Red Hat GFS 6.1 -, Administrator'S Manual

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Chapter 4.
Getting Started
This chapter describes procedures for initial setup of GFS and contains the following sec-
tions:
•
Section 4.1 Prerequisite Tasks
•
Section 4.2 Initial Setup Tasks
4.1. Prerequisite Tasks
Before setting up Red Hat GFS, make sure that you have noted the key characteristics of the
GFS nodes (refer to Section 1.5 Before Setting Up GFS ) and have loaded the GFS modules
into each GFS node. Also, make sure that the clocks on the GFS nodes are synchronized.
It is recommended that you use the Network Time Protocol (NTP) software provided with
your Red Hat Enterprise Linux distribution.
Note
The system clocks in GFS nodes must be within a few minutes of each other to pre-
vent unnecessary inode time-stamp updating. Unnecessary inode time-stamp updating
severely impacts cluster performance.
4.2. Initial Setup Tasks
Initial GFS setup consists of the following tasks:
1. Setting up logical volumes.
2. Making a GFS files system.
3. Mounting file systems.
Follow these steps to set up GFS initially.
1. Using CLVM (Cluster Logical Volume Manager), create a logical volume for each
Red Hat GFS file system.