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gstripe(8)

NAME

     gstripe -- control utility for striped devices

SYNOPSIS

     gstripe create [-v] [-s stripesize] name prov prov ...
     gstripe destroy [-fv] name ...
     gstripe label [-hv] [-s stripesize] name prov prov ...
     gstripe stop [-fv] name ...
     gstripe clear [-v] prov ...
     gstripe dump prov ...
     gstripe list
     gstripe status
     gstripe load
     gstripe unload

DESCRIPTION

     The gstripe utility is used for setting up a stripe on two or more disks.
     The striped device can be configured using two different methods:
     ``manual'' or ``automatic''.  When using the ``manual'' method, no meta-
     data are stored on the devices, so the striped device has to be config-
     ured by hand every time it is needed.  The ``automatic'' method uses on-
     disk metadata to detect devices.  Once devices are labeled, they will be
     automatically detected and configured.

     The first argument to gstripe indicates an action to be performed:

     create   Set up a striped device from the given devices with specified
	      name.  This is the ``manual'' method and the stripe will not
	      exist after a reboot (see DESCRIPTION above).  The kernel module
	      geom_stripe.ko will be loaded if it is not loaded already.

     label    Set up a striped device from the given devices with the speci-
	      fied name.  This is the ``automatic'' method, where metadata are
	      stored in every device's last sector.  The kernel module
	      geom_stripe.ko will be loaded if it is not loaded already.

     stop     Turn off an existing striped device by its name.	This command
	      does not touch on-disk metadata!

     destroy  Same as stop.

     clear    Clear metadata on the given devices.

     dump     Dump metadata stored on the given devices.

     list     See geom(8).

     status   See geom(8).

     load     See geom(8).

     unload   See geom(8).

     Additional options:

     -f 	    Force the removal of the specified striped device.

SYSCTL VARIABLES

     The following sysctl(8) variables can be used to control the behavior of
     the STRIPE GEOM class.  The default value is shown next to each variable.

     kern.geom.stripe.debug: 0
	     Debug level of the STRIPE GEOM class.  This can be set to a num-
	     ber between 0 and 3 inclusive.  If set to 0 minimal debug infor-
	     mation is printed, and if set to 3 the maximum amount of debug
	     information is printed.

     kern.geom.stripe.fast: 1
	     If set to a non-zero value enable ``fast mode'' instead of the
	     normal ``economic mode''.	Compared to ``economic mode'', ``fast
	     mode'' uses more memory, but it is much faster for smaller stripe
	     sizes.  If enough memory cannot be allocated, STRIPE will fall
	     back to ``economic mode''.

     kern.geom.stripe.maxmem: 6553600
	     Maximum amount of memory that can be consumed by ``fast mode''
	     (in bytes).  This sysctl(8) variable is read-only and can only be
	     set as a tunable in loader.conf(5).

     kern.geom.stripe.fast_failed
	     A count of how many times ``fast mode'' has failed due to an
	     insufficient amount of memory.  If this value is large, you
	     should consider increasing the kern.geom.stripe.maxmem value.

EXIT STATUS

     Exit status is 0 on success, and 1 if the command fails.

EXAMPLES

     The following example shows how to set up a striped device from four
     disks with a 4 KB stripe size for automatic configuration, create a file
     system on it, and mount it:

	   gstripe label -v -s 131072 data /dev/da0 /dev/da1 /dev/da2 /dev/da3
	   newfs /dev/stripe/data
	   mount /dev/stripe/data /mnt
	   [...]
	   umount /mnt
	   gstripe stop data
	   gstripe unload

COMPATIBILITY

     The gstripe interleave is in number of bytes, unlike ccdconfig(8) and
     atacontrol(8) which use the number of sectors.  A ccdconfig(8) ileave of
     `128' is 64 KB (128 512B sectors).  The same stripe interleave would be
     specified as `65536' for gstripe.

SEE ALSO

     geom(4), loader.conf(5), atacontrol(8), ccdconfig(8), geom(8), mount(8),
     newfs(8), sysctl(8), umount(8), vinum(8)

HISTORY

     The gstripe utility appeared in FreeBSD 5.3.

AUTHORS

     Pawel Jakub Dawidek <pjd@FreeBSD.org>

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