Summary of changes

This topic summarizes changes to the IBM Storage Scale licensed program and the IBM Storage Scale library. Within each topic, these markers ( ) surrounding text or illustrations indicate technical changes or additions that are made to the previous edition of the information.

Summary of changes
for IBM Storage Scale 5.1.9
as updated, June 2024
This release of the IBM Storage Scale licensed program and the IBM Storage Scale library includes the following improvements. All improvements are available after an upgrade, unless otherwise specified.
AFM and AFM DR-related changes
  • AFM DR is supported in a remote destination routing (RDR) environment.
  • Added the support of the getOutbandList option for the out-of-band metadata population for a GPFS backend. For more information, see the mmafmctl command.
  • AFM online dependent fileset can be created and linked in the AFM DR secondary fileset without stopping the fileset by using the afmOnlineDepFset parameter. For more information, see the mmchconfig command and the Online creation and linking of a dependent fileset in AFM DR section.
  • Added sample tools for the AFM external caching to S3 servers in a sample directory.
    /usr/lpp/mmfs/samples/pcache/
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 129 Oct 8 11:45 afm-s3-tests
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 86 Oct 8 11:45 mmafmtransfer-s3-tests
AFM to Cloud Object Storage
Big data and analytics changes
For information on changes in IBM Storage Scale Big Data and Analytics support and HDFS protocol, see Big Data and Analytics - summary of changes.

IBM Storage Scale Container Storage Interface driver changes
For information on changes in the IBM Storage Scale Container Storage Interface driver, see IBM Storage Scale Container Storage Interface driver - Summary of changes.

IBM Storage Scale Container Native Storage Access changes
For information on changes in the IBM Storage Scale Container Native Storage Access, see IBM Storage Scale Container Native Storage Access - Summary of changes.

IBM Storage Scale Erasure Code Edition changes
For information on changes in the IBM Storage Scale Erasure Code Edition, see IBM Storage Scale Erasure Code Edition - Summary of changes.

Cloudkit changes
  • Cloudkit adds support for Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
  • Cloudkit enhancement to support AWS cluster upgrade.
  • Cloudkit enhancement to support for scale out on AWS cluster instances.
Discontinuation of the CES Swift Object protocol feature
  • CES Swift Object protocol feature is not supported from IBM Storage Scale 5.1.9 onwards.
  • IBM Storage Scale 5.1.8 is the last release that has CES Swift Object protocol.
  • IBM Storage Scale 5.1.9 will tolerate the update of a CES node from IBM Storage Scale 5.1.8.
    • Tolerate means:
      • The CES node will be updated to 5.1.9.
      • Swift Object support will not be updated as part of the 5.1.9 update.
      • You may continue to use the version of Swift Object protocol that was provided in IBM Storage Scale 5.1.8 on the CES 5.1.9 node.
      • IBM will provide usage and known defect support for the version of Swift Object that was provided in IBM Storage Scale 5.1.8 until you migrate to a supported object solution that IBM Storage Scale provides.
  • Please contact IBM for further details and migration planning.
File system core improvements
  • The dynamic pagepool feature is now available in IBM Storage Scale. The feature adjusts the size of the pagepool memory dynamically. For more information, see Dynamic pagepool.
  • The GPFSBufMgr sensor has been added to the performance monitoring tool. Issue the mmperfmon config add command to add sensor to IBM Storage Scale 5.1.9. For more information, see GPFSBufMgr.
  • Enhanced node expel logic has been added in IBM Storage Scale. The expel logic addresses the issue of a single node experiencing communication issues resulting in other nodes being expelled from the cluster.
  • The mmxcp command has been updated:
    • The enable option:
      • a new parameter, --hardlinks, has been added that executes an additional pass through the source files searching and copying hardlinked files as a single batch.
      • two new attributes for the copy-attrs parameter, appendonly and immutable, have been added which copies the appendonly and immutable attributes, if present.
    • The verify option:
      • Two new attributes for the check option, appendonly and immutable, have been added that compare the appendonly and immutable attributes, if present.
    For more information, see mmxcp command
  • The MMBACKUP_PROGRESS_CONTENT environment variable has a new value that indicates file size information should be displayed during the backup. For more information, see mmbackup command.
  • The mmapplypolicy command has a new option --silent-on-delete that ignores certain type of errors during the DELETE rule execution. For more information, see mmapplypolicy command.
  • The mmremotecluster command was updated to include the remote cluster id in the output of the show action. For more information, see mmremotecluster command.
  • Using the mmkeyserv update command, you can change the encryption key server's hostname and IPA. For more information, see mmkeyserv command.
  • IBM Storage Scale supports signed kernel modules for UEFI secure boot:

    IBM Storage Scale 5.1.9 supports UEFI secure boot environments with RHEL 9.2 on x86_64. The gpfs.bin.rpm holding signed kernel modules and the public key can be downloaded from Fix Central. For more information, see Signed kernel modules for UEFI secure boot.

  • IBM Storage Scale no longer uses the Linux kernel flag PF_MEMALLOC for its threads. Because of this flag, the Linux kernel displayed a warning when the XFS file system was used for a local file system on IBM Storage Scale nodes. After the removal of this flag, no warnings were displayed.
File system protocol changes
  • NFS-Ganesha is upgraded to version 4.3.
  • The default option for the SMB configuration parameter fileid:algorithm is changed from fsname to fsname_norootdir.
Installation toolkit changes
  • Toolkit support for Remote mount configuration.
  • Extended operating system certification and support.
  • Toolkit code enhancement to work with latest Ansible library.
  • ECE SED installation, upgrade and multi DA support for vdisk creation.
Management API changes
The following endpoints are modified:
  • GET filesystems/{filesystemName}/filesets/{filesetName}
For more information, see IBM Storage Scale management API endpoints.
Native REST API (technology preview)
IBM Storage Scale introduces the Native Rest API feature as a technology preview feature. The feature adds a new control plane component to the IBM Storage Scale stack for administering clusters instead of the mm-command layer. The feature also adds a few security enhancements. For more information, see the following IBM Storage Scale support page: https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/7059676
ARM processor (technology preview)

IBM Storage Scale is supported on the ARM processor as a technology preview (nonproduction environments), starting with IBM Storage Scale 5.1.9. IBM Storage Scale has been developed for the ARM processor with an instruction set of at least version 8.2-A. For more information, see the following IBM Storage Scale support page: https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/7066226

Commands, data types, and programming APIs
The following section lists the modifications to the documented commands, structures, and subroutines:
New commands
There are no new commands.
New structures
There are no new structure changes.
New subroutines
There are no new subroutines.
New user exits
There are no new user exits.
Changed commands
  • cloudkit
  • gpfs.snap
  • mmaddcallback
  • mmafmconfig
  • mmafmcosconfig
  • mmafmcoskeys
  • mmapplypolicy
  • mmafmctl
  • mmbackup
  • mmces
  • mmchconfig
  • mmchfileset
  • mmchfs
  • mmcrfs
  • mmdelacl
  • mmdiag
  • mmeditacl
  • mmedquota
  • mmfsckx
  • mmgetacl
  • mmhdfs
  • mmhealth
  • mmimportfs
  • mmkeyserv
  • mmobj
  • mmnfs
  • mmputacl
  • mmremotecluster
  • mmrestripefile
  • mmsdrrestore
  • mmsetquota
  • spectrumscale
  • mmxcp
Changed structures
There are no changed structures.
Changed subroutines
  • gpfs_fcntl
Deleted commands
There are no deleted commands.
Deleted structures
There are no deleted structures.
Deleted subroutines
There are no deleted subroutines.
Messages
The following are the new, changed, and deleted messages:
New messages
6027-1831 and 6027-1832, 6027-2054 through 6027-2063, 6027-3270, 6027-3415 through 6027-3417, 6027-3617, and 6027-3954 through 6027-3956
Changed messages
6027-1242
Deleted messages
There are no deleted messages.