Ocfs2 users - Jun 2008 - OCFS2 1.2.9-1 for RHEL4 and RHEL5 released

All,

We are pleased to announce the release of OCFS2 1.2.9-1 for RHEL4 and RHEL5
on x86, x86_64, ppc64 and ia64 architectures.

This release includes bug fixes, most of which have been backported from the
mainline kernel. Some of the more interesting ones have been described in
detail. For the full list of changes, please refer to the news.
http://oss.oracle.com/projects/ocfs2/news/article_18.html

* Fixes bug#6802646
Symptoms for this bug include inability to create a file from some nodes
while being able to do so from others. This problem is typically encountered
when the disk free space is low.

The reason for the inconsistent behavior is because inodes are allocated
from a nodeslot specific system file, inode_alloc, that is dynamically
extended when it runs out of free space. However, when disk free space 
is low,
the chances that the filesystem is unable to grow this system file 
increases.
Under this condition, only nodes that have free space in their slot specific
inode_alloc are able to create new files.

The fix, backported from mainline, allows the filesystem to steal inode 
space
from inode_allocs of nodeslots having some free. This not only makes for a
more consistent behavior, but also allows the filesystem to make use of 
every
byte reserved for inode creation.

* Fixes oss bugzilla#919
Symptoms for this bug include [o2net] spinning at 100% just before a node
fences due to network idle timeout. This issue could have previously been
misdiagnosed as occurring due to a low cluster timeout setting but 
instead is
because of a bug as described in this bugzilla.
http://oss.oracle.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=919

* Plugs memory leaks in o2dlm
These leaks were detected during mainline testing. They went undetected 
for so
long because not only was the size of the leak small, it reproduced 
under very
specific conditions described in the patch fixes below.
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commitdiff;h=2c5c54aca9d0263f81bd4886232835ba31f7635a
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commitdiff;h=52987e2ab456c1a828046494aac53819b1454341
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commitdiff;h=b31cfc0237f89c3a8bc8f31b5da996e71b543214

For instructions on upgrading and more, please refer to the FAQ.
http://oss.oracle.com/projects/ocfs2/dist/documentation/ocfs2_faq.html#UPGRADE

Note: Users looking to upgrade to 1.2.9-1 from 1.2.5 or earlier releases 
should
also upgrade the tools to OCFS2 Tools 1.2.7-1.
http://oss.oracle.com/projects/ocfs2-tools

All patch fixes in this release have been provided to Novell and should be
available soon for download with SLES10 SP1 and SLES9 SP4 kernels.

Enterprise Linux users can get the packages from ULN. The emails announcing
the errata release are as follows:
http://oss.oracle.com/pipermail/el-errata/2008-June/000634.html
http://oss.oracle.com/pipermail/el-errata/2008-June/000635.html

Red Hat users can download packages for this release for 15 RHEL4 kernels,
from U4 (2.6.9-42.EL) to U6 (2.6.9-67.0.15.EL), and 18 RHEL5 kernels, from
2.6.18-8.el5 to 2.6.18-92.1.1.el5 from the OCFS2 page on oss.oracle.com.
http://oss.oracle.com/projects/ocfs2/files/RedHat/

As always, we look forward to hearing from you on the 
ocfs2-users at oss.oracle.com
mailing list.

The OCFS2 Team

OCFS2: http://oss.oracle.com/projects/ocfs2
TOOLS: http://oss.oracle.com/projects/ocfs2-tools
FAQ:   
http://oss.oracle.com/projects/ocfs2/dist/documentation/ocfs2_faq.html
GUIDE: 
http://oss.oracle.com/projects/ocfs2/dist/documentation/ocfs2_users_guide.pdf