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Bug 961829

Summary: Default --replace-whitespace option missing from default_getuid in RHEL 6
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Reporter: Wesley Duffee-Braun <wduffee>
Component: device-mapper-multipathAssignee: Ben Marzinski <bmarzins>
Status: CLOSED DUPLICATE QA Contact: Red Hat Kernel QE team <kernel-qe>
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: unspecified    
Version: 6.3CC: agk, bmarzins, dwysocha, dyasny, heinzm, msnitzer, prajnoha, prockai, zkabelac
Target Milestone: rc   
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: Unspecified   
OS: Unspecified   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Story Points: ---
Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 2013-06-24 23:05:10 UTC Type: Bug
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
Documentation: --- CRM:
Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description Wesley Duffee-Braun 2013-05-10 13:49:41 UTC
Description of problem:
In RHEL 5, the -u (for replace whitespace) was a default option. In RHEL 6, that option is no longer present, and in order to retain that functionality, separate devices{} sections much be created in multipath.conf

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
device-mapper-multipath-0.4.9

How reproducible:
Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install RHEL 6
2. Setup multipath devices using defaults
3. Look for the names of the devices
  
Actual results:
Whitespace is not replaced

Expected results:
Whitespace is replaced with underscores.

Additional Info: 
Customer Business Justification - 
"RHEL-6 introduced a change to device-mapper-multipath in which the default command for getuid_callout no longer replaces whitespaces with 
underscores when identifying SCSI LUN serial numbers. This change introduces behavior that is inconsistent with previous versions of RHEL 
(v4, v5) and thus breaks customers' existing configuration processes/automation, but offers no apparent functional or performance advantage.

This appears already to have been identified as a problem, at least by one segment of Red Hat's customer base, as witnessed by the inclusion of 0161-RHBZ-836890-AIX-whitespace.patch in the device-mapper-multipath-0.4.9-60 source tree. This patch adds the '--replace-whitespace' option to the getuid_callout command (/lib/udev/scsi_id) so that output is consistent with historical behavior. Changing getuid_callout behavior to accord with previous versions of RHEL provides a seamless transition to RHEL-6's device-mapper-multipath, allowing customers' existing processes/automation to work without modification."

Comment 2 Ben Marzinski 2013-05-20 22:49:54 UTC
I'm not sure we can change the defaults at this stage, as existing customers may well be relying on their existing names with spaces.  However, a better option way be to remove the specific declaration of a getuid_callout in all of the built-in devices configurations that currently just set it to the default.  This will allow users to overwrite that in just the defaults section, and have it apply to every device that uses scsi_id.  There is still a risk that a customer may be relying on device names with a space for devices with built-in configurations, and have set getuid_callout to replace-whitespace in the defaults section and be relying on device names without a space for devices with no built-in configuration. This seems like a much smaller group, if customers like this exist at all.

It's even possible to make it an mpathconf option, so that if customers create their new multipath.conf files with mpathconf (which is the preferred method
in RHEL6), they can just set this option, and they won't have to modify it
by hand.

Comment 3 Wesley Duffee-Braun 2013-05-22 20:46:19 UTC
(In reply to Ben Marzinski from comment #2)
> I'm not sure we can change the defaults at this stage, as existing customers
> may well be relying on their existing names with spaces.  However, a better
> option way be to remove the specific declaration of a getuid_callout in all
> of the built-in devices configurations that currently just set it to the
> default.  This will allow users to overwrite that in just the defaults
> section, and have it apply to every device that uses scsi_id.  There is
> still a risk that a customer may be relying on device names with a space for
> devices with built-in configurations, and have set getuid_callout to
> replace-whitespace in the defaults section and be relying on device names
> without a space for devices with no built-in configuration. This seems like
> a much smaller group, if customers like this exist at all.
> 
> It's even possible to make it an mpathconf option, so that if customers
> create their new multipath.conf files with mpathconf (which is the preferred
> method
> in RHEL6), they can just set this option, and they won't have to modify it
> by hand.

Hello Ben,

I've talked with the customer on this, and we all agree that the preferred path forward is the removing of specific re-declarations of the default getuid_callout, thus permitting the defaults section to be applied on every device that uses scsi_id.

The mpathconf option as a secondary solution would be appropriate as well, but with the first option, the only change for systems moving from RHEL 5 to RHEL 6 would be to change the -u to the --replace-whitespace flag in their multipath.conf defaults{} section, minimizing transition headaches.

Thanks!
Wesley

Comment 4 Ben Marzinski 2013-06-24 23:05:10 UTC

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 924924 ***