Chapter 2. Handling a disk failure

As a storage administrator, you will have to deal with a disk failure at some point over the life time of the storage cluster. Testing and simulating a disk failure before a real failure happens will ensure you are ready for when the real thing does happen.

Here is the high-level workflow for replacing a failed disk:

  1. Find the failed OSD.
  2. Take OSD out.
  3. Stop the OSD daemon on the node.
  4. Check Ceph’s status.
  5. Remove the OSD from the CRUSH map.
  6. Delete the OSD authorization.
  7. Remove the OSD from the storage cluster.
  8. Unmount the filesystem on node.
  9. Replace the failed drive.
  10. Add the OSD back to the storage cluster.
  11. Check Ceph’s status.

2.1. Prerequisites

  • A running Red Hat Ceph Storage cluster.
  • A failed disk.

2.2. Disk failures

Ceph is designed for fault tolerance, which means Ceph can operate in a degraded state without losing data. Ceph can still operate even if a data storage drive fails. The degraded state means the extra copies of the data stored on other OSDs will backfill automatically to other OSDs in the storage cluster. When an OSD gets marked down this can mean the drive has failed.

When a drive fails, initially the OSD status will be down, but still in the storage cluster. Networking issues can also mark an OSD as down even if it is really up. First check for any network issues in the environment. If the networking checks out okay, then it is likely the OSD drive has failed.

Modern servers typically deploy with hot-swappable drives allowing you to pull a failed drive and replace it with a new one without bringing down the node. However, with Ceph you will also have to remove the software-defined part of the OSD.

2.3. Simulating a disk failure

There are two disk failure scenarios: hard and soft. A hard failure means replacing the disk. Soft failure might be an issue with the device driver or some other software component.

In the case of a soft failure, replacing the disk might not be needed. If replacing a disk, then steps need to be followed to remove the failed disk and add the replacement disk to Ceph. In order to simulate a soft disk failure the best thing to do is delete the device. Choose a device and delete the device from the system.

Prerequisites

  • A healthy, and running Red Hat Ceph Storage cluster.
  • Root-level access to the Ceph OSD node.

Procedure

  1. Remove the block device from sysfs:

    Syntax

    echo 1 > /sys/block/BLOCK_DEVICE/device/delete

    Example

    [root@osd ~]# echo 1 > /sys/block/sdb/device/delete

    In the Ceph OSD log, on the OSD node, Ceph detected the failure and started the recovery process automatically.

    Example

    [root@osd ~]# tail -50 /var/log/ceph/ceph-osd.1.log
2020-09-02 15:50:50.187067 7ff1ce9a8d80  1 bdev(0x563d263d4600 /var/lib/ceph/osd/ceph-2/block) close
2020-09-02 15:50:50.440398 7ff1ce9a8d80 -1 osd.2 0 OSD:init: unable to mount object store
2020-09-02 15:50:50.440416 7ff1ce9a8d80 -1 ^[[0;31m ** ERROR: osd init failed: (5) Input/output error^[[0m
2020-09-02 15:51:10.633738 7f495c44bd80  0 set uid:gid to 167:167 (ceph:ceph)
2020-09-02 15:51:10.633752 7f495c44bd80  0 ceph version 12.2.12-124.el7cp (e8948288b90d312c206301a9fcf80788fbc3b1f8) luminous (stable), process ceph-osd, pid 36209
2020-09-02 15:51:10.634703 7f495c44bd80 -1 bluestore(/var/lib/ceph/osd/ceph-2/block) _read_bdev_label failed to read from /var/lib/ceph/osd/ceph-2/block: (5) Input/output error
2020-09-02 15:51:10.635749 7f495c44bd80 -1 bluestore(/var/lib/ceph/osd/ceph-2/block) _read_bdev_label failed to read from /var/lib/ceph/osd/ceph-2/block: (5) Input/output error
2020-09-02 15:51:10.636642 7f495c44bd80 -1 bluestore(/var/lib/ceph/osd/ceph-2/block) _read_bdev_label failed to read from /var/lib/ceph/osd/ceph-2/block: (5) Input/output error
2020-09-02 15:51:10.637535 7f495c44bd80 -1 bluestore(/var/lib/ceph/osd/ceph-2/block) _read_bdev_label failed to read from /var/lib/ceph/osd/ceph-2/block: (5) Input/output error
2020-09-02 15:51:10.641256 7f495c44bd80  0 pidfile_write: ignore empty --pid-file
2020-09-02 15:51:10.669317 7f495c44bd80  0 load: jerasure load: lrc load: isa
2020-09-02 15:51:10.669387 7f495c44bd80  1 bdev create path /var/lib/ceph/osd/ceph-2/block type kernel
2020-09-02 15:51:10.669395 7f495c44bd80  1 bdev(0x55a423da9200 /var/lib/ceph/osd/ceph-2/block) open path /var/lib/ceph/osd/ceph-2/block
2020-09-02 15:51:10.669611 7f495c44bd80  1 bdev(0x55a423da9200 /var/lib/ceph/osd/ceph-2/block) open size 500103643136 (0x7470800000, 466GiB) block_size 4096 (4KiB) rotational
2020-09-02 15:51:10.670320 7f495c44bd80 -1 bluestore(/var/lib/ceph/osd/ceph-2/block) _read_bdev_label failed to read from /var/lib/ceph/osd/ceph-2/block: (5) Input/output error
2020-09-02 15:51:10.670328 7f495c44bd80  1 bdev(0x55a423da9200 /var/lib/ceph/osd/ceph-2/block) close
2020-09-02 15:51:10.924727 7f495c44bd80  1 bluestore(/var/lib/ceph/osd/ceph-2) _mount path /var/lib/ceph/osd/ceph-2
2020-09-02 15:51:10.925582 7f495c44bd80 -1 bluestore(/var/lib/ceph/osd/ceph-2/block) _read_bdev_label failed to read from /var/lib/ceph/osd/ceph-2/block: (5) Input/output error
2020-09-02 15:51:10.925628 7f495c44bd80  1 bdev create path /var/lib/ceph/osd/ceph-2/block type kernel
2020-09-02 15:51:10.925630 7f495c44bd80  1 bdev(0x55a423da8600 /var/lib/ceph/osd/ceph-2/block) open path /var/lib/ceph/osd/ceph-2/block
2020-09-02 15:51:10.925784 7f495c44bd80  1 bdev(0x55a423da8600 /var/lib/ceph/osd/ceph-2/block) open size 500103643136 (0x7470800000, 466GiB) block_size 4096 (4KiB) rotational
2020-09-02 15:51:10.926549 7f495c44bd80 -1 bluestore(/var/lib/ceph/osd/ceph-2/block) _read_bdev_label failed to read from /var/lib/ceph/osd/ceph-2/block: (5) Input/output error

  2. Looking at Ceph OSD disk tree, we also see the disk is offline.

    Example

    [root@osd ~]# ceph osd tree
ID WEIGHT  TYPE NAME      UP/DOWN REWEIGHT PRIMARY-AFFINITY
-1 0.28976 root default
-2 0.09659     host ceph3
 1 0.09659         osd.1       down 1.00000          1.00000
-3 0.09659     host ceph1
 2 0.09659         osd.2       up  1.00000          1.00000
-4 0.09659     host ceph2
 0 0.09659         osd.0       up  1.00000          1.00000

2.4. Replacing a failed OSD disk

The general procedure for replacing an OSD involves removing the OSD from the storage cluster, replacing the drive and then recreating the OSD.

Prerequisites

  • A running Red Hat Ceph Storage cluster.
  • A failed disk.

Procedure

  1. Check storage cluster health: 

    [root@mon ~]# ceph health

  2. Identify the OSD location in the CRUSH hierarchy: 

    [root@mon ~]# ceph osd tree | grep -i down

  3. On the OSD node, try to start the OSD:

    Syntax

    systemctl start ceph-osd@OSD_ID

    If the command indicates that the OSD is already running, there might be a heartbeat or networking issue. If you cannot restart the OSD, then the drive might have failed.

    Note

    If the OSD is down, then the OSD will eventually get marked out. This is normal behavior for Ceph Storage. When the OSD gets marked out, other OSDs with copies of the failed OSD’s data will begin backfilling to ensure that the required number of copies exist within the storage cluster. While the storage cluster is backfilling, the cluster will be in a degraded state.

  4. For containerized deployments of Ceph, try to start the OSD container with the OSD_ID:

    Syntax

    systemctl start ceph-osd@OSD_ID

    If the command indicates that the OSD is already running, there might be a heartbeat or networking issue. If you cannot restart the OSD, then the drive might have failed.

    Note

    The drive associated with the OSD can be determined by Mapping a container OSD ID to a drive.

  5. Check the failed OSD’s mount point:

    Note

    For containerized deployments of Ceph, if the OSD is down the container will be down and the OSD drive will be unmounted, so you cannot run df to check its mount point. Use another method to determine if the OSD drive has failed. For example, run smartctl on the drive from the container node. 

    [root@osd ~]# df -h

    If you cannot restart the OSD, you can check the mount point. If the mount point no longer appears, then you can try remounting the OSD drive and restarting the OSD. If you cannot restore the mount point, then you might have a failed OSD drive.

    Using the smartctl utility cab help determine if the drive is healthy:

    Syntax

    yum install smartmontools
smartctl -H /dev/BLOCK_DEVICE

    Example

    [root@osd ~]# smartctl -H /dev/sda

    If the drive has failed, you need to replace it.

  6. Stop the OSD process:

    Syntax

    systemctl stop ceph-osd@OSD_ID

  7. For containerized deployments of Ceph, stop the OSD container:

    Syntax

    systemctl stop ceph-osd@OSD_ID

  8. Remove the OSD out of the storage cluster:

    Syntax

    ceph osd out OSD_ID

  9. Ensure the failed OSD is backfilling: 

    [root@osd ~]# ceph -w

  10. Remove the OSD from the CRUSH Map:

    Syntax

    ceph osd crush remove osd.OSD_ID

    Note

    This step is only needed, if you are permanently removing the OSD and not redeploying it.

  11. Remove the OSD’s authentication keys:

    Syntax

    ceph auth del osd.OSD_ID

  12. Verify that the keys for the OSD are not listed:

    Example

    [root@osd ~]# ceph auth list

  13. Remove the OSD from the storage cluster:

    Syntax

    ceph osd rm osd.OSD_ID

  14. Unmount the failed drive path:

    Syntax

    umount /var/lib/ceph/osd/CLUSTER_NAME-OSD_ID

    Example

    [root@osd ~]# umount /var/lib/ceph/osd/ceph-0

    Note

    For containerized deployments of Ceph, if the OSD is down the container will be down and the OSD drive will be unmounted. In this case there is nothing to unmount and this step can be skipped.

  15. Replace the physical drive. Refer to the hardware vendor’s documentation for the node. If the drive is hot swappable, simply replace the failed drive with a new drive. If the drive is NOT hot swappable and the node contains multiple OSDs, you MIGHT need to bring the node down to replace the physical drive. If you need to bring the node down temporarily, you might set the cluster to noout to prevent backfilling:

    Example

    [root@osd ~]# ceph osd set noout

    Once you replace the drive and you bring the node and its OSDs back online, remove the noout setting:

    Example

    [root@osd ~]# ceph osd unset noout

    Allow the new drive to appear under the /dev/ directory and make a note of the drive path before proceeding further.

  16. Find the OSD drive and format the disk.

  17. Recreate the OSD:

    1. Using Ceph Ansible.
    2. Using the command-line interface.

  18. Check the CRUSH hierarchy to ensure it is accurate:

    Example

    [root@osd ~]# ceph osd tree

    If you are not satisfied with the location of the OSD in the CRUSH hierarchy, you can move it with the move command:

    Syntax

    ceph osd crush move BUCKET_TO_MOVE BUCKET_TYPE=PARENT_BUCKET

  19. Verify the OSD is online.

2.5. Replacing an OSD drive while retaining the OSD ID

When replacing a failed OSD drive, you can keep the original OSD ID and CRUSH map entry.

Note

The ceph-volume lvm commands defaults to BlueStore for OSDs.

Prerequisites

  • A running Red Hat Ceph Storage cluster.
  • A failed disk.

Procedure

  1. Destroy the OSD:

    Syntax

    ceph osd destroy OSD_ID --yes-i-really-mean-it

    Example

    [root@osd ~]# ceph osd destroy 1 --yes-i-really-mean-it

  2. Optionally, if the replacement disk was used previously, then you need to zap the disk:

    Syntax

    ceph-volume lvm zap DEVICE

    Example

    [root@osd ~]# ceph-volume lvm zap /dev/sdb

    Note

    You can find the DEVICE by comparing output from various commands, such as ceph osd tree, ceph osd metadata, and df.

  3. Create the new OSD with the existing OSD ID:

    Syntax

    ceph-volume lvm create --osd-id OSD_ID --data DEVICE

    Example

    [root@mon ~]# ceph-volume lvm create --osd-id 1 --data /dev/sdb

Additional Resources