Preventing new file allocations on storage target

The allocation of new chunk files on storage targets can be prevented by making BeeGFS assume that there is no space left on the target. Based on this, the target will be moved to the emergency capacity pool, where it will not be used for new files while there are other storage targets still available in the normal or low pool. To do this, you can create a file named free_space.override with the contained number representing the amount of free space, so typically zero.

If your storage target directory (storeStorageDirectory in beegfs-storage.conf) is e.g. /mnt/myraid/beegfs_storage, then you would use this:

# echo 0 > /mnt/myraid/beegfs_storage/free_space.override

Note

This does not prevent writes or growth of existing files stored on the target.

It will take a few minutes until the information is updated. You can check the pool assignment of a storage target by looking at the corresponding column of beegfs-df tool output. When you want to restore everything back to normal later, you can simply delete the free_space.override file. All this can be done at runtime without restarting any of the services.