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Apple Xsan 1.4 User Manual

Page 150

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150

Chapter 7

Solving SAN Problems

A Client is Unable to Use a Volume After a Fibre Channel
Interruption

If a client loses its Fibre Channel connection to the SAN (because a cable is unplugged,

for example), the client might not recognize LUNs in an Xsan volume after the

connection is restored. If this happens, restart the client to remount the volume.

If problems persist, restart all SAN devices. Begin with Xserve RAID systems, continue

with SAN controllers, and finally restart all clients.

To check if a computer is seeing Xsan volume LUNs:

m

Open Disk Utility on the computer and look for the LUNs in the list of disks and

volumes.

From the Command Line

You can also check for accessible LUNs using the

cvlabel -l

command or the

diskutil list

command in Terminal.

SAN Performance Declines Periodically and Predictably

If clients experience simultaneous SAN performance problems (dropped video frames,

for example), system activity might be using resources. In particular, if all clients

experience dropped frames at around 4:30 a.m. local time on Saturdays, the problem is

probably due to the weekly system maintenance scripts. One script in particular, which

rebuilds the locate database, can have a noticeable impact on file system performance.

To disable the scripts:

m

Disable the script that runs “locate.updatedb” in /etc/weekly, or disable all the weekly

scripts by commenting out the “periodic weekly” command in /etc/crontab.