[Linux-cluster] Unformatting a GFS cluster disk

[Wendy Cheng]

Wendy Cheng wrote:
>
> The problem can certainly be helped by the snapshot functions embedded 
> in Netapp SAN box. However, if tape (done from linux host ?) is 
> preferred as you described due to space consideration, you may want to 
> take a (filer) snapshot instance and do a (filer) "lun clone" to it. 
> It is then followed by a gfs mount as a separate gfs filesystem (this 
> is more involved than people would expect, more on this later). After 
> that, the tape backup can take place without interfering with the 
> original gfs filesystem on the linux host. On the filer end, 
> copy-on-write will fork disk blocks as soon as new write requests come 
> in, with and without the tape backup activities.
The above is for doing tape backup from Linux end. I think you can also 
do the backup directly from the filer - check out:
http://now.netapp.com/NOW/knowledge/docs/ontap/rel724/pdfs/ontap/tapebkup.pdf
(Data ONTAP 7.2 Data Protection Tape Backup and Recovery Guide)

I never really try that out myself though.

-- Wendy
>
>