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xfs_freeze returns 'operation not supported'

Posted: 2010/09/12 18:15:20
by h_fat
After yum-upgrading to CentOS5, the only regression I noticed (so far) is that 'xfs_freeze -f' now returns 'xfs_freeze: cannot freeze filesystem at /mountpoint: Operation not supported'. It doesn't look like it's a problem with the upgrade as the xfs packages installed are the EL5 packages (according to yum) and xfs_freeze -V returns the CentOS5 version number. The same error message is returned when trying to freeze fresh filesystems created with with mkfs.xfs

Does xfs_freeze work for any of you?

xfs_freeze returns 'operation not supported'

Posted: 2010/09/12 23:18:41
by toracat
[quote]
h_fat wrote:
After yum-upgrading to CentOS5, ... [/quote]
You mean you upgraded from CentOS-4 to -5 using yum? It is not a recommended path.

Anyway, what is the output from:

rpm -qa --qf "%{name}-%{version}-%{release}.%{arch}\n" | grep xfs

and

/sbin/modinfo xfs

Re: xfs_freeze returns 'operation not supported'

Posted: 2010/09/12 23:26:18
by toracat
Also ... I have a newer version (3.0.0-1) of xfsprogs and xfsdump if you wish to give it a try:

http://centos.toracat.org/misc/testing/xfs/

Please note that they are offered for testing purpose, so I would appreciate feedbacks.

Re: xfs_freeze returns 'operation not supported'

Posted: 2010/09/12 23:36:15
by h_fat
Well, so far as I can determine, it's the only path for me. And it seems to be the only path which is documented and produces error messages. I'll do a clean install when I buy new drives.

As I said, the packages identify themselves as EL5:
[code]# rpm -qa --qf "%{name}-%{version}-%{release}.%{arch}\n" | grep xfs
xfsprogs-2.9.4-1.el5.centos.i386
xfsdump-2.2.46-1.el5.centos.i386
kmod-xfs-0.4-2.i686
# /sbin/modinfo xfs
filename: /lib/modules/2.6.18-194.11.3.el5/weak-updates/xfs/xfs.ko
license: GPL
description: SGI XFS with ACLs, security attributes, realtime, large block numbers, no debug enabled
author: Silicon Graphics, Inc.
srcversion: D2438A1C5D3B852590D5E47
depends:
vermagic: 2.6.18-92.1.13.el5 SMP mod_unload 686 REGPARM 4KSTACKS gcc-4.1[/code]
Have you got the same srcversion? Does xfs_freeze work for you?

EDIT: I'm not going to put untested FS code on that machine. But perhaps I can make an image next time I have physical access and run it in a VM for testing. Or is there a simple and reliable way to make a VM from a running system? The system partition weighs about a gig (uncompressed) so I could easily transfer that.

Re: xfs_freeze returns 'operation not supported'

Posted: 2010/09/13 14:51:12
by toracat
I sort of suspected that it was a 32-bit OS. As you know, the xfs module is now included in the kernel but only with 64-bit. I'm not using xfs myself. I helped with building the kmod-xfs package for CentOS before the in-kernel module was offered upstream. So, I'm afraid my help ends here. If you do not get any help in the forums, I suggest you try the CentOS mailing list. The audience is different there; you might have a better chance of getting replies.

[quote]
EDIT: I'm not going to put untested FS code on that machine. But perhaps I can make an image next time I have physical access and run it in a VM for testing. Or is there a simple and reliable way to make a VM from a running system? The system partition weighs about a gig (uncompressed) so I could easily transfer that.[/quote]
Right, that newer version is not for production use.

Re: xfs_freeze returns 'operation not supported'

Posted: 2010/09/13 16:07:16
by h_fat
OK, thanks. I'll wait a while before posting on the mailing list.
And thanks for building that package as well. I've used it for years on CentOS4.

I didn't know that upstream supports xfs in 64-bit kernels only. Maybe that's time to replace the hardware and move on to 64-bit. The old junk wastes too much power anyway.
Thankfully, xfs_freeze is merely nice to have so I can make do without it. I had planned to make extensive use of it but some applications didn't like haveing their writes held too long. Perhaps I should try LVM snapshots again. A few years back, I could reliably crash the kernel by abusing snapshots so I didn't dare to use them.

Re: xfs_freeze returns 'operation not supported'

Posted: 2010/09/13 16:15:48
by toracat
I strongly recommend you switch to 64-bit. Eric Sandeen (the maintainer of xfs at Red Hat) explains why 32-bit is not supported:

"xfs is targeted for big filesystems; 32-bit can't go over 16T anyway"
"plus there's that 4k stack issue which can be a problem in some configurations"

In fact, the 4k stack issue can be serious. You will find lots of articles if you google for xfs and 4kstack.

Re: xfs_freeze returns 'operation not supported'

Posted: 2011/07/17 23:04:35
by h_fat
I updated another topic today and I realized I forgot to update this one.

I can confirm xfs_freeze works on the 64 bits version of CentOS5.

But I never got around to testing toracat's build or posting on the mailing-list because the 4K stack issue seemed serious enough I gave up xfs on 32-bits.
It was pretty stable on CentOS4 (not perfect but I was using crappy hardware anyway) but I got a couple of crashes a week or two apart on CentOS5, enough to convince me to get drop of xfs on 32 bits after which the crashes went away.