How to enable GlusterFS bitrot detection

Silent data corruption can reach a GlusterFS volume without an obvious disk error, leaving a file readable until an application depends on bad data. Enabling bitrot detection adds a checksum-backed integrity signal so corrupted objects can be flagged before operators treat the volume as clean.

Bitrot detection runs a bitd signer and a scrubber process for a volume, maintaining checksums and periodically verifying stored data against those signatures. Detected mismatches are marked as corrupted and reported in scrub status output, with details written to /var/log/glusterfs/bitd.log and /var/log/glusterfs/scrub.log.

Bitrot detection is enabled per volume and is disabled by default, which allows selective rollout across a cluster. Scrubbing consumes background CPU and I/O, so schedule the change for a low-traffic window on latency-sensitive storage. Detection identifies corruption but does not repair files automatically, so keep a recovery path ready for any object that appears in scrub reports.

1. List GlusterFS volumes to confirm the target volume name.

   $ sudo gluster volume list
   volume1

   Replace volume1 with the volume to protect.

2. Confirm the volume is started before enabling bitrot.

   $ sudo gluster volume info volume1
   Volume Name: volume1
   Type: Distribute
   Status: Started
   Number of Bricks: 1
   Brick1: storage1:/bricks/volume1/brick
   ##### snipped #####

3. Enable bitrot detection for the volume.

   $ sudo gluster volume bitrot volume1 enable
   volume bitrot: success bitrot enabled for volume volume1

   Scrubbing adds background I/O and CPU load; enable during a maintenance window for latency-sensitive workloads.

4. Verify that features.bitrot is enabled for the volume.

   $ sudo gluster volume get volume1 features.bitrot
   Option                                   Value
   ------                                   -----
   features.bitrot                          on

5. Check the scrub status for the volume.

   $ sudo gluster volume bitrot volume1 scrub status
   Volume name : volume1
   
   State of scrub: Active (Idle)
   Scrub impact: lazy
   Scrub frequency: biweekly
   Bitrot error log location: /var/log/glusterfs/bitd.log
   Scrubber error log location: /var/log/glusterfs/scrub.log
   
   ##### snipped #####
   
   Error count: 0

   Scrub frequency and throttle depend on the GlusterFS release and cluster policy; tune defaults via the related scrub configuration page when needed.