3.7.0 HP StorageWorks HP Scalable NAS File Serving Software administration guide - HP Scalable NAS 3.7 for Linux (AG513-96002, October 2009)

Servers
• For best performance, HP recommends that you monitor the cluster from a separate
administrative station rather than from a server in the cluster. The Management
Console can be installed on Linux or Windows systems.
• HP Scalable NAS components can fail if the /var filesystem fills up. To avoid
this situation, move /var/opt/hpcfs to a separate partition containing at least
400 MB of free space.
• To ensure that file times are consistent across the cluster, it is important that all
cluster servers operate with synchronized time-of-day clocks. An NTP server is
one commonly used mechanism for synchronizing system clocks.
SAN
• When fabric fencing is configured, do not enable or disable the Fibre Channel
ports used by the cluster. HP Scalable NAS must have complete control over these
ports to protect the integrity of the shared filesystems on the SAN. HP Scalable
NAS will re-enable a port if it detects that the port has been disabled manually.
• When fabric fencing is configured, do not change the physical connection between
a server and a Fibre Channel switch while HP Scalable NAS is running on that
server. Doing so may result in filesystem corruption. For example, the connection
must not be moved from one switch port to another, and a new Fibre Channel
connection for the server must not be established while HP Scalable NAS is running
on the server.
• Changing the hardware configuration, such as adding or replacing switch mod-
ules, is not supported while HP Scalable NAS is running. This restriction applies
only to Fibre Channel switches that are under the control of HP Scalable NAS.
• The Linux kernel can access only partitions 01 through 15 on SCSI disks. However,
the fdisk and cfdisk utilities allow you to create partitions with numbers
greater than 15. If you use these utilities for partitioning SCSI disks, be sure that
partition 15 is the highest-numbered partition.
• HP Scalable NAS supports 2 TB filesystems on basic volumes and up to 128 TB
filesystems on dynamic volumes.
• If servers from multiple clusters can access the SAN via a shared FC fabric, avoid
importing the same disk into more than one cluster. Filesystem corruption can
occur when different clusters attempt to share the same filesystem.
Cluster Administration42