The Novell Storage Services Management Utility (NSSMU) is a console-based utility for managing NSS storage media on a server. You can use NSSMU at any time as an alternative to the browser-based iManager Storage plug-in.
NSSMU is installed when you install NSS. The Linux install creates symlinks in the /opt/novell/nss/sbin folder for common NSS utilities, including NSSMU. Symlinks allow the path to NSSMU to become part of the root user’s path, which allows you to run nssmu from a terminal console as the root user.
Table 9-12 identifies key functions available in NSSMU for Linux. This quick reference is also available in the nssmu(8) man page. To access the man page, enter the following at a terminal console prompt:
man 8 nssmu
Table 9-12 Summary of Management Options in NSSMU for Linux
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Management Options |
Description |
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Use this option to initialize and maintain physical storage devices and software RAID devices available to this server. Use the Software RAID Devices option to create, repair, or delete RAIDs. Initialize the selected device by erasing its partition table, effectively destroying all of its data. If devices are present but not showing up for creating pools and volumes, you should initialize the disk. |
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Use this option to display details about partitions. All types of partitions are displayed, including those for Linux file systems. The Create option is disabled. NSS partitions are automatically created for you as you define NSS pools or software RAIDs. You can delete a single partition at a time when repairing a failed software RAID partition. To delete all partitions for a software RAID, you should delete the RAID itself from the Software RAIDs page; otherwise, the RAID is not cleanly deleted. The Mirror option lets you specify 1 to 3 partitions to mirror an existing partition that contains an NSS pool. Effectively, you are creating a RAID1 mirror device for the pool. Each segment of the defined RAID is a complete mirror of the original pool and is the same size as the original partition. After you mirror the partition, manage the RAID from the Software RAIDs page. |
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Use this option to create, delete, rename, and expand NSS storage pools to efficiently use all free space in the available devices. After you create a pool, you can expand it by adding free space from the same or different device to increase its size. Select from the available free space to allocate it to the pool. Each device can contribute a different amount of space to the pool. Devices that contribute space must be in the same share state as the pool, that is, or . You can increase the size of a pool, but you cannot reduce it. |
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Use this option to create, delete, rename, activate/deactivate, and mount/dismount NSS volumes and to set their attributes. To store data in encrypted format, specify a password when you create the volume. This enables the Encryption attribute. The encryption setting persists for the life of the volume. The encryption password can be 2 to 16 standard ASCII characters, with a suggested minimum of 6. The password generates a 128-bit NICI key for encryption. On system reboot, specify the password when you activate the volume for the first time. On Linux, you can mount encrypted volumes only from NSSMU on the first time after a system reboot. Provide the password when needed. Until you provide a password for encrypted volumes, you cannot mount multiple encrypted volumes at a time. |
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Use this option to create and manage NSS software RAID devices. A software RAID device emulates a hardware RAID device. RAID devices combine partitioned space on multiple physical devices into a single virtual device that you manage like any device. Each member device contributes an equal amount of space and only a single partition to the RAID. |
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Use this option to create, delete, mount, and dismount pool snapshots for NSS pools. On Linux, snapshots are stored on a separate partition that you specify, not another pool. After it is created, the partition for the snapshot pool cannot be expanded. |