed on your system.The following software is needed in order to build ggaoed:
• glibc 2.7 (built on Linux kernel 2.6.22 or later)
• libaio 0.3.107
• libatomic ops 1.2
• glib 2.12
• xsltproc and DocBook XML 4.5 stylesheets for building the documentation
Run following commands to compile GGAOED:
[root@node1 ggaoed-0.9]# ./configure
[root@node1 ggaoed-0.9]# make
[root@node1 ggaoed-0.9]# make install
Sample Configuration File(ggaoed.conf)
The format of sample configuration file is as follows:
example file: ggaoed.conf
[sdc]
path = /dev/sda2
shelf = 0
slot = 0
broadcast = true
read-only = true
queue-length=64
direct-io=true

Creation of Block Devices

Here we have taken /dev/sda2 which is unmounted. If you don't have your available unmounted
partition, then you can create your block device by using dd and losetup command.

Export those Block Devices by GGAOED

[root@node1 ggaoed-0.9]# ./ggaoed -c ggaoed.conf -d

7.5.2 Updated Ggaoed

Updated version of GGAOED has released in March 2009 according to the re- vised AOE protocol
specification in Feb 2009.

About It
The new GGAOED has released with updtaed features of AOE protocol like mac-filtering and acl-
listing.

Compilation and Installation

Download the source:
[root@node1 Desktop]# svn checkout http://ggaoed.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ ggaoed
[root@node1 Desktop]# cd ggaoed/
[root@node1 ggaoed]# autoreconf - - install
Comment the following line in Makefile.am at line no. 26: #SUBDIRS += doc
[root@node1 ggaoed]# ./configure
[root@node1 ggaoed]# make
[root@node1 ggaoed]# make install

Sample Configuration File(ggaoed.conf)

First create the directory for config file by running following command:
[root@node1 ]# mkdir -p /usr/local/var/ggaoed
Format of config file:
# Sample ggaoed configuration file
[defaults]
pid-file = /var/run/ggaoed.pid
[eth0]
mtu = 1500
[testdev]
path = /dev/loop0
direct-io = true
queue-length = 16
shelf = 0
slot = 0
interfaces = eth0 broadcast = true
read-only = true

Creation of Block Devices

[root@node1 ]# dd if=/dev/zero of=newfile.img bs=1M count=200
[root@node1 ]# losetup /dev/loop0 newfile.img

Export those Block Devices by GGAOED

[root@node1 ]# ./ggaoed -c ggaoed.conf -d

7.6 QAOED
Qaoed is a multithreaded ATA over Ethernet daemon that's easy to use, yet highly
configurable.QAOED also comes in two avours: qaoed and sqaoed.

7.6.1 QAOED (base version)

Compilation and Installation

You can download qaoed by following command:
[root@node1 Desktop]# svn checkout http://qaoed.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ qaoed
[root@node1 qaoed]# make
Creation of Block Devices
The block devices can be created as follows:
[root@node1 qaoed]#dd if=/dev/zero of=newfile6.img bs=1M count=200
[root@node1 qaoed]#losetup /dev/loop6 newfile6.img

Sample Configuration File

apisocket = /tmp/qaoedsocket; default
{
shelf = 0; /* Shelf */
slot = 6; /* Autoincremented slot numbers */
interface = eth0;
device
{
target = /dev/loop6;
}

Export those Block Devices by QAOED

[root@node1 qaoed]# ./qaoed -c qaoed.conf

7.6.2 SQAOED: Porting Qaoed on Solaris 10

Fubra decided to evaluate various platforms to help support our next genera- tion network
infrastructure (http://code.fubra.com/wiki/PortingQaoed). One of the platforms they are evaluating is
the Sun T5420, a high end Ultra Sparc, T2 dual processor with support for 64 threads per processors. It
was decided to port the Qaoed daemon to the Solaris platform, on both x86 and Ultra Sparc. Sqoaed
was the result of stripping out all the pthreads and reordering parts of the qaoed sources.

Compilation and Installation

Download the source from following site:
[root@node1 sqaoed]# svn co http://svn.fubra.com/storage/sqaoed/ trunk
[root@node1 sqaoed]# cd trunk/trunk
[root@node1 sqaoed]# make
[root@node1 sqaoed]# make install

Creation of Block Devices

[root@node1 trunk]# dd if=/dev/zero of=newfile7.img bs=1M count=200
[root@node1 trunk]# losetup /dev/loop7 newfile7.img

Export those Block Devices by QAOED

[root@node1 trunk]# ./sqaoed eth0 /dev/loop7 0 0
8 AoE Initiator Setup
On client side you must have aoe driver and aoe-tools installed on your system (refer to section AoE
Tools and Commands). You will find the corresponding exported block devices in your /dev/etherd
directory. You just have to run the following command:
[root@aoeclient trunk]# modprobe aoe
[root@aoeclient trunk]# lsmod j grep aoe
[root@aoeclient trunk]# aoe-stat
[root@aoeclient trunk]# ls -l /dev/etherd/
[root@aoeclient trunk]# mkfs.ext3 /dev/etherd/e0.0
[root@aoeclient trunk]# mount /dev/etherd/e0.0 /mnt
So, finally you have access on your exported block device. Now you are free to do any type of read,
write operation on this.

9 AoE Target Performance Graph

9.1 Hardware Used for Performance Measurement

In this experiment I have used following hardware to measure the disk i/o:
• 3 com super stack 24 port gigabyte switch
• gigabyte five port nic card160 GB Sata hard disk ? Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5450 @ 3.00 GHZ
• 24 GB RAM
My network supports following packet size:
[root@sigma13 ]# ifconfig eth0 mtu 9000
I have used FC7 and FC10 fedora OS because its' not possible to compile all the targets on same kernel.

9.2 Techniques to measure the disk i/o

After doing successful setup of all the available AoE targets, now its time to measure the disk i/o of
exported block device. The available options to measure the i/o of block devices are hdparam, iostat, dd
and some i/o tools like fio, bonnie, iozone, iometer etc.

9.3 Performance Graph with Fio

Here we have used fio (the i/o measurement tool) and plotted the performance graph. I have kept
following configuration in surface-scan file:
[global]
ethread=1
bs=128k
direct=1
ioengine=sync
verify=meta
verify pattern=0xaa555aa5
verify interval=512
[write-phase]
filename=/dev/etherd/e0.1 ; or use a full disk, for example /dev/sda
rw=write
fill device=1
do verify=0
[verify-phase]
stonewall
create serialize=0
filename=/dev/etherd/e0.1
rw=read
do verify=1
bs=128k

After setting the appropriate parameter in this file, just run the following com- mand against all the
available aoe targets to collect the required data for fol- lowing graph:
[root@aoeclient ]# fio surface-scan
The performance graph of AoE targets with fio in case of write operation is as follows:

Here X-axis denotes block-size in kilo-bytes and Y-axis denotes throughput in KB/sec (kilo-byte per
second).
The performance graph of AoE targets with fio in case of read operation is as follows:
9.4 Performance Graph with Bonnie-64
We can setup bonnie-64 by following commands:
[root@sigma13 bonnie-64-read-only]# mount /dev/etherd/e0.0 /mnt
[root@sigma13 bonnie-64-read-only]#./Bonnie -d /mnt/ -s 128
The performance graph of AoE targets with bonnie in case of write operation is as follows:

Here X-axis denotes file-size in mega-bytes and Y-axis denotes throughput in M/sec.

10 AoE Tools & commands

There are some tools and commands available to analyze aoe-traffic on the net- work.Run the
following commands to download and install these tools:
[root@node1 kk]# wget http://support.coraid.com/support/linux/aoe6-70.tar.gz
[root@node1 kk]# tar -xzvf aoe/root/Documents/Documents/diagram2.eps6- 70.tar.gz
[root@node1 kk]# cd aoe6-70
[root@node1 aoe6-70]# make
[root@node1 aoe6-70]# make install
Now you have installed the necessary aoe-tools and you are able to use the following commands:
• aoecfg - manipulate AoE configuration strings
• aoe-discover - tell aoe driver to discover AoE devices
• aoe-flush- flush the down devices out of the aoe driver
• aoe-interfaces - restrict aoe driver to specified network interfaces
• aoe-interfaces - restrict aoe driver to specified network interfaces
• aoe-mkdevs - create special device files for aoe driver
 • aoe-mkshelf - create special device files for one shelf address
• aoeping - simple communication with AoE device
• aoe-revalidate - revalidate the disk size of an aoe device
• aoe-stat - print aoe device status report
• aoe-version - print AoE-related software version information

11 Making of a Small SAN

Till now, we have seen the available targets, corresponding features and their performances. Now its
time to make a SAN based on the available disks and Gigabyte ethereal switch. So, following are the
steps to make a SAN.Well, while writing this article, I don't have the extra hard disks. So, I have
performed my experiment on 200 MB loop devices. In actual setup these loop devices will be replaced
by actual 200 GB hard disks. The basic diagram of our SAN is as follows:

11.1 Server Setup For SAN

Export two devices from server0

[root@server0]# dd if=/dev/zero of=file1.img bs=1M count=200
[root@server0]# dd if=/dev/zero of=file2.img bs=1M count=200
[root@server0]# losetup /dev/loop0 file1.img
[root@server0]# losetup /dev/loop1 file2.img
[root@server0 vblade-19]# losetup -a
[root@server0 vblade-19]# ./vbladed 0 0 eth0 /dev/loop0
[root@server0 vblade-19]# ./vbladed 1 0 eth0 /dev/loop1
Export two devices from server1
[root@server1]# dd if=/dev/zero of=file1.img bs=1M count=200
[root@server1]# dd if=/dev/zero of=file2.img bs=1M count=200
[root@server1]# losetup /dev/loop0 file1.img
[root@server1]# losetup /dev/loop1 file2.img
[root@server1 vblade-19]# losetup -a
[root@server1 vblade-19]# ./vbladed 0 1 eth0 /dev/loop0
[root@server1 vblade-19]# ./vbladed 1 1 eth0 /dev/loop1

11.2 Client Setup For SAN

Exported block-devices at Client:

Make sure that at client side you have latest AoE driver and corresponding tools installed. You can
check it out by following command:
[root@client1 krishna]# lsmod j grep aoe
If you don't have aoe driver at your box, you can download it from following mirror:
http://support.coraid.com/support/linux/
[root@client1 krishna]# aoe-version
aoetools: 29
installed aoe driver: 70
running aoe driver: 70
Now run following commands to access the exported block device at client:
[root@client1 krishna]# modprobe aoe
[root@client1 krishna]# aoe-stat e0.0 0.209GB eth0 1024 up
e0.1 0.209GB eth0 1024 up
e1.0 0.209GB eth0 1024 up
e1.1 0.209GB eth0 1024 up
So, you can see the exported block devices on your box.

Creation of Raid Array:

Mirroring from e0.0 and e0.1:
[root@client1 krishna]# mdadm -C /dev/md0 -l 1 -n 2 /dev/etherd/e0.0 /dev/etherd/e0.1
Mirroring from e1.0 and e1.1:
[root@client1 krishna]# mdadm -C /dev/md1 -l 1 -n 2 /dev/etherd/e1.0 /dev/etherd/e1.1
Create the stripe over the mirrors:
[root@client1 krishna]# mdadm -C /dev/md2 -l 0 -n 2 /dev/md0 /dev/md1
So, now we have following configuration of Raid Array:
[root@client1 krishna]# cat /proc/mdstat
Personalities : [raid1] [raid0]
md2 : active raid0 md1[1] md0[0]
409344 blocks 64k chunks
md1 : active raid1 etherd/e1.1[1] etherd/e1.0[0]
204736 blocks [2/2] [UU]
md0 : active raid1 etherd/e0.1[1] etherd/e0.0[0]
204736 blocks [2/2] [UU]
unused devices:

Convert RAID md2 into an LVM

Convert the RAID into an LVM physical volume:
[root@client1 krishna]# pvcreate /dev/md2
Create an extendible LVM volume group:
[root@client1 krishna]# vgcreate volgrp /dev/md2
[root@client1 krishna]# pvs
PV VG Fmt Attr PSize PFree
/dev/md2 volgrp lvm2 a- 396.00M 396.00M
[root@client1 krishna]# vgs
VG #PV #LV #SN Attr VSize VFree
volgrp 1 0 0 wz{n- 396.00M 396.00M
Create a logical volume using all the space:
[root@client1 aoedoc]# lvcreate -L 300M -n logicalvol volgrp
[root@client1 aoedoc]# lvs
LV VG Attr LSize
logicalvol volgrp -wi-a- 300.00M
So, finally we have created our logical volume having 300 MB size.
Create a filesystem:
[root@client1 aoedoc]# mkfs.ext3 /dev/volgrp/logicalvol
[root@client1 aoedoc]# mount -t ext3 /dev/volgrp/logicalvol /mnt/
[root@client1 aoedoc]# cd /mnt/
[root@client1 mnt]# mkdir aoe
[root@client1 mnt]# touch aoefile
[root@client1 mnt]# ls
aoe aoefile lost+found
So, finally your SAN is ready. If you want to resize your volgroup or want to add some more disks then
first unmount it and use vgextend, resize2fs for it.
12 AOE WITH VIRTUALIZATION

12.1 About XEN-AoE

XEN-AoE system takes maximum advantage of high-performance commodity computing power and
high efficiency IP-SAN technologies to deliver a virtual- ization solution which provides the highest
availability, performance, and best value possible in low cost. Xen-AoE is a cluster server architecture
which pro- vides more efficient use of cpu, disk, and memory resources than traditional servers with
zero single points of failure ensuring high availability and greater server maintainability. It does this by
utilizing:
• CPU virtualization
• Storage virtualization
• SAN technologies
• Decoupling of disk from CPU
• Commodity 64 bit x86 CPUs
• Commodity disk storage
• Gigabyte ethernet infrastructure

12.2 OBJECTIVE OF XEN-AoE EXPERIMENT

We have three xen machines booted on xen kernel of FC7. If you do not have your pc with xen kernel,
then please select the virtualization option while in- stallation and install your pc with XEN-kernel. The
objective of this lab is to export the block devices from node1 to node2 and create a DOMU (guest OS)
in node2. This DOMU will be created on exported block devices from node1 and it will contain a
minimum debian linux and one can easily do live migration of this DOMU from the second
node(node2) to third node(node3).

12.3 SETUP
The first step of XEN-AoE setup is to export two block devices of 4GB from node1 to node2:

Creation of two block devices of 4GB each

[root@node1 Desktop]# dd if=/dev/zero of=newfile1.img bs=1M count=4000
[root@node1 Desktop]# dd if=/dev/zero of=newfile2.img bs=1M count=4000
[root@node1 Desktop]# losetup /dev/loop0 newfile1.img
[root@node1 Desktop]# losetup /dev/loop1 newfile2.img
[root@node1 Desktop]# losetup -a

Creation of LVM on these two devices

[root@node1 Desktop]# pvcreate /dev/loop0
[root@node1 Desktop]# pvcreate /dev/loop1
[root@node1 Desktop]# pvs
[root@node1 Desktop]# vgcreate vgnode1.0 /dev/loop0
[root@node1 Desktop]# vgcreate vgnode1.1 /dev/loop1
[root@node1 Desktop]# vgs
[root@node1 Desktop]# lvcreate -L3G -n lvnode1.0 vgnode1.0
[root@node1 Desktop]# lvcreate -L3G -n lvnode1.1 vgnode1.1
[root@node1 Desktop]# lvs

Export these devices

[root@node1 vblade]# ./vbladed 0 0 eth0 lvnode1.0
[root@node1 vblade]# ./vbladed 0 1 eth0 lvnode1.1

Acess of these two block devices on node2 and creating an Raid array
[root@node2 Desktop]# modprobe aoe
[root@node2 Desktop]# aoe-stat
[root@node2 Desktop]# mdadm - -create /dev/md0 - -level=1 - -raid-devices=2
/dev/etherd/e0.0 /dev/etherd/e0.1
[root@node2 Desktop]# cat /proc/mdstat
[root@node2 Desktop]# mdadm - -detail /dev/md0
[root@node2 Desktop]# mkfs.ext3 /dev/md0

Creation of a Domu (containing debian linux) on raid array

Debootstrap is used to create a Debian base system from scratch, without re- quiring the availability of
dpkg or apt. It does this by downloading .deb files from a mirror site, and carefully unpacking them
into a directory which can eventually be chrooted into.
[root@node2 Desktop]# yum install debootstrap
[root@node2 Desktop]# mkdir /debian
[root@node2 Desktop]# mount /dev/md0 /debian
[root@node2 Desktop]# debootstrap - -arch i386 etch /debian

To get the console on DOMU

Please do some tricky things to get a console on your DomU. If you don't do this, it may be possible
that you don't get a terminal. Your mingetty will respawn and it will not show you the screen. So, be
careful to get the console. You can search on the net for available solutions:
https://lists.linux-foundation.org/pipermail/virtualization/2007-January/005478.html

[root@node2 Desktop]#cp /etc/passwd /etc/shadow /debian/etc

[root@node2 Desktop]#echo '/dev/sda1 / ext3 defaults 1 1' > /debian/etc/fstab
[root@node2 Desktop]#sed -ie 's/^[2-6]:/#/0/' /debian/etc/inittab

Making of a new initrd

Create a new initrd (initialization RAM Disk) without SCSI modules, and then use this to boot the
guest Linux operating system. If you don't do this then your booting may be fail. In my case I got the
message \kernel panic". Making of initrd can be achieved by following command:
[root@node2 Desktop]# mkinitrd - -omit-scsi-modules - -with=xennet - -with=xenblk -
-preload=xenblk initrd-$(uname -r)-no-scsi.img $(uname -r)
Setup the debian Xen configuration file xm-script /etc/xen/debian:
kernel = `/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.21-7.fc7xen'
ramdisk = `/boot/initrd-2.6.21-7.fc7xen-no-scsi.img'
memory = `238'
name = `debian'
root = `/dev/sda1 ro'
extra=\console=tty1 xencons=tty1"
dhcp = `dhcp'
vif = [ ` ']
disk = [ `phy:md0,sda1,w ']
on poweroff = `destroy '
on reboot = `restart '
on crash = `restart '

Now Everything has done to create a new guest os with debian Linux.

Start your DomU

[root@node2 /]# umount /dev/md0
[root@node2 /]# xm create -c debian
[root@node1 /]# xm list
So, finally your Dom U has created with debian linux. If everything is fine then, you can get the
terminal otherwise you can search on the net.

Live-Migration
Now it's time to migrate this virtual machine on node3. So, run the following command:
[root@node2 ]#xm migrate - -live debian node3

13 Conclusion
Fiber Channel and iSCSI customers are often looking for more than just storage. AoE is a simple
network protocol and its description is only eleven pages long, but it provides enough of a structure to
build exible, simple, and scalable storage solutions from inexpensive hardware like disks and gigabyte
switch. So, if you want a small San with no extra features in a low budget, then AOE is a better choice
rather than iSCSI and fiber channel. As there always has been a huge demand for low cost and exible
storage solutions, it is not feasible to increase the number of drives easily in either Fiber or iSCSI based
Sans. The ATA over Ethernet (AoE) protocol solves this issue to a large extent. However Fiber channel
solutions are the fastest of the three while iSCSI solutions are still most reliable.

14 Terms and Terminology

• Target : In AoE we call servers as target.
• Initiator : In AoE clients are known as initiators.
• Shelf : This is like major no. of driver. AoE target is bind on a particular shelf.
• Slot : This is like minor no. of driver. AoE target is bind on a particular slot.
• Interface : AoE target identifies the ethernet device that a device is exported on. The default
value is eth0 if no other value is set.
• Mac-filtering: To restrict the ethereal frame for particular mac ad- dresses, Mac-filtering is used.
• ACL : This is access control listing, which is used to set the access rights (like read/write) for a
 particular exported device. The access control list is also used to restrict the block device for
particular mac-address. Combination of more than one mac address is known as ACL-list.
• Buffers : Length of the request queue for the interface. Buffercount is specified number of 64kb
buffers for receiving packets. Sectors : Max no. of sectors per request.
• Queue-length: No. of active i/o request.
• Mtu : Force the specified MTU rather than the auto-detected value.
• Path : Path of the block device or file to export.
• Uuid : UUID stands for Universally Unique Identifier, it gives each filesys- tem a unique
identifier. You can specify the device either by their path or by uuid.
• Accept : A comma separated list of ACL-entries where the devices are allowed to receive the
command from.
• Deny : A comma separated list of ACL-entries from where the devices are not allowed to
receive the command from.
• Direct-IO : Direct I/O is a feature of the file system whereby file reads and writes go directly
from the applications to the storage device, bypass- ing the operating system read and write
caches.
• Buffered-IO : Most file system I/O is buffered by the operating system in its file system buffer
cache. The idea of buffering is that if a process attempts to read data that is already in the cache,
then that data can be returned immediately without waiting for a physical I/O operation.
• Write Cache : For the write-back setting, the operating system sends data to the controller to
write to a storage device. Subsequently, the controller sends a confirmation to the operating
system before actually writing the data to the storage device. Doing so increases performance,
but also contains an element of risk. For example, if there is a power failure, the data currently
in the controller cache is lost. This is no risk when using a controller with a battery-backup
cache. The battery preserves the data in the controller cache in the event of a power failure.
Turn on or off write cache, defaults to on.
• Trace-io : If set to true, then all I/O requests received by the daemon will be logged. Note that
this may produce a huge volume of messages on a heavy used server so this option should only
be enabled for debugging purposes. Valid values are true and false. The default value is false.
• Policy : There can be two type of policy based on the mac address and corresponding access-
list: like accept, reject.
• losetup : A command to treat loop device as a block device.