DRBD resource status

Question

I'm currently using DRBD to replicate a samba file server accross two machines. Sometimes writes fail on the master, when this happens the resource status (using cat /proc/drbd) is:

0: cs:Connected ro:Primary/Secondary ds:UpToDate/UpToDate A r---n

When things work fine the status is:

0: cs:Connected ro:Primary/Secondary ds:UpToDate/UpToDate A r----

The only difference I can see is the 'n' at the end of the line. I don't think this is related to congestion since it occurs when there's no activity on the resource. Disconnecting and reconnecting using drbdadm solves the problem.

So, my question is: what does that 'n' means?

Thank you for your help!

Answer 1

I haven't found some documentation about those bits, so I've dug in the drbd-8.3.4 source code. The 'n' is in fact related to sync congestion. Here's the code:

this is the call to update the /proc/drbd

in drdb/drbd_main.c

seq_printf(seq,
201                            "%2d: cs:%s ro:%s/%s ds:%s/%s %c %c%c%c%c%c\n"
202                            "    ns:%u nr:%u dw:%u dr:%u al:%u bm:%u "
203                            "lo:%d pe:%d ua:%d ap:%d ep:%d wo:%c",
204                            i, sn,
205                            drbd_role_str(mdev->state.role),
206                            drbd_role_str(mdev->state.peer),
207                            drbd_disk_str(mdev->state.disk),
208                            drbd_disk_str(mdev->state.pdsk),
209                            (mdev->net_conf == NULL ? ' ' :
210                             (mdev->net_conf->wire_protocol - DRBD_PROT_A+'A')),
211                            mdev->state.susp ? 's' : 'r',
212                            mdev->state.aftr_isp ? 'a' : '-',
213                            mdev->state.peer_isp ? 'p' : '-',
214                            mdev->state.user_isp ? 'u' : '-',
215                            mdev->congestion_reason ?: '-',
216                            mdev->send_cnt/2,
217                            mdev->recv_cnt/2,
218                            mdev->writ_cnt/2,
219                            mdev->read_cnt/2,
220                            mdev->al_writ_cnt,
221                            mdev->bm_writ_cnt,
222                            atomic_read(&mdev->local_cnt),
223                            atomic_read(&mdev->ap_pending_cnt) +
224                            atomic_read(&mdev->rs_pending_cnt),
225                            atomic_read(&mdev->unacked_cnt),
226                            atomic_read(&mdev->ap_bio_cnt),
227                            mdev->epochs,
228                            write_ordering_chars[mdev->write_ordering]
229                         );

Which means that the 'n' field comes from the congestion_reason. And this is set in the following code (line 3171):

in drdb/drbd_main.c

3140 /**                       
3141  * drbd_congested() - Callback for pdflush
3142  * @congested_data:     User data
3143  * @bdi_bits:           Bits pdflush is currently interested in
3144  *                        
3145  * Returns 1<<BDI_async_congested and/or 1<<BDI_sync_congested if we are congested.
3146  */                       
3147 static int drbd_congested(void *congested_data, int bdi_bits)
3148 {                         
3149         struct drbd_conf *mdev = congested_data;
3150         struct request_queue *q;
3151         char reason = '-';
3152         int r = 0;        
3153                           
3154         if (!__inc_ap_bio_cond(mdev)) {
3155                 /* DRBD has frozen IO */
3156                 r = bdi_bits;
3157                 reason = 'd';     
3158                 goto out;
3159         }      
3160                    
3161         if (get_ldev(mdev)) {
3162                 q = bdev_get_queue(mdev->ldev->backing_bdev);
3163                 r = bdi_congested(&q->backing_dev_info, bdi_bits);
3164                 put_ldev(mdev);
3165                 if (r)            
3166                         reason = 'b';   
3167         }                         
3168                                   
3169         if (bdi_bits & (1 << BDI_async_congested) && test_bit(NET_CONGESTED, &mdev->flags)) {
3170                 r |= (1 << BDI_async_congested);
3171                 reason = reason == 'b' ? 'a' : 'n';
3172         }              
3173                        
3174 out:           
3175         mdev->congestion_reason = reason;
3176         return r;
3177 }

Hope this helps