Veritas File System 4.1 Release Notes (5900-0592, March 2010)

• Improper Display of Some fields by the fstyp Command
Problem
The fstyp -v command displays super-block information. For Disk Layout Version 4 and
Disk Layout Version 5, fields such as nau, logstart or logend sometimes display zero
values.
Workaround
See mkfs_vxfs (1M) and mkfs (1M) for workaround.
• Non-standard Command Behavior When Using Access Control Lists (ACLs)
Problem
The output of the ls -l command on a VxFS file systems shows mask /CLASS_OBJ in
place of the group permissions if ACLs are in use on a file or a directory.
Workaround
The chmod command changes mask /CLASS_OBJ instead of the group permissions if ACLs
are in use on a file or a directory. GROUP_OBJ is not changed by chmod, and because effective
group permissions are determined by GROUP_OBJ and CLASS_OBJ, the default group do
not receive the permissions specified by chmod. The ls -l command only shows the mask
(which is changed by chmod), therefore it appears as if the group permissions are changed
as specified in chmod. Use of chmod command is not advisable on files with ACLs. Instead,
you must use the getacl command to manipulate permissions.
See aclcheck(3), aclsort(3), chmod(1), getacl(1), ls(1), setacl(1), and uname(1) for more information.
• The newfs -R Command Allows Reserving Swap Space Larger Than the Device
Problem
The newfs -R command reserves swap space greater than that is available on the underlying
device.
Workaround
Avoid specifying a value after the —R option which will cause the reserved swap space to
go beyond the end of underlying device.
Tuning VxFS for Performance
• Tuning Down the Inode Cache
VxFS file systems allocate and release inodes based on the file system load. Generally, larger
inode caches help the file systems to perform better in the case of a file server or web server
load. The global (dynamic) tunable, vx_ninode, determines the maximum possible size of
the VxFS inode cache. If the default value of vx_ninode is set to zero, VxFS automatically
tunes the size of the inode cache at boot time, based on the size of the physical memory on
the system. On systems with a RAM size or kernel memory of less than or equal to 3 GB,
you can manually tune down vx_ninode to a minimum value as specified below.
Table 1-8 vx_ninode values
VxFS inode cache (number of inodes)Physical memory size in GB
163841.5
327682
655363
• Tuning Down the Buffer Cache
VxFS 4.1 implements a private buffer cache for exclusive use for metadata. The allocations
to this buffer cache vary during system usage based on file system load and the maximum
16 Veritas File System 4.1 Release Notes