Problems with XFS on iSCSI in RHEL4

[Tim Sesow]

For what it is worth:  I run three systems, one 32-bit and two 64-bit, 
with 2.6.24-rc3 kernels on
them, using iSCSI storage running under OpenFiler as storage for
XFS volumes.  The systems started out as CentOS 4.6 distributions.

Two of the volumes are less than 1TByte in size (300GB and 800GB).
The third volume under LVM and is 45TBytes in size (several 
multi-terabyte volumes
merged into one LVM volume group).  The smaller volumes have been running
for several months, the large volume only for about a month now.
 
 I haven't encountered any problems creating or using those volumes with 
XFS.
The 45TByte volume also uses DMAPI as a mount option. 

Andrew Daviel wrote:
>
> A while back (2004) there was some discussion about problems with XFS
> and iSCSI.
>
> I wondered whether the issues had been fixed in later kernels, or 
> whether there is an underlying issue that will not go away.
>
> We have been using XFS for our mailstore both on local disks and on 
> ATA Over Ethernet to a CORAID box with no problem.
> We want to replace the CORAID with a Sun Storage 7410 box, using iSCSI 
> instead of AOE.
>
> When I create an ext3 volume on the Sun, things are OK.
> When I create an XFS volume, after doing mkdir, I get e.g.
>   kernel: Bad page state at free_hot_cold_page (in process 'iscsi-rx',
>   page c1069a20)
>   kernel: Trying to fix it up, but a reboot is needed
>   kernel: Bad page state at free_hot_cold_page (in process 'syslogd',
>   page c1069a20)
>
> Scientific Linux SL release 4.6
> kernel-smp-2.6.9-78.0.17.EL from kernel-2.6.9-78.0.17.EL.src.rpm
>   includes scsi_transport_iscsi.ko,iscsi_sfnet.ko
> kernel-module-xfs-2.6.9-78.0.17.ELsmp-0.4-1 from xfs-0.4-1.src.rpm
> iscsi-initiator-utils-4.0.3.0-6
>
> Also seen on:
> Scientific Linux SL release 4.5
> kernel-smp-2.6.9-55.0.6.EL.i686
> kernel-module-xfs-2.6.9-55.0.6.ELsmp-0.1-1.i686
>
> SL is basically the same as CENTOS (compiled from RHEL GPL'd sources)
>
>