CTDB internals

[Christopher R. Hertel]

Ah...

No, it's *both*.  I just found the notes I need in smb.conf.  If I
understand correctly, the byte-range locks are stored in brlock.tdb but are
also made using fcntl byte-range locking.

The only questions for me, then, are to know how byte range locks are
enforced by Samba and whether or not I'm miles off in my understanding here.

Thanks.

Chris -)-----

On 11/02/2012 01:31 AM, Christopher R. Hertel wrote:
> Thanks, Ronnie.
> 
> Further question:  Byte-range-locking of files in the shared filesystem.
> 
> Do I understand correctly that per-file byte-range locks are managed via
> brlock.tdb?
> 
> That is, if a Windows client opens a file and sets a byte-range lock, that
> lock is managed by the Samba server by using brlock.tdb instead of fcntl locks.
> 
> I'm pretty sure I read that right in Michael's presentation slides, but I
> want to be sure.
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> Chris -)-----
> 
> On 11/02/2012 12:32 AM, ronnie sahlberg wrote:
>> On Thu, Nov 1, 2012 at 10:23 PM, Christopher R. Hertel <crh at ubiqx.mn.org> wrote:
>>> On 11/02/2012 12:00 AM, Amitay Isaacs wrote:
>>>> Hi Chris,
>>>>
>>>> On Fri, Nov 2, 2012 at 3:28 PM, Christopher R. Hertel <crh at ubiqx.mn.org> wrote:
>>>>> Amitay, Obnox, et. al.,
>>>>>
>>>>> I just want to make sure that I've got this right...
>>>>>
>>>>> Reviewing Michael's tutoral, given in 2009 at SambaXP, here's what I get:
>>>>>
>>>>> * The underlying tables are all TDB tables.
>>>>>
>>>>> * These TDB tables are of three types:
>>>>>   1) Persistent
>>>>>   2) Normal ("volatile")
>>>>>   3) Recovery
>>>>
>>>> There are only two types of databases persistent and normal. Recovery
>>>> file is just a regular file and not tdb database.
>>>
>>> Ah...
>>>
>>> ...but access is still arbitrated using fcntl byte-range locks.  Is that
>>> correct?
>>>
>>>>> I think I generally understand how these work.  I have some questions about
>>>>> the sequence of events when writing to a Persistent TDB, but those can wait.
>>>>>
>>>>> My immediate questions are:
>>>>>
>>>>> Q: Is the CTDB_RECOVERY_LOCK file the only tdb file that will be stored on
>>>>>    shared disk and concurrently accessed by multiple nodes?
>>>>
>>>> Yes, CTDB_RECOVERY_LOCK file is the only file that is stored on the
>>>> shared storage for concurrent access to resolve split-brain situations
>>>> and doing recoveries.
>>>
>>> Cool.
>>>
>>> In our test case, we have a couple of other files in there.  For example,
>>> /etc/sysconfig/ctdb is symlinked to a shared file so that we only have to
>>> edit the file once.
>>>
>>>>> Q: For the other two types (Persistent and Normal), is the ctdbd daemon
>>>>>    the only reader/writer to the local TDBs?  For Normal LTDBs in
>>>>>    particular, is fcntl byte-range locking used to manage access in any
>>>>>    way?
>>>>
>>>> For non-persistent databases smbd and ctdbd can read/write to local
>>>> TDBs. The access is ordered by fcntl byte-range locks. smbd accesses a
>>>> record from local TDBs only when the local CTDB node is data master
>>>> for that record.
>>>
>>> Q: To do that, smbd would have to go through CTDB somehow, because only
>>>    the ctdbd would know if it were master.  Is that correct?
>>
>> No,  smbd has internal knowledge about the ctdb header for the record,
>> so smbd can decide "is this record local  or not".
>> If it is local then smbd just reads/writes to the record without any
>> ctdb involvement. Just like standalone samba does.
>>
>> Only if smbd discovers the record is not local will it involve ctdbd
>> and request that the record is fetched across the cluster.
>>
>>>
>>>> For persistent databases, CTDB transaction API is used to write data to TDBs.
>>>
>>> I have questions on how that works but they can wait.
>>>
>>> Thanks!
>>>
>>> Chris -)-----
>>> --
>>> "Implementing CIFS - the Common Internet FileSystem" ISBN: 013047116X
>>> Samba Team -- http://www.samba.org/     -)-----   Christopher R. Hertel
>>> jCIFS Team -- http://jcifs.samba.org/   -)-----   ubiqx development, uninq.
>>> ubiqx Team -- http://www.ubiqx.org/     -)-----   crh at ubiqx.mn.org
>>> OnLineBook -- http://ubiqx.org/cifs/    -)-----   crh at ubiqx.org
> 

-- 
"Implementing CIFS - the Common Internet FileSystem" ISBN: 013047116X
Samba Team -- http://www.samba.org/     -)-----   Christopher R. Hertel
jCIFS Team -- http://jcifs.samba.org/   -)-----   ubiqx development, uninq.
ubiqx Team -- http://www.ubiqx.org/     -)-----   crh at ubiqx.mn.org
OnLineBook -- http://ubiqx.org/cifs/    -)-----   crh at ubiqx.org