(SUMMARY) Filesystem --- "ls -l" total reporting incorrect file sizes - ADVFS

David.Knight_at_clubcorp.com
Date: 03/10/04

  • Next message: Regis Carlier: "processor revision/Alpha and compatibility"
    Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2004 08:21:11 -0600
    To: tru64-unix-managers@ornl.gov
    
    

    Managers
    Thanks to Steve VanDevender, Oisin McGuinness, Bob Harris, Dr. Alan
    Rollow, James Fitzgerald, Bob Vickers and Bård Tesaker for there help and
    time on explaining the behavior of my file domain. It appears that there
    isn't a problem at all.

    The behavior that I seeing from the /data5 filesystem is due to the way
    that our version of oracle allocates space in it's temp files.
    "Thomas, Thomas" provided this nugget of knowledge from the Oracle
    webpage:
    ___________________________________________________________________
    fact: Oracle Server - Enterprise Edition 8.1
    fact: tempfile
    symptom: space for a tempfile not allocated in the filesystem
    symptom: space not completely used in filesystem
    cause: A temporary tablespace with a tempfile is added to the database:
            create temporary tablespace test_temp TEMPFILE '/oracle/test_temp.dbf'
            size 400m reuse extent management local uniform size 1024k;
    You see the correct filesize with a 'ls -l', but a df -k reports too much
    free
    space in that filesystem.
    Tempfiles are not fully allocated and initialized during creation or
    resize.
    The description for this performance feature was omitted in Oracle8i.
    fix:
    The Oracle9i Database Concepts Release 1 guide has been updated to reflect
    this
    behaviour.
    For example:
    Locally managed temporary tablespaces have temporary datafiles (tempfiles)
    which are similiar to ordinary datafiles except that:
    When you create or resize tempfiles, they are not always guaranteed
    allocation
    of disk space for the filesize specified. On certain file systems (for
    example
    UNIX) disk blocks are allocated not at file creation or resizing, but
    before the
    blocks are accessed.
    Caution: This enables fast tempfile creation and resizing;
            however the disk could run out of space later when the tempfiles are
            accessed.
    ___________________________________________________________
    In essence our oracle temp files are "sparse" files as mentioned by
    several people above. Sparse files are files that have a "hole" in them (a
    range of empty bytes). So for example:

    # ls -ls TEMP01.dbf
    197280 -rw-r----- 1 oracle system 209723392 Mar 10 06:51 TEMP01.dbf
    # du -kx ./*
    197280 ./TEMP01.dbf
    80 ./TEMP03.dbf
    1 ./test.script
    13896 ./test.test
    # ls -l
    total 211257
    -rw-r----- 1 oracle system 209723392 Mar 10 06:51 TEMP01.dbf
    -rw-r----- 1 oracle system 209723392 Mar 5 10:46 TEMP03.dbf
    -rw-r--r-- 1 root system 69 Feb 23 08:09 test.script
    -rw-r--r-- 1 root system 14226971 Mar 9 10:19 test.test
    # pwd
    /data5/u002/oradata/prod

    The TEMP01.dbf file has 209723392 bytes allocated but only has 197280
    bytes used. A few weeks ago when I was seeing my file domain grow but
    could not see any files growing, well the df, vdf, and showfdmn commands
    show the file system space that is used. the ls command was displaying the
    space that we had allocated of which was not changing. The space was being
    used by oracle filling in the holes in the temp files (extents).

    Thanks again for all of the quick responses and the time that I was given
    from the people above. This case (for you HP folk: 3204932768) has been
    worked by HP for about 3 weeks now and around six Technicians / Engineers
    have tried to find the answer to my problem.

    More info on sparse files can be found at:
    www.cs.wisc.edu/~thain/library/sparse.pdf

    -David Knight

     

    ----- Forwarded by David Knight/CLUBCORP/US on 03/10/2004 07:59 AM -----

    David Knight
    03/09/2004 01:01 PM

     
            To: tru64-unix-managers@ornl.gov
            cc:
            Subject: Filesystem --- "ls -l" total reporting incorrect file sizes - ADVFS

    Hello Managers,
            Got an issue that HP has been trying to figure out for some time
    now. Thought maybe I'd give you guys a shot at it.

    Problem=
            Filesystem has issue with files not showing the correct size.
    there are only a few oracle .dbf files on the file system and when I
    preform an ls -l on the directory:

    # pwd
    /data5/u002/oradata/prod
    # ls -l
    total 205553
    -rw-r----- 1 oracle system 209723392 Mar 9 12:46 TEMP01.dbf
    -rw-r----- 1 oracle system 209723392 Mar 5 10:46 TEMP03.dbf
    -rw-r--r-- 1 root system 69 Feb 23 08:09 test.script
    -rw-r--r-- 1 root system 14226971 Mar 9 10:19 test.test

    the file sizes added up don't equal the "total" that ls is reporting for
    the total size of the files in the current directory. a few weeks ago when
    the problem was found I noticed that there was a .dbf file that was
    growing in size yet the ls -l size for the file was not reporting any
    change. the date was being updated for the file but the size was not
    reporting any change. now don't get this confused with the df issue
    showing the quota info... df, showfdmn, and vfd all show the correct info
    for the file system/file domain. HP first had be shutdown my entire
    cluster. just by chance we had a power outage at the same time as I was
    shutting down the cluster and our UPS ran out of juice so the entire
    cluster/memory channels/san was powerless to the point of the write back
    cache batteries being drained. this showed no change in the file system
    issue so HP had me run verify witch showed not issues then a fixfdmn witch
    showed some messages:

    21:18:26 | FIXED | LOG | /dev/disk/dsk83c:56880000 | Modified log page 0
    so the log is marked as empty.
    21:18:26 | FIXED | LOG | /dev/disk/dsk83c:56880016 | Modified log page 1
    so the log is marked as empty.
    21:18:26 | FIXED | LOG | /dev/disk/dsk83c:56880032 | Modified log page 2
    so the log is marked as empty.
    21:18:26 | FIXED | LOG | /dev/disk/dsk83c:56880048 | Modified log page 3
    so the log is marked as empty.
    21:18:26 | FIXED | LOG | /dev/disk/dsk83c:56880064 | Modified log page 4
    so the log is marked as empty.
    21:18:26 | FIXED | LOG | /dev/disk/dsk83c:56880080 | Modified log page 5
    so the log is marked as empty.

    this message repeats it's self in the fixfdmn log file up to page 511. So
    HP then had me remove and recreate the file domain. after that fixfdmn
    reports the same message. after talking with 4 people from HP I was told
    not to worry about this message if it appears after the file domain was
    recreated. Well a week later (Now) I have the problem still.. Not sure
    what else to do on this one. any help would be grateful..

    O,the version info is:

    Tru64 5.1 / TruCluster 5.1 - ADVFS file system
    Patch:
            - T64V51AS0003-20010521 OSF510
            - T64V51AS0003-20010521 TCR510
            - T64V51B19AS0005-20020411 OSF510
            - T64V51B19AS0005-20020411 TCR510

    Thanks in Advance,
    David Knight


  • Next message: Regis Carlier: "processor revision/Alpha and compatibility"

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