12.1 Understanding Partitions

12.1.1 NSS Partitions

A partition is a logical division of a physical hard drive. In NetWare® 6.5 and later, NSS abstracts all partition creation and deletion in iManager and NSSMU through the Pools page and the Software RAIDs page. When you create NSS pools or NSS software RAID devices, NSS automatically creates the NSS partitions on the devices you specify. In NetWare 6.5 SP2 and later, you can view and label these NSS partitions from the Partitions page.

Partitions are automatically managed by NSS whenever you create pools. You do not manage NSS partitions directly. Table 12-1 identifies the tools used by NSS for managing devices and partitions:

Table 12-1 Device and Partition Managers

Platform

Partition Management Tool

Linux

Enterprise Volume Management System (EVMS). EVMS discovers and mounts the partition in the /dev/evms/ directory.

IMPORTANT:If you create and mount pools from the command line, you must modify your mount point to the partition’s location under /dev/evms/.

NetWare

Media Manager

12.1.2 Viewing Partitions on a Device

The Partitions page in iManager reports the partitions that it finds on your system and information about them. Select a device to view information about the partition in the Details area.

Figure 12-1 Example Partitions Page

Sample Partition Management Page

12.1.3 Understanding Types of Partitions

The following table describes the variety of partition types that iManager reports as being on your system. The Linux partition types are found only on OES Linux servers, not on OES NetWare servers.

The Partitions function in iManager and NSSMU is intended simply as a reporting tool so that you can see the types of partitions that are being virtualized by higher-level storage entities such as pools or software RAID devices. Generally, you cannot create or modify partitions with iManager or NSSMU tools. On NetWare, NSSMU allows you to create an NSS partition, but this capability is seldom used. For NSS on either platform, NSS partitions are created for you automatically when you create a pool. There might be multiple NSS partitions that are aggregated and managed underneath the single pool of space. Similarly, the tools automatically create a Virtual Device when you create a RAID device.

IMPORTANT:You cannot create any of the reported partition types in iManager; you can only view and label NSS partitions from the Partitions page.

Table 12-2 Explanation of Partition Types

Partition Type

Description

Cluster Service

A partition that NetWare uses to monitor cluster connectivity and services; it appears only in shared devices in the cluster.

DOS

A conventional DOS partition that NetWare uses for installing and upgrading NetWare on the server.

Ext3

The partition type for Linux Extended File System 3.

iSCSI

A partition in a target disk server in an iSCSI storage area network; it appears as an iSCSI device to file servers with iSCSI initiator software.

NSS

The primary partition type for NSS file systems.

Reiser

The partition type for Linux Reiser file systems.

System Configuration

A vendor-specific partition for maintaining metadata about the server configuration.

Traditional

A partition type found in NetWare systems with legacy NetWare traditional file systems. These might exist in a mixed NetWare environment.

Unknown

An partition type that is unknown to the current operating system.

Upgrade Traditional

An NSS partition in mid-upgrade state between different versions of NetWare.

Virtual Device

A partition that serves as a partition in a software RAID 0 or RAID 5 device.

12.1.4 Understanding Partition Details

You can view the following information about partitions:

Table 12-3 Explanation of Partition Details

Partition Detail

Description

Partition ID

The partition name assigned by NetWare.

Partition Name

The physical descriptive name of the partition that corresponds to the device’s physical descriptive name, followed by the type of partition it is.

Type

The abbreviated name of the partition type.

Status

Specifies if a partition is In Use or Available.

Label

The partition name assigned by the administrator.

Starting Offset

Amount of space on the disk that precedes the beginning of the selected partition.

Size

The storage capacity of this partition.

Device Name

The physical descriptive name of the device where the partition exists. For software RAIDs, the description might include RAID 0, RAID 1, or RAID 5.

Device ID

The device name assigned by NetWare.

Pool Name

For NSS partitions, specifies the name of the pool that uses the partition.