New subject: No spare disks for root

5 Sep 2007

      Hi Coolhand,
Why do you feel that having the small amount of root info in the /etc directory in the same volume as your data is a problem?
Having all the disks on the root volume isn't really a problem. I installed many filers in the days before NetApp started recommending people dedicate two disks for the root volume, and never had any issues with using the root vol for data. In fact most of my customers for five years or so when I worked as an SE for a NetApp reseller user vol0 for data such as user homedirs and workgroup directories and no-one even really thought about it.
A second volume is needed only where you want to change volume level options ("minra", "noatimeupdate" etc), or have a separate volume for database tablespace files or iSCSI/FCP LUN's. Qtree quotas can deal with most space restriction requirements. Also you will want multiple volumes if you're doing bare-metal backups ("snapmirror to tape") or DR replication for application data volumes with differing RTO's/RPO's.
The only real advantage to be gained by dedicating disks for the root volume in earlier versions (before Ontap 7 with FlexVols with it's obvious additional benefits) is that the disks for a dedicated non-root data volume can be moved as a set to another filer and that data volume is then available on the second filer as a foreign volume without having to do extra steps after boot. Any other issues are about configuration and administration and are easy to deal with if you know what you're doing.
The obvious major disadvantage to dedicating two disks for the root volume is the vast waste of storage space* at least in Ontap 7 with FlexVol you can have a dedicated root vol for administrative separation purposes without wasting space, although you now if you move physical disk sets all volumes in the same aggregate are visible on the filer you move the disks to.
The administrative issues you mentioned are easily fixed. Just rerun CIFS setup and reconfigure to give yourself access. Or if you don't want to change an existing domain configuration you can modify the security information in /etc via the "rdfile" and "wrfile" commands with cut-and-paste, i.e. add the SID for the windows user to the "Administrators" group in lclgroups.cfg and/or add a mapping for the Windows user to "root" in usermap.cfg.
Another thing to check is the security style on the volume and the permissions on the /etc directory.
One handy thing to do is make the /etc directory a qtree:
Filer> qtree create etcnew
Copy the contents of /etc to /etcnew
Rename /etc to /etcold (from Windows)
Rename /etcnew to /etc
Then you can delete the /etcold directory or keep it there for a backup.
The advantage of doing this is it allows you to separate out /etc for quota management purposes. Also, for a CIFS-only filer in a large domain environment where you want to restrict access to /etc to only specific filer admins you can set the security style on /etc to "unix" then create mappings to "root" in usermap.cfg for specific Windows admin accounts while locking the rest of the "domain admins" out of /etc. You can edit the UNIX permissions on the new /etc qtree using the free SecureShare Access". I've done this on a couple of CIFS-only sites where they had lots of domain admins but wanted only specifically trained filer admins to have access to /etc and it works a treat.
Hope this helps. If you need any more information send me an email to my personal address, AlanMac"at"technologist.com
                                                                                                                                                      ^ (to avoid spambots when this post goes to the toasters archive web page)
Regards,
Alan McLachlan
Technical Consultant
EBM-2 Project
Queensland Health
Ph. +61 7 31311618
Mobile +61 428 655644
_____________________________________________ 
From: 	coolhand2120 [mailto:tony@claydesign.com] 
Sent:	Wednesday, 5 September 2007 9:34 AM
To:	toasters@mathworks.com
Subject:	No spare disks for root
I have a netapp F760 with 4 FC shelves, because I'm ignorant of how these
things work I added all my disks (28x72gb) to my root volume.  Now I have no
spare disks, and no room in any shelf to add disks.  What do I do?
I don't care about the information on the filer, I just want a root volume
with 2 disks!  I promise not to use all the disks on a single root volume
again!  I have a /etc directory on a NFS host.  I don't have NFS license
though so I can't copy files onto the filer via NFS, I have a CIFS license
but for some reasons it says "access denied" when a CIFS client tries to
access it.
I have console access and telnet access, I'm so frustrated I took the filer
home so I have physical access.  I don't however have a support contract
with netapp or an account on their site (pending their review of my
application).  I can't create any new volumes because all the disks are
assigned to the root volume vol0.  Is there anyway to fix this?
-Coolhand2120
-- 
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/No-spare-disks-for-root-tf4380728.html#a12487751
Sent from the Network Appliance - Toasters mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

*****************************************************************
This email, including any attachments sent with it, is
confidential and for the sole use of the intended recipient(s).
This confidentiality is not waived or lost, if you receive it and
you are not the intended recipient(s), or if it is transmitted/
received in error.

Any unauthorised use, alteration, disclosure, distribution or
review of this email is strictly prohibited.  The information
contained in this email, including any attachment sent with
it, may be subject to a statutory duty of confidentiality if it
relates to health service matters.

If you are not the intended recipient(s), or if you have
received this email in error, you are asked to immediately
notify the sender by telephone collect on Australia
+61 1800 198 175 or by return email.  You should also
delete this email, and any copies, from your computer
system network and destroy any hard copies produced.

If not an intended recipient of this email, you must not copy,
distribute or take any action(s) that relies on it; any form of
disclosure, modification, distribution and/or publication of this
email is also prohibited.

Although Queensland Health takes all reasonable steps to
ensure this email does not contain malicious software,
Queensland Health does not accept responsibility for the
consequences if any person's computer inadvertently suffers
any disruption to services, loss of information, harm or is
infected with a virus, other malicious computer programme or
code that may occur as a consequence of receiving this
email.

Unless stated otherwise, this email represents only the views
of the sender and not the views of the Queensland Government.
****************************************************************

RE: No spare disks for root