Logical volume mount manager

• US 20040107422A1
• Filed: 11/10/2003
• Published: 06/03/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 06/12/1998
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Cabrera, Luis Felipe, Kusters, Norbert P., Wieland, Peter W., Rinne, Robert D.
• Granted Patent: US 7,051,198 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 719/310
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/10 File systems; File servers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0607 by facilitating the process of upgrading existing storage systems, e.g. for improving compatibility between host and storage device
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0632 by initialisation or re-initialisation of storage systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0683 Plurality of storage devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4411 Configuring for operating with peripheral devices; Loading of device drivers
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99953 Recoverability
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99954 Version management

Abstract

A mount manager and supporting data structures enable automatic identification and re-establishment of logical volumes on non-removable storage devices in a computer system across multiple reboots and reconfigurations. The mount manager generates a redirected name for a new logical volume when a unique volume identifier is presented to the mount manager by the operating system. The mount manager stores the unique volume identifier and the associated redirected name in a persistent mount manager data structure The mount manager establishes a symbolic link between the persistent redirected name, which is used by higher layers of the operating system and user applications to address the logical volume, and a non-persistent device name used by the operating system. During the boot process, the mount manager uses the data structure entries identified by the unique volume identifiers of the arriving logical volumes to reconstruct the symbolic links so that references to the redirected name will resolve to the correct non-persistent device name. When the system undergoes physical reconfiguration, the mount manager associates an existing redirected name to a different non-persistent device name if the unique volume identifier is present in the data structure. In this fashion, logical volumes can be removed and restored in the computer without the knowledge of higher layers of the operating system and user applications. Optionally, the mount manager builds an in-memory data structure from the persistent data structure to increase the speed of the identification process.

Claims

1. A computer readable medium accessible to a computing system and encoding a computer program for executing a computer process for tracking logical volumes, the computer process comprising:

detecting the creation of a logical volume;

querying the logical volume for a non-persistent device name and a unique volume identifier;

creating a persistent association between the unique volume identifier and a unique mount manager identifier if there is no existing association, the unique mount manager identifier being persistent and unique across all computers; and

linking the mount manager identifier to the non-persistent device name.