Summary of changes

Control fileset access for remote clusters

The list of allowed filesets for remote clusters can now be changed and be effective without a need to remount on remote nodes. For more information, see Fileset access control for remote clusters.

New Safeguarded copy feature

The safeguarded copy feature is a mechanism to protect fileset and file system data from accidental or deliberate compromise. For more information, see Protecting file data: IBM Spectrum Scale safeguarded copy.

New --expiration-time option for snapshot retention

The --expiration-time option specifies the expiration time of a snapshot for which a retention period is defined. It ensures that the snapshot cannot be deleted before its retention time expires. For more information, see mmcrsnapshot command.

New [--preview {policy|candidates}] option to execute the mmbackup command in the test only mode

This option allows the user to preview what would be processed by the mmbackup command without the backup cycles occurring. The option helps users to plan backups efficiently. The possible values are:

• policy: Generates the policy rules to be used in file selection and processing.
• candidates: Performs the policy scan and generates backup/expire candidate lists.

For more information, see the mmbackup command.

New mmrestrictedctl command for performing specific system functions

The new mmrestrictedctl command is introduced to perform specific system functions. In IBM Spectrum Scale 5.1.5 it is used to delete a GPFS snapshot prior to the expiration date of the defined retention period. For more information, see mmrestrictedctl command.

Network resiliency enhanced with Multi-Rail over TCP (MROT) feature

The Multi-Rail over TCP (MROT) feature enables the concurrent use of multiple network interfaces and subnets. With MROT, the subnets attribute can be used to establish fault tolerance or automatic failover. All the IP addresses which are defined in the subnets attribute are used to establish connections with the nodes within the cluster. For more information, see Configuring Multi-Rail over TCP (MROT).

Define maximum number of filesets

The maxFilesets attribute helps define the maximum number of filesets that can be created in a file system. For more information, see mmchconfig command.

IBM Spectrum Scale supports accelerated writes with GPUDirect Storage (Tech Preview)

IBM Spectrum Scale supports accelerated writes with GPUDirect Storage as a Technical Preview feature. Accelerated GPUDirect Storage writes can be tested by the Licensee on non-production systems. The support of accelerated GPUDirect Storage reads and “writes in compatibility mode” remains unchanged including the use in production environments as in the previous release. For more information, see GPUDirect Storage with accelerated writes support page documentation.

IBM Spectrum Scale supports CipherTrust Manager 2.8

IBM Spectrum Scale supports CipherTrust Manager 2.8 for file system encryption. The following two configuration methods are supported depending on the certificates being used:

• Local certificate authority configuration

  For more information, see Configuring encryption with the Thales CipherTrust Manager key server by using a local certificate authority.

• External certificate authority configuration

  For more information, see Configuring encryption with the Thales CipherTrust Manager key server by using an external certificate authority.

• Ansible collection support in the toolkit.
• Precheck problem determination enhancement.
• Config populate enhancement.

• POST access

• The About Us page in the IBM Spectrum Scale management GUI displays the supported TLS versions.
• You can configure and edit S3 accounts, services and export through the Data Access Service panel.
• The IBM Spectrum Scale management GUI provides the facility to enable expiration of snapshots for which retention periods are defined.
• You can collect files from manual update (MU) filesets for a specific file system and upload in COS by using an AFM policies in the Fileset tiering panel.

For compatibility reasons on IBM Spectrum Scale 5.1.0.x and later on Red Hat Enterprise Linux® 7.x (7.7 and later), a few Python 2 files are packaged and they might trigger dependency-related messages. In certain scenarios, Python 2.7 might also be required to be installed. Multiple versions of Python can co-exist on the same system. For more information, see the entry about mmadquery in Guidance for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.x on IBM Spectrum Scale nodes.

The Python code in IBM Spectrum Scale 5.0.y or earlier continues to be in Python 2.

IBM Spectrum Scale 5.1.x supports Python 3.6 or later. It is recommended that Python 3.6 is installed through the OS package manager (For example, yum install python3). If you install Python 3.6 by other means, then unexpected results might occur, such as failure to install gpfs.base for prerequisite checks, and workarounds might be required.

• Added a new sensor GPFSDiskCap with its sub-sensors in GPFS metrics as per the update in the perfmon config. For more information, see the GPFS metrics.

• New events added for the following:

  • GDS events
  • NVMeoF events

New commands

mmrestrictedctl

New structures

There are no new structures.

New subroutines

There are no new subroutines.

New user exits

There are no new user exits.

Changed commands

• mmafmconfig
• mmafmctl
• mmafmcosctl
• mmauth
• mmbackup
• mmcallhome
• mmchconfig
• mmchfs
• mmcrcluster
• mmcrfs
• mmcrsnapshot
• mmfsckx
• mmhealth
• mmkeyserv
• mmlsfs
• mmlssnapshot
• mmsmb
• mmsdrrestore
• 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.

New messages

6027-1312, 6027-3413, and 6027-4212

Changed messages

6027-2050 and 6027-3595

Deleted messages

6027-1922