fsppadm - VxFS placement policy administration utility
fsppadm assign [ -f ] [ mount_point ... ] policy_file
fsppadm analyze [ -P ] [ -i ] [ path ... ]
fsppadm enforce [ -P ] [ [ -a ] -r file ] [ { -c .[ class. ] ... mount_point } | { -s size_count } |
{ -n file_count } | { -t hours } path ... ]
fsppadm query [ -P ] [ -l | { [ -a ] [ -w ] } ] [ -i ] [ path ... ]
fsppadm unassign [ mount_point ... ]
fsppadm list [ -w ] [ mount_point ... ]
fsppadm validate [ mount_point ... ] policy_file
The fsppadm utility performs administrative tasks, such as assigning, analyzing, enforcing, unassigning, and validating placement policies on the specified mount points.
The path argument specifies a mount point, subdirectory in a mount point, or a single file. If a subdirectory or mount point is specified, the command recursively applies to all subdirectories within the specified subdirectory or mount point.
The policy_file argument specifies the path of the XML file that contains the rules of the placement policy. See the PLACEMENT POLICY GRAMMAR section for the XML format of the placement policy.
The file argument specifies the file into which to send output from a dump or enforce operation.
No cluster issues; command operates the same on cluster file systems.
Creates a new active placement policy or replaces an existing placement policy for one or more mount points. The fsppadm command parses and validates the specified placement policy before assigning the placement policy. If errors are found, fsppadm displays the diagnosis and does not apply the placement policy. Some errors may simply be warnings, and the assign operation will succeed. Once the placement policy passes validation, fsppadm configures the specified VxFS file systems so that all future file creations and relocations are governed as per the placement policy. If the placement policy uses IOTEMP, File Change Log and I/O statistics are turned on automatically if they were not already turned on. For information on IOTEMP, see the Dynamic Storage Tiering chapter in the Veritas File System Administrator's Guide and the Using Dynamic Storage Tiering Symantec Yellow Book.
If mount_point is not specified, fsppadm sweeps all mounted VxFS file systems that have disk layout Version 7 and have active placement policies, except mounted Storage Checkpoints.
Analyzes the impact of enforcing the assigned placement policy and displays the amount of free space that will be on the volume set before and after any files are relocated. No files are actually relocated by this operation.
If path is not specified, fsppadm sweeps all mounted VxFS file systems that have disk layout Version 7 and have active placement policies, except mounted Storage Checkpoints.
Enforces the assigned placement policy on one or more mount points, subdirectories in a mount point, or files. Enforcing the placement policy adjusts placement behavior if necessary, and relocates or deletes files as per the placement policy.
Enforce operations are logged in a hidden file, .__fsppadm_enforce.log, in the lost+found directory of the mount point. This log file contains details such as files' previous locations, files' new locations, and the reasons for the files' relocations. The enforce operation creates the .__fsppadm_enforce.log file if the file does not exist. The enforce operation appends the file if the file already exists. The log file can be backed up or removed as with a normal file.
If path is not specified, fsppadm sweeps all mounted VxFS file systems that have disk layout Version 7 and have active placement policies, except mounted Storage Checkpoints. To prevent fsppadm from sweeping a file system, unmount the file system, unassign the file system's active placement policy, or specify the file systems to be swept when running the enforce operation.
Displays where files on one or more specified mount points, files under one or more specified subdirectories, or one or more specified files were created, where they reside now, and where they will be moved if the placement policy is enforced. Also displays the criteria by which the files will be moved.
If path is not specified, fsppadm sweeps all mounted VxFS file systems that have disk layout Version 7 and have active placement policies, except mounted Storage Checkpoints.
Removes the active placement policy assigned to the specified mount points.
Displays the name of the active placement policy assigned to the specified mount points. Mount point and placement policy names are printed in pairs. Specifying -w allows for easier parsing of the output.
If mount_point is not specified, fsppadm sweeps all mounted VxFS file systems that have disk layout Version 7 and have active placement policies, except mounted Storage Checkpoints.
Displays the contents of the active placement policy file of the specified mount point.
Dumps the contents of the active placement policy to the specified file. The dump should be used to backup the placement policy.
Checks the syntax and grammar of the specified placement policy. The fsppadm validate command validates the directories specified in the <DIRECTORY> element, the storage classes specified in the <CLASS> element with respect to the specified mount points, the users specified in the <USER> element, and the group names specified in the <GROUP> element of the placement policy with respect to the target host. If errors are found, fsppadm displays the diagnosis of the validation. Symantec recommends that you validate a placement policy before assigning the policy.
If mount_point is not specified, fsppadm sweeps all mounted VxFS file systems that have disk layout Version 7 and have active placement policies, except mounted Storage Checkpoints.
Includes the access time, modification time, and file size of the specified paths in the report generated by -r. The -a option also includes IOTEMP if the active placement policy uses IOTEMP.
Specifies a list of placement classes to which files must be relocated. A placement class is a specific subset of a file system's volume set in which a placement policy causes affected files to be created and extended. A null list, indicated by a period (.), can be specified; see the -l option. A non-null list must begin with a period (.), and is period-separated. Non-null lists of placement classes ignore any placement class information provided in the file list piped from the -l option. See EXAMPLES. If a non-null list is specified, the list of files to be relocated, as specified by the path argument, should not include files that will be deleted. Any such files will instead be relocated along with the files that are intended to be relocated.
If -c is specified, the assigned placement policy is ignored and the list of files to be relocated must be passed via standard input. Subsequent runs of the enforce operation without the -c option will enforce the active placement policy once again.
If the placement policy uses IOTEMP, fsppadm tunes fcl_keeptime to the largest period of interest in the placement policy. See the vxtunefs(1M) manual page. This preserves I/O statistics for that period.
Rebuilds the IOTEMP database. If the placement policy uses IOTEMP, the enforce operation automatically builds the IOTEMP database. Without specifying -i, the query operation uses the existing IOTEMP database, if any. To obtain meaningful results with the fsppadm query command, Symantec recommends that you rebuild the database if significant time passed since you last ran the enforce operation.
Lists the pathnames of the files that would be selected to be relocated or deleted when the enforce operation is run. The list is generated such that the output can be piped to another instance of fsppadm as the list of files to be relocated or deleted with the -c option. However, see the EXAMPLES section for a way to accomplish this with only one instance of fsppadm. If -l is not specified, fsppadm query displays the pathnames of all the files under the specified subdirectory or path.
Specifies the maximum number of files that an enforce operation may relocate or delete in a given instance. An enforce operation that reaches the specified maximum can be restarted from the point at which the operation ended due to this limit.
Private files used by the fsppadm command, such as .__fsppadm_enforce.log, are not picked by the assigned placement policy. The enforce operation will not relocate the private files. The query operation will not list the private files. The analyze operation will not consider the private files for space impact analysis.
Generates a report and dumps the output to the specified file. Reports include which files were picked up by which rule, if a given file path was relocated or deleted, and so on. Specify an absolute pathname for the file.
Specifies the maximum number of megabytes of data that an enforce operation may relocate in a given instance. An enforce operation that reaches the specified maximum can be restarted from the point at which the operation ended due to this limit.
Specifies the maximum number of hours that an enforce operation may run. An enforce operation that times out can be restarted from the point at which the process was ended due to the time limit.
The following output shows the overall structure of a placement policy:
<!-- The placement policy document definition file -->
<!-- Specification for PLACEMENT_POLICY element.
<!ELEMENT PLACEMENT_POLICY (COMMENT?, RULE+)>
<!-- The attributes of PLACEMENT_POLICY element -->
<!-- XML requires all attributes must be enclosed in double quotes -->
<!-- Specification for COMMENT element -->
<!-- Specification for RULE element.
5. 0 or more RELOCATE elements
The elements must appear in the above order, particularly,
DELETE elements, if any, must preceed RELOCATE elements, if any.
If any of the DELETE elements triggers an action, subsequent
elements (DELETE and/or RELOCATE elements, if any) will not be
<!ELEMENT RULE (COMMENT?, SELECT+, CREATE?, DELETE*, RELOCATE*)>
<!-- The attributes of RULE element -->
<!-- The possible and accepted values for Flags are
<!-- XML requires all attributes must be enclosed in double quotes -->
<!-- Specification for SELECT element. This describes selection
criteria. It can contain the following:
2. 0 or more DIRECTORY elements
The elements can appear in any order.
<!ELEMENT SELECT (COMMENT?, DIRECTORY*, PATTERN*, USER*, GROUP*)>
<!-- The attributes of SELECT element -->
<!-- XML requires all attributes must be enclosed in double quotes -->
<!-- Specification for DIRECTORY element
The DIRECTORY element takes a path relative to the
mount point. So if the intention is to sweep from
/db/finance/data and /db is the mount point,
DIRECTORY element should contain finance/data
Only one value can be specified per element.
<!ELEMENT DIRECTORY (#PCDATA)>
<!-- The attributes of DIRECTORY element -->
<!-- The possible and accepted values for Flags are
If a given directory appears in more than one RULE,
all such DIRECTORY elements must all be recursive or
nonrecursive but can not be a combination. If no DIRECTORY
element is specified, all the files under the mount point
<!-- XML requires all attributes must be enclosed in double quotes -->
Flags (recursive|nonrecursive) #REQUIRED
<!-- Specification for PATTERN element
The PATTERN can be a full name of a file, i.e., can not contain
"/" characters. Or it can have a '*' character. The first '*'
character will be considered as wild character and any other
character, including a second '*' are treated as literals.
Only one value can be specified per element.
<!-- The attributes of PATTERN element -->
<!-- The possible and accepted values for Flags are
This is an optional attribute. It is meaningful only
if the PATTERN is a dirctory. Default is nonrecursive,
which will be case for file PATTERNs. If this attribute
is specified, the enclosing SELECTion criteria will
select all files in any component directory (for example
dir1, in /mnt/dir0/dir1 if PATTERN is dir1) that is
anywhere (below the DIRECTORY,
- if it is specified and has 'recursive flag or
- anywhere in file system, if DIRECTORY is not
provided the component directory matches the PATTERN
(here 'dir1' in the example). If PATTERN has wild
character '*' in it, wild char based matching is performed.
<!-- XML requires all attributes must be enclosed in double quotes -->
Flags (recursive | nonrecursive) "nonrecursive"
<!-- Specification for USER element
The USER is a name string of the 1 domain user
Only one value can be specified per element.
<!-- Specification for GROUP element
The GROUP is a name string of the 1 domain group
Only one value can be specified per element.
<!-- Specification for CREATE element. This describes creation
criteria. It can contain the following:
The order of elements may be significant in future
<!ELEMENT CREATE (COMMENT?, ON)>
<!-- The attributes of CREATE element -->
<!-- XML requires all attributes must be enclosed in double quotes -->
<!-- Specification for ON element. This describes location criteria.
1. 0 or more DESTINATION elements
Though zero DESTINATION elements is defined in grammar, current
implementation requires at least on DESTINATION.
<!-- The attributes of ON element -->
<!-- The possible and accepted values for Flags is
If this attribute is set, there may or may not be any CLASS
elements in the DESTINATION elements under the ON element.
If any of the DESTINATION elements have CLASS element, such
CLASSes in the file system would be used first before other
placement class storage is used.
<!-- XML requires all attributes must be enclosed in double quotes -->
<!-- Specification for DESTINATION element. This describes target
location. It can contain the following:
3. 0 or 1 BALANCE_SIZE element
<!ELEMENT DESTINATION (CLASS?, PERCENT?, BALANCE_SIZE?)>
<!-- The attributes of DESTINATION element -->
<!-- The possible and accepted values for Flags
If this 'disallow' is set, there must not be any PERCENT or
BALANCE_SIZE elements in such DESTINATION element but there
must be a CLASS element. There must not be any RELOCATE and
DELETE statements in the enclosing RULE element either.
<!-- XML requires all attributes must be enclosed in double quotes -->
<!-- Specification for CLASS element
The file system resides on a multi-component volume set.
Each volume in the volume set will be in what is called a
placement class. The placement classes are implemented as tags
on the volumes. These tags are organized into a hierarchy prefix.
The placement policy uses the vxfs.placement_class. prefix.
The CLASS element specifies the placement class of the
underlying storage, without the prefix. For example, if a
volume has a placement class of vxfs.placment_class.gold
then gold would be the value of CLASS element.
<!-- Specification for PERCENT element
If the PERCENT element is in DESTINATION element, it determines
how much of its CLASS can be filled up with the files selected
If the PERCENT element is in SOURCE element, it determines
how much of its CLASS can be emptied when the files are relocated
<!-- Specification for BALANCE_SIZE element
Multiple volumes may have the same placement class and there can
be multiple DESTINATIONs (hence CLASSes) in a given ON (and TO)
element. If a BALANCE_SIZE is specified for a given CLASS,
the usage of volumes of that given placement class will be used
evenly by allocating BALANCE_SIZE amount of space for each
<!ELEMENT BALANCE_SIZE (#PCDATA)>
<!-- The attributes of BALANCE_SIZE element -->
<!-- The possible and accepted values for Units are
<!-- XML requires all attributes must be enclosed in double quotes -->
Units (bytes|KB|MB|GB) #REQUIRED
<!-- Specification for DELETE element. This describes deletion
criteria. It can contain the following:
<!ELEMENT DELETE (COMMENT?, FROM?, WHEN?)>
<!-- The attributes of DELETE element -->
<!-- XML requires all attributes must be enclosed in double quotes -->
<!-- Specification for RELOCATE element. This describes relocation
criteria. It can contain the following:
The order of TO elements is significant. Earlier CLASSes would be
<!ELEMENT RELOCATE (COMMENT?, FROM?, TO, WHEN?)>
<!-- The attributes of RELOCATE element -->
<!-- XML requires all attributes must be enclosed in double quotes -->
<!-- Specification for FROM element. This describes source criteria.
<!-- The attributes of FROM element -->
<!-- XML requires all attributes must be enclosed in double quotes -->
<!-- Specification for SOURCE element. This describes source location.
<!ELEMENT SOURCE (CLASS, PERCENT?)>
<!-- The attributes of SOURCE element -->
<!-- XML requires all attributes must be enclosed in double quotes -->
<!-- Specification for TO element. This describes destination
criteria. It can contain the following:
1. 1 or more DESTINATION elements
<!-- The attributes of TO element -->
<!-- XML requires all attributes must be enclosed in double quotes -->
<!-- Specification for WHEN element. This describes relocation
specifiers. It can contain the following:
The order of elements is significant.
<!ELEMENT WHEN (SIZE?, ACCAGE?, MODAGE?, IOTEMP?, ACCESSTEMP?)>
<!-- The attributes of WHEN element -->
<!-- XML requires all attributes must be enclosed in double quotes -->
<!-- Specification for SIZE element
<!-- The attributes of SIZE element -->
<!-- The possible and accepted values for Prefer are
The possible and accepted values for Units are
<!-- XML requires all attributes must be enclosed in double quotes -->
Units (bytes|KB|MB|GB) #REQUIRED
<!-- Specification for ACCAGE element
<!ELEMENT ACCAGE (MIN?, MAX?)>
<!-- The attributes of ACCAGE element -->
<!-- The possible and accepted values for Prefer are
The possible and accepted values for Units are
<!-- XML requires all attributes must be enclosed in double quotes -->
<!-- Specification for MODAGE element
<!ELEMENT MODAGE (MIN?, MAX?)>
<!-- The attributes of MODAGE element -->
<!-- The possible and accepted values for Prefer are
The possible and accepted values for Units are
<!-- XML requires all attributes must be enclosed in double quotes -->
<!-- Specification for IOTEMP element
The value of IOTEMP represents bytes read (nrbytes),
bytes written (nwbytes) or bytes transferred, i.e.,
read and written (nrwbytes), divided by the size of the
file, over a specified PERIOD (in days).
<!ELEMENT IOTEMP (MIN?, MAX?, PERIOD)>
<!-- The attributes of IOTEMP element -->
<!-- The possible and accepted values for Prefer are
<!-- The possible and accepted values for Type are
<!-- XML requires all attributes must be enclosed in double quotes -->
Type (nrbytes|nwbytes|nrwbytes) #REQUIRED
<!-- Specification for ACCESSTEMP element
The value of ACCESSTEMP represents times read (nrbytes),
times written (nwbytes) or times access i.e.,
read and written (nrws) over a specified PERIOD (in days).
<!ELEMENT ACCESSTEMP (MIN?, MAX?, PERIOD)>
<!-- The attributes of ACCESSTEMP element -->
<!-- The possible and accepted values for Prefer are
<!-- The possible and accepted values for Type are
<!-- XML requires all attributes must be enclosed in double quotes -->
Type (nreads|nwrites|nrws) #REQUIRED
<!-- Specification for MIN element -->
<!-- The attributes of MIN element -->
<!-- The possible and accepted values for Flags are
3. gteq for greater than or equal to
<!-- XML requires all attributes must be enclosed in double quotes -->
<!-- Specification for MAX element -->
<!-- The attributes of MAX element -->
<!-- The possible and accepted values for Flags are
2. lteq for less than or equal to
<!-- XML requires all attributes must be enclosed in double quotes -->
<!-- Specification for PERIOD element -->
<!-- The attributes of PERIOD element -->
<!-- XML requires all attributes must be enclosed in double quotes -->
To assign the placement policy iotemp.xml to the mounted VxFS file system /mount1:
# fsppadm assign /mount1 /tmp/iotemp.xml
To assign the placement policy iotemp.xml to all mounted VxFS file systems:
# fsppadm assign /tmp/iotemp.xml
To remove the active placement policy previously assigned to /mount1:
To remove the active placement policy from all mounted VxFS file systems:
To analyze the space impact if the enforce operation was run on /mount1:
To analyze the impact if the enforce operation were run on /mount1 and build the IOTEMP database if necessary:
To generate a list of affected files, which provides details about where the files currently reside, to where the files would be relocated, and which rule in the placement policy applies to the files:
# fsppadm query /mount1/dir1/dir2 /different_mount /mount1/dir3
To generate a list of affected files, which provides details about where the files currently reside, to where the files would be relocated, which rule in the placement policy applies to the files, and the reasons for taking such action:
# fsppadm query -a /mount1/dir1/dir2 /different_mount /mount1/dir3
In the above query operations, specify the -i option if the active placement policy on those file sytems use IOTEMP and the enforce operation has not been run recently.
To enforce the policy and generate a report:
# fsppadm enforce -r /tmp/report /mount1
To generate a report with additional details, such as IOTEMP information:
# fsppadm enforce -a -r /tmp/report /mount1
To generate a list of files and target classes to where the files would be relocated, of which the list can be piped to another fsppadm enforce operation directly:
# fsppadm query -l /mount1/dir1
The following list indicates that /mount1/dir1 has three files to which the placement policy applies. This list indicates that file1 is a candidate to be relocated to tier3 and tier4, while file2 is a candidate to be relocated to tier2. file3 is a candidate to be removed. The files to be removed will have a special target placement class of "." (a period). The period indicates that the enforce operation will delete the file. The output of the previous example could be as follows:
/mount1/dir1/file1 tier3 tier4
The above output can be piped to an enforce operation to move file1 to tier3 or to tier4 if moving to tier3 is not possible, to move file2 to tier2, and to delete file3:
# fsppadm query -l /mount1/dir1 | fsppadm enforce -c . /mount1
The same result as above can be achieved more directly with the following command:
# fsppadm enforce /mount1/dir1
However, if the same list is piped to an enforce operation that specifies -c .tier4.tier1, the operation will move file1 as well as file2 to tier4 if possible, or to tier1 if moving to tier4 is not possible:
# fsppadm query -l /mount1/dir1 | fsppadm enforce -c .tier4.tier1 /mount1
As a side effect, file3 will also be moved to tier4 if possible, or to tier1 if moving to tier4 is not possible. Thus, if alternate non-null target placement classes are specified via the -c option, fsppadm cannot be used to delete files.
If the target classes for relocation are specified with the -c option as well as on each input line following the file path, the target classes specified on each line of the input are ignored. As such, you need not specify file-specific targets on each line of the input if the target classes are specified with the -c option.
As the above example specifies placement classes with the -c option, any files that are to be deleted are instead relocated. The above list indicates that file3 is to be deleted since it has a target placement class of ".". file3 will instead be relocated to tier4 if possible, or to tier1 if moving to tier4 is not possible as specified by the argument for -c.
The file list could also be constructed manually, similar to the following list:
To validate the placement policy policy.xml against the mounted VxFS file system /mount1:
# fsppadm validate /mount1 /tmp/policy.xml
To validate the placement policy policy.xml against all mounted VxFS file systems:
# fsppadm validate /tmp/policy.xml
fcladm(1M), vxadm(1M), vxassist(1M), vxtunefs(1M), vxvoladm(1M), vxvset(1M)
Veritas File System Administrator's Guide
Using Dynamic Storage Tiering Symantec Yellow Book