Category: ASMFD

RHEL 7.4 fails to mount ACFS File System due to KMOD package

After a fresh OS installation or an upgrade to RHEL 7.4, any attempt to install ACFS drivers will fail with the following message: “ACFS-9459 ADVM/ACFS is not supported on this OS version”

The error persists even if the Oracle Grid Infrastructure software includes the  Patch 26247490: 12.2 ACFS MODULE ERRORS & CRASH DURING MODULE LOAD & UNLOAD WITH OL7U4 RHCK.

 

This problem has been identified by Oracle with  BUG 26320387 – 7.4 kmod weak-modules not checking kABI compatibility correctly

And by Red Hat  Bugzilla bug:  1477073 – 7.4 kmod weak-modules –dry-run changed output format missing ‘is compatible’ messages.

root@oel7node06:/u01/app/12.2.0.1/grid/crs/install# /u01/app/12.2.0.1/grid/bin/acfsroot install
ACFS-9459: ADVM/ACFS is not supported on this OS version: '3.10.0-514.6.1.el7.x86_64'

root@oel7node06:~# /sbin/lsmod | grep oracle
oracleadvm 776830 7
oracleoks 654476 1 oracleadvm
oracleafd 205543 1

 

The current Workaround consists in downgrade the version of the kmod  RPM to  kmod-20-9.el7.x86_64.

root@oel7node06:~# yum downgrade kmod-20-9.el7

 

After the package downgrade the ACFS drivers are correcly loaded:

root@oel7node06:~# /sbin/lsmod | grep oracle
oracleacfs 4597925 2
oracleadvm 776830 8
oracleoks 654476 2 oracleacfs,oracleadvm
oracleafd 205543 1

 

 

 

 

ASM Filter Driver (ASMFD)

 

ASM Filter Driver is a Linux kernel module introduced in 12c R1. It resides in the I/O path of the Oracle ASM disks providing the following features:

  • Rejecting all non-Oracle I/O write requests to ASM Disks.
  • Device name persistency.
  • Node level fencing without reboot.

 

In 12c R2 ASMFD can be enabled from the GUI interface of the Grid Infrastructure installation, as shown on this post GI 12c R2 Installation at the step #8 “Create ASM Disk Group”.

Once ASM Filter Driver is in use, similarly to ASMLib the disks are managed using the ASMFD Label Name.

 

Here few examples about the implementation of ASM Filter Driver.

--How to create an ASMFD label in SQL*Plus
SQL> Alter system label set 'DATA1' to '/dev/mapper/mpathak';

System altered.


--How to create an ASM Disk Group with ASMFD
CREATE DISKGROUP DATA_DG EXTERNAL REDUNDANCY DISK 'AFD:DATA1' SIZE 30720M
ATTRIBUTE 'SECTOR_SIZE'='512','LOGICAL_SECTOR_SIZE'='512','compatible.asm'='12.2.0.1',
'compatible.rdbms'='12.2.0.1','compatible.advm'='12.2.0.1','au_size'='4M';

Diskgroup created.

 

ASM Filter Driver can also be managed from the ASM command line utility ASMCMD

--Check ASMFD status
ASMCMD> afd_state
ASMCMD-9526: The AFD state is 'LOADED' and filtering is 'ENABLED' on host 'oel7node06.localdomain'


--List ASM Disks where ASMFD is enabled
ASMCMD> afd_lsdsk
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Label                    Filtering                Path
================================================================================
DATA1                      ENABLED                /dev/mapper/mpathak
DATA2                      ENABLED                /dev/mapper/mpathan
DATA3                      ENABLED                /dev/mapper/mpathw
DATA4                      ENABLED                /dev/mapper/mpathac
GIMR1                      ENABLED                /dev/mapper/mpatham
GIMR2                      ENABLED                /dev/mapper/mpathaj
GIMR3                      ENABLED                /dev/mapper/mpathal
GIMR4                      ENABLED                /dev/mapper/mpathaf
GIMR5                      ENABLED                /dev/mapper/mpathai
RECO3                      ENABLED                /dev/mapper/mpathy
RECO1                      ENABLED                /dev/mapper/mpathab
RECO2                      ENABLED                /dev/mapper/mpathx
ASMCMD>


--How to remove an ASMFD label in ASMCMD
ASMCMD> afd_unlabel DATA4