Using XFS

Note

This feature is available with 3215+ stemcell series.

Certain releases operate more reliably when persistent data is stored using particular filesystem. The Agent currently supports two different persistent disk filesystem types: ext4 (default) and xfs.

Here is an example:

instance_groups:
- name: mongo
  instances: 3
  jobs:
  - name: mongo
    release: mongo
  # ...
  persistent_disk: 10_000
  env:
    persistent_disk_fs: xfs

Currently this configuration lives in the instance group env configuration. (Eventually we will move this configuration onto the disk type where it belongs.) There are few gotchas:

  • changing persistent_disk_fs in any way (even if just explicitly setting the default of ext4) results in a VM recreation (but reuses same disk)
  • changing persistent_disk_fs for an instance group that previously had a persistent disk will not simply reformat existing disk

To move persistent data to a new persistent disk formatted with a new filesystem you have to set persistent_disk_fs configuration and change the disk size. If there was no existing persistent disk (for example, for a new deployment), the Agent will format it as requested.