Make sure your system and storage solution meets the requirements in this section.
The following requirements apply to devices for NSS on the latest release of OES 2 Linux:
Devices can be up to 2 TB in size. For information, see Section 10.1.1, Device Size Limit.
At least 10 MB of free space is needed on the storage media for each NSS pool you plan to create.
At least 12 MB of free space is needed on the storage media for each software RAID segment you plan to create.
For information about devices to use in a virtual environment, see Section 6.0, Using NSS in a Virtualization Environment.
The following general requirements apply to NSS on Linux:
A physical server or virtual server running OES 2 Linux.
NSS is not installed by default. You can select it during the YaST install, or install it at any time from the .
For information about install options, see Section 3.2, Installing and Configuring NSS on Linux.
The NSS file system is used only for data volumes on OES 2 Linux. The Linux operating system requires a Linux POSIX file system for its system volume, such as Ext3.
After installing OES 2 Linux, install only approved updates. Refer to the OES 2 SP3: Installation Guide to install the approved updates.
For information about updating the NSS Kernel Module, see Section 3.7, Updating the NSS Kernel Module (km_nss) for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.
A Novell eDirectory Read/Write replica must be available in the same tree as the server when you create an NSS pool or volume on Linux so that the Storage objects can be created in eDirectory; otherwise, NCP cannot map to the pool or volume.
NSS Admin object must be placed under the default location, that is, the same place where the server object exists.
The device where you want to create NSS volumes must be managed by EVMS in order to use the Storage plug-in to iManager or NSSMU to create and manage NSS partitions, pools, and volumes. Novell Cluster Services for Linux also requires EVMS.
IMPORTANT:If you move devices that contain NSS pools cross-platform (such as reassigning SAN-based devices from a NetWare server to an OES 2 Linux server), NSS recognizes the pools and automatically uses EVMS to manage the devices.
Updates to EVMS for OES 2 SP3 Linux, are received through the update channel for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP4. Make sure that you install the latest patches for EVMS before you create pools and volumes for this server.
WARNING:NSS requires EVMS version 2.5.5-24.54.5 or later. This mandatory update is available in the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 Support Pack 1 patch channel as of March 21, 2008. OES 2 SP3 Linux automatically installs or updates EVMS to EVMS version 2.5.5-24.72.1.
In some cases, reverting to EVMS versions earlier than 54.5 might result in data corruption. In the .46 and .49 versions, data corruption can occur if NSS pools and volumes are mounted when you install EVMS updates.
Linux uses Linux Volume Manager (LVM) as its default volume manager. Beginning with the Linux 2.6 kernel, any disk managed by the LVM2 cannot be managed by Enterprise Volume Management System (EVMS). Thus, disks where the boot partition (such as /boot for Grub) and system partition (such as for the swap and / (root) volumes) reside are typically unavailable to NSS.
To be able to create an NSS data volume on the same device as your boot partition or system partition, make sure to configure the device for EVMS during the install. For information, see Installing with EVMS as the Volume Manager of the System Device
in the OES 2 SP3: Installation Guide.
When your data volumes are on non-system devices, do not configure devices during the install. Instead, leave the devices as unconfigured free space and do not assign a volume manager for them. After the install, create the volumes with NSSMU or the Storage plug-in to iManager.
NSS is not supported for devices managed by non-EVMS volume managers. For more information, see Section D.0, Using NSS on Devices Managed by Non-EVMS Volume Managers.
For information about installing and using the storage-related iManager plug-ins, see Section 9.1, Novell iManager and Storage-Related Plug-Ins.