NWRAID1 remirror messages show up in /var/log/messages.

  • 7012186
  • 23-Apr-2013
  • 24-Apr-2013

Environment

Novell Open Enterprise Server 2 (OES 2) Linux Support Pack 3
Novell Open Enterprise Server 11 (OES 11)
Novell Open Enterprise Server 11 (OES 11) Linux Support Pack 1
Novell Storage Services (NSS)
Novell Storage Services Software RAID (mirror)

Situation

The following messages can appear in /var/log/messages:

kernel: MM_RemirrorPartition: XXXX.sbd, 1
kernel: NWRAID1: Stop Remirror (start) count=0

kernel: [123456.789101] NWRAID1: Stop Remirror (start) count=0 state=4 wait=0
kernel: [
123456.789101] NWRAID1: Stop Remirror (end)
kernel: [
123456.789101] NWRAID1: Remirror enabled

kernel: device-mapper: ioctl: Target type does not support messages
kernel: [
123456.789101] device-mapper: multipath: Unrecognised multipath message received.

Resolution

These are harmless messages and can be safely ignored, below follows an explanation of these messages:

kernel: MM_RemirrorPartition: XXXX.sbd, 1 
The server is telling the XXXX.sbd mirror to become "enabled" on this server. This message can be seen when a mirrored NSS pool is migrated from another cluster server. 

When this request is received by the RAID (nwraid.ko) driver, it always starts a re-mirror process, just in case the mirrors were not in sync at the time of the switch. If they are in sync, it immediately finished successfully. The re-mirror process is an active process that brings a non-synchronized mirror into sync. When it is in sync, the process ends, and regular I/O will maintain the mirror.

kernel: [495218.771163] NWRAID1: Stop Remirror (start) count=0 state=4 wait=0 
The re-mirror process is done, and it is trying to finish up the process and clean up the re-mirror engines.

kernel: [495218.771168] NWRAID1: Stop Remirror (end)
The re-mirror process has successfully finished, and the server is completely done with the re-sync process.

These messages are expected, and indicate a successful process. Everything is good, and the mirrors are now fully in sync on this node.

kernel: [495218.771169] NWRAID1: Remirror enabled
The mirror has successfully been "enabled" on this node.

kernel: device-mapper: ioctl: Target type does not support messages
kernel: [495218.771289] device-mapper: multipath: Unrecognised multipath message received.
These messages indicate that a mirrored NSS pool has been migrated from another NCS cluster node.