How it Works

The following steps describe how to enable data partition using XFS:

  1. When partition is defined under os , run cluster-sync to create a file named smi-fs that contains the customized file system type information.

    smi-fs is a valid shell file containing variable assignments (all instances of - are converted to _ ).

    The file is created under:

    • /scripts in cloud-init iso file for VMware

    • /smi/cloud-init/ in smi-install-iso file for bare metal

    For example:

    # cat /smi/cloud-init/smi-fs
    smi_fs_smi_state=FS_TYPE=xfs

    The above variable assignment indicates that smi-state partition must be formatted using XFS as the file system type.

    smi_fs_ is added as prefix to the variable name to avoid any name conflict.

  2. During a fresh installation, the initialize script (shared-iso-files/templates/initialize) in the bootable ISO creates the file system using the information from smi-fs.

  3. After reboot, another initialize script (shared-iso-files/templates/base-image-initialize) which is installed under /etc/initramfs-tools/smi-init/initialize updates /etc/fstab with the correct entries.

    Note

    If a separate disk is used for /data, the initialization of data partition is done in base-image-initialize.