View Full Version : Here i go again, Linux what flavour?
LeperousDust
28-10-2007, 17:42
I've got a PC sat behind me now with specs:
P4C800-E Deluxe
2.8ghz P4C
512mb General 400mz DDR
4 * 400gb hard drives (2 cconnected to motherboard, 2 connected to RocketRAID 1540)
2 * 40gb hard drives (mirrored on the motherboard)
Random samsung (possible intermittantly faulty) DVD
Geforce 3 ti something AGP
Now i need this to serve first and formost as a NAS, i want that space RAIDed and to used for good measure, generally storing media and more importantly backups. If something goes wrong i'd like it recoverable.
I also need this PC to server as a print server, we've got one printer throughout the flat and this is the only PC (everyone uses laptops over wireless) so being able to print from anyones laptop is crucial too, thats all it serves atm running windows with sharing enabled. What linux shizzle should i be looking at?
I want it simple and easy, with a HTTP or some kind of remote interface. Looked at FreeNAS Perfect for the NAS doesn't really seem to do anything with printers? Same for Openfiler. Then i found eBox great as a server but RAID kinda NAS stuff seems thin on the ground there. Apart from installing Ubuntu and doing this the hard way (i'd really don't think i want to do this) what else could i do?
Purely for ease of installation configuration and the amount of online help available and support you can get for it, I'd say Ubuntu - it does everything other linux distros do, and even if it doesn't you can install software on it that makes it do what you want it to do. I know there are more competent and complex versions out there maybe more specific for server based applications but just trying to save your sanity - well if you're a linux n00b like me anyway I found it easy to get on with!
LeperousDust
28-10-2007, 17:53
The point is the others out there maybe easier to setup for what i want, for instance freeNAS throw the CD install, and you've got a bare bones NAS only PC, its awesome, i just want a printer tagged onto that too.
Where as ubuntu, i'd have to setup my RAID, set up samba or whatever, and printer share it all, then i've got to set up some kind of remote admin (freeNAS has a HTTP remote admin page) amongst other things i've no doubt forgot too. Ubuntu would be the best solution probably without a doubt but it's more fiddling than i have the time or inclination for unless i HAVE to... :(
I've never used FreeNAS but if you think it'll configure better and be better for your use then maybe that's the way to go obviously if it's a role specific version of it. I'm sure the linux boys would be able to help you to setup a printer on it if you had to have it.
LeperousDust
28-10-2007, 18:18
Thats why i'm hoping garp/daz/burble/mark or whoever will appear in a short while and tell me they'll hold my hand while i do as my told... haha. FreeNAS is great apart the the lack of print server/sharing support...
LeperousDust
28-10-2007, 18:48
Right since i'm being impatient, i've just thrown Gutsy Gibbon on it, i'll get printer sharing up and running first as thats pretty important. Not sure how easy it is yet, haven't looked into it. Then i'll look at getting some kind of NAS/RAID thing set up and webadmin for it all...
For printer sharing with Windows you'll need cups and samba. It's fairly easy to set up once you have the software installed. Also, beware that if your Windows driver has special printing options, you will lose them when printing this way (there might be some solution to that, but I don't know it).
LeperousDust
28-10-2007, 19:39
I totally forgot you mark, i see so if i set greyscale printing from within windows printing options it will be whatever the ubuntu box sets itself as? I want to set default to greyscale, but give the user (my mates) options to overide in some cases to colour when needed... Is that going to be a pain? Why is everything always full of these little niggling problems...
Right, forget trying to use the RocketRAID controller or onboard RAID stuff with Linux - its not worth the time or the hassle when you have mdraid there and available - and its far superior anyway. Those RocketRAID "fakeraid" cards are a complete waste of time, so just use it for what it is, a cheap HDD controller!
Install and configure Samba, perhaps install webmin for this (I dont think its in apt, even with the rest of the repositories enabled) so download the .deb from sourceforge and use dpkg to install it:
dpkg -i webmin_1.370.deb
for whatever .deb you download.
Webmin is an incredibly lazy way of managing your system and the latest version is a bit buggy (at least with Apache it has been for me, other modules may well be too), but it will save you the hassle of learning the config file syntax and will let you sort out users and stuff with relative ease. I dont use it any more because I hated not seeing what was going on underneath (mainly for when things went wrong!) but for a relative newbie, its spot on.
I cant answer your printing question, but maybe installing VMware and running an nlite stripped out windows 2k or something in it might be the solution for that? If you set it up right, on that hardware you wont notice the VM running :)
LeperousDust
28-10-2007, 20:36
I'm only using the RocketRAID as HDD controller, i picked it up cheap for that reason, i actually want to run software RAID only as it should be easier to put together after a nuclear fallout... But i'm already having the usual linux problems, this is why i just can't be arsed...
Installed Ubuntu to one of the sammy drives, but the sammy drives are mirrored with the intel motherboard RAID, Ubuntu won't boot after installing. I've tried swapping both drives over the the promise fasktrak controller mirrored and installing again yet linux still falls over. When i install linux it still sees both drives as separate drives rather than one entitiy. How the hell do i get around that? Thats just for starters, i can get linux installed on one drive without RAID1 but since i have two 40gb (three in fact) i'd like the extra sescurity since there isn't much else i can do with them!
I'm thinking it would be easier to install windows back on here, use the rocketraid card for hardware raid 5 stuff and use the onboard intel or fasktrak as mirrored windows install. Printers will be set up in literally 5 seconds, shared folders will be seen by all with no setup and all still RAID5 (albeit hardware) and that'll do me for now...
//Edit: sammy drives are the two 40gb drives
LeperousDust
28-10-2007, 20:38
Currently zero building a hardware RAID5 array with the RocketRAID card, and i'll leave it going until its done unless i'm thourghly convince otherwise... This is usually how my linux installs go, just generally too much hassle with very little outcome, or any outcome thats worth the input :p
IIRC the onboard intel RAID is another "fakeraid" solution that has the same problem the RocketRAID cards do. Not surprised that broke.
Neither the rocketraid card nor your motherboard are actually raid cards. UNDER ABSOLUTELY NO CIRCUMSTANCES try and convince the fakeraid BIOS to build you an array. Not only will it not do a jot, you increase the risk of it thinking your array is broken and trying to repair it, nuking everything on both drives.
If you need more convinicing, I could put that in bold for you and make it bigger :)
I am trying to find a guide I wrote on how to use mdadm to build you a proper software RAID array.
LeperousDust
28-10-2007, 20:47
Lol, greeeat, and the Promise Fasktrack controller i assume is the same? So i have three what seem hardware raid solutions in this one PC, none of which actually play nice within linux, and i wonder why it isn't mainstream... Anyway, forget that then, how do i (**easily**) set up my OS mirrored?
//Edit: Loud and clear DRZ, so how DO i raid the OS then?
They only seem like hardware raid because the windows drivers lie to you and hide the drives so that you only see whatever logical disks you set up. They aren't actual RAID controllers as such. Its not so much a case of them not playing nice under Linux, its a case of Linux showing them up for what they are!
If you want to RAID the OS, its a bit more tricky but IMO there is no need to do so. A single drive should provide you with enough speed to run the sort of thing you want to run and then from there you can build an array to house your data.
Obviously you aren't going to have any OS redundancy but its a swift job to back up your OS disk (Acronis or similar will do this for you with no drama) and so you are covered. In any case, as I found out as I "took charge" of the engineering side of things at Shock, RAID is an availability solution, not a backup one!
Simply install Ubuntu on a single drive with no fakeraid trickery and you should be sweet :)
EDIT:
http://www.linuxhomenetworking.com/wiki/index.php/Quick_HOWTO_:_Ch26_:_Linux_Software_RAID
Have a read of that, it will take you through what you need to do :)
LeperousDust
28-10-2007, 22:20
Fair enough, i'll disable it all in a bit, and install to one of the samsung drives, is there a process from which i can automate a full backup 1:1 mirror image (rather than compressed image) of the full OS install onto the other samsung? So i literally can just swap the boot point over if for some reason my drive dies? I want failure recovery easy, i dont want to be arsing around trying to get my data back from within linux you see thats all :p
Acronis has a tool that will create one-click recovery thingamybobbers. Best run from a seperate machine though - would you want both drives going up in smoke if the PSU died or something and decided to take out a drive or two?
IF you keep your data nice and tidily just on the md raid volume, it can be imported back into any linux fairly easily I think - the FS type is set as "Linux Raid" so it should all just figure itself out if it came to it. Not sure if the Ubuntu LiveCDs have mdraid support as it stands (I remember having to get it through apt) but thats yet another avenue for disaster recovery!
Im sure Daz will have a better take on the backup side of things as its something I am fairly green at :)
LeperousDust
28-10-2007, 22:56
I've kinda thought of that too, both OS hard drives would be on two different rails which would mean the PSU would have to go seriously postal to do something that drastic, at that point i wouldnt be recovering the other 4 * 400gb drives anyways by the sound of it, which was the whole point :p
I've got three hard drives so i could get really anal (if Daz gets in here ;)) and do incremental backups to the tune of two (or three not sure how you count it) drives! I'll look into acronis, but something more automated i could run once a week/day whatever that ran within Ubuntu would be great for me...
Acronis can be scheduled to do incremental backups :)
4*400Gb in RAID5 should give you a tasty amount of storage with some redundancy, and is fine in mdraid.
Backing up 1.2Tb could be interesting though!
My mdraid array:
/dev/md0:
Version : 00.90.03
Creation Time : Mon Sep 4 01:09:20 2006
Raid Level : raid1
Array Size : 312568576 (298.09 GiB 320.07 GB)
Device Size : 312568576 (298.09 GiB 320.07 GB)
Raid Devices : 2
Total Devices : 2
Preferred Minor : 0
Persistence : Superblock is persistent
Update Time : Fri Mar 30 07:25:05 2007
State : clean
Active Devices : 2
Working Devices : 2
Failed Devices : 0
Spare Devices : 0
UUID : 1afceb08:d3baa4b2:41c3fe51:be373b4d
Events : 0.354828
Number Major Minor RaidDevice State
0 8 1 0 active sync /dev/sda1
1 8 17 1 active sync /dev/sdb1
How often do you need to back up the OS?
If not often, then an external USB caddy will do the trick.
You can take a replica of an entire disk in Linux - it's dead easy in fact (far easier than Windows), but it's best to be in single user mode with the whole lot mounted read-only if you want to do it that way (it'll usually work, but filesystem drivers tend not to like two things using the same bit of disk at once). Arconis sounds like a simpler solution to me.
DRZ - you seem to have got the RAID mantra down. Daz ought to copyright that. I ought to take heed as well really, but I have so much damn stuff and no idea where to put it all. :/
LeperousDust
29-10-2007, 00:35
I won't be backing up the 1.2 TB drive, it will be mainly meadia i can get again if worst comes to worst, the redundancy will do me fine for that, but i will want to backup the OS just for ease of restore if the OS drive gets fubared on me. I'll look into incremental backups with acronis, seems good. Or as mark says if you can make a copy of the OS onto a USB drive i could set that up to copy it to the other internal drive and set it as a scheduled tast maybe?
I won't be backing up the 1.2 TB drive, it will be mainly meadia i can get again if worst comes to worst, the redundancy will do me fine for that, but i will want to backup the OS just for ease of restore if the OS drive gets fubared on me. I'll look into incremental backups with acronis, seems good. Or as mark says if you can make a copy of the OS onto a USB drive i could set that up to copy it to the other internal drive and set it as a scheduled tast maybe?
The way mark suggests involves going singleuser, which means you lose your server for a little bit while you do the copy. Not hard to make a tarball of it all, but I would suggest that you would need to know a touch more about Linux and how it works at a deeper level before you took that approach :)
It seems to me that a one-button recovery solution would be better for you (as in, something most likely to get you back online ASAP), certainly for the time being. I have just had to restore a system from a tarball and it was a pretty steep learning curve to get that back working as it should (probably slightly more complicated than anything you will encounter, but a complete new system wouldn't put you far wide of the mark!).
Chuckles
29-10-2007, 00:43
Why do want a software RAID rather than a hardware one?
To be honest, unless you are worried about the licensing, you would be best sticking on 2000 server IMO.
LeperousDust
29-10-2007, 00:44
Hmmmm, right forget even planning ahead here, i have no clue whats going on but something is wrong. I boot from the Live CD install point it the the samsung drive no errors no nothing, everything seems fine. When i restart and take the CD out as the computer tries to boot all i get instead of grub is a blank screen with a blinking cursor, a bit of HDD activity but thats it, left it for a few minutes and nothing happens that i can see at all. Sooooo what do i do from here?
Why do want a software RAID rather than a hardware one?
To be honest, unless you are worried about the licensing, you would be best sticking on 2000 server IMO.
Because its quite likely he cant afford a hardware raid card? Certainly not one with enough connectors for all his drives :)
EDIT:
Actually just to expand on that, its my opinion (and I am going to stick to it) that a linux-based software raid solution is FAR better than a windows-based "pseudo-hardware" fakeraid solution. Two reasons:
1. Setting it all up, you know EXACTLY what is going on rather than a mishmash of imitation RAID cards and trick drivers and when your system throws a drive, you know exactly where you stand regarding recovery (ie, not trusting it to a vague pseudoraid bios or horrendously cheapo Windows software)
2. If something goes wrong with your IDE/SATA controller, you are not COMPLETELY buggered.
Hmmmm, right forget even planning ahead here, i have no clue whats going on but something is wrong. I boot from the Live CD install point it the the samsung drive no errors no nothing, everything seems fine. When i restart and take the CD out as the computer tries to boot all i get instead of grub is a blank screen with a blinking cursor, a bit of HDD activity but thats it, left it for a few minutes and nothing happens that i can see at all. Sooooo what do i do from here?
Is the Samsung HDD plugged into the mobo, and if it is, is the onboard raid silliness disabled?
LeperousDust
29-10-2007, 00:47
Why do want a software RAID rather than a hardware one?
To be honest, unless you are worried about the licensing, you would be best sticking on 2000 server IMO.
Your probably right i suppose i'm not worried but i thought i may be able to get pretty nice looking NAS setup along the linux route.
The way mark suggests involves going singleuser, which means you lose your server for a little bit while you do the copy. Not hard to make a tarball of it all, but I would suggest that you would need to know a touch more about Linux and how it works at a deeper level before you took that approach :)
It seems to me that a one-button recovery solution would be better for you (as in, something most likely to get you back online ASAP), certainly for the time being. I have just had to restore a system from a tarball and it was a pretty steep learning curve to get that back working as it should (probably slightly more complicated than anything you will encounter, but a complete new system wouldn't put you far wide of the mark!).
I see i see, yeah one touch backup will do me, i'll leave the tarball parp for now, i've got no idea what-so-ever.
LeperousDust
29-10-2007, 00:51
Because its quite likely he cant afford a hardware raid card? Certainly not one with enough connectors for all his drives :)
Well all four fit on the rocketraid card so i suppose i could get away with it, but if the card died it would be pointless me having the raid5 in the first place...
Is the Samsung HDD plugged into the mobo, and if it is, is the onboard raid silliness disabled?
Yes its plugged into the mobo, the mobo can see it as normal, the liveCD could see it as normal, and no RAID enabled AT ALL. It's plugged into the normal controller on the motherboard provided by whoever not even the tacked on south bridge promise fast track with just IDE enabled.
Thing is when i try to reinstall from the Live CD it mounts the samm drive and the drive is populated with boot and root folders etc... like its all good to go, just seems a grub problem?
//Edit: DRZ i forgot to add, thanks for all the help so far here, as you can tell i seriously need it. It's hard not to just load windows back up again :p In fact if Windows Home Server could actually use RAID rather than its strange version this thread wouldn't even be here...!
Did you manually partition the drive or did you let the Ubuntu magical mystery partitioner do it all for you? Just wondering if the MBR made it to the drive or not...
If you select "boot from primary hard drive" in the Ubuntu LiveCD initial screen menu, does it boot or does it sit there pondering?
LeperousDust
29-10-2007, 00:57
I let ubuntu work its magic since theres nothing i want on the drive at all.
Didn't think of trying the disc will do so now.
//Edit: Now what i get is:
Booting from hard disk...
a blank screen and the blinking cursor... :p
I can still reset with Ctrl atl delete if that counts for anything? (Both ways)
Chuckles
29-10-2007, 01:07
Sorry if this is a little off topic but I've only got experience with SCSI based RAID solutions. I assume if your card dies you can't read the config back in off the drives then like you can with SCSI? What about if you got a replacement card and set up the config the same?
IMO I would allways go with hardware because IME I've never had a hardware failure on a RAID card on over 100 servers, but I've had plenty of instances where the OS is totally screwed and if you were on software RAID you would lose your data.
LeperousDust
29-10-2007, 01:12
Yeah you're right it will probably never go wrong, but the hardware raid card i have isn't actually hardware at all anyway, theyre only dynamic or logical or whatever drives in windows, when that goes poop i'm not sure how easy it is to replace. Windows and dynamic disks is apparently a recipie for trouble so i've heard? Also as you say if it did go i'd have to buy another replacement card and they're not cheap, apart from the fact i actually got this one cheap (normally i wouldnt pay for the 4 port cards) just general cheap interface cards.
I agree - boot issue sounds like the MBR. Are you using a SATA CD-ROM drive perchance? If so, the drives might have got swapped around, which can be fun to fix manually but it's possible. You can try swapping around the SATA connectors to see if that helps, but take a note of where they are now in case it gets worse. :)
LeperousDust
29-10-2007, 01:17
I've got a PATA old samsung DVD drive. Two sammy drives on the same controller on the mobo, two seagate drives on a promise controller on the mobo, and two seagate drives on the rocketraid controller plugged in a PCI slot. What should i swap around where? You mean i have to literally open the PC up and change the cables around until something happens? Thats a nightmare i've got the rats nest sorted out that'll wreck everything! Arg, this solidifies my point about linux :p Does my head in honeslty!
Ah, could be trying to boot off the wrong sammy. Try unplugging the other one and see if that helps.
Chuckles
29-10-2007, 01:21
Ah well if it isn't a "Proper" hardware RAID and the arrays are managed to some extent by the OS rather than the card itself then that would change the situation entirely :)
As regards Linux, it kind of depends on whether you want to do this as a project and expand your knowledge or whether you quickly need a working system in order. You'll find that doing this kind of stuff in Linux will expand your knowledge greatly but there is a big learning curve and it is very fiddly at times. I'm sure you're pretty proficiant at Windows and you could simply bung in a server 2k/2003 CD and have this all set up in 30 mins :)
Sorry if this is a little off topic but I've only got experience with SCSI based RAID solutions. I assume if your card dies you can't read the config back in off the drives then like you can with SCSI? What about if you got a replacement card and set up the config the same?
IMO I would allways go with hardware because IME I've never had a hardware failure on a RAID card on over 100 servers, but I've had plenty of instances where the OS is totally screwed and if you were on software RAID you would lose your data.
Not with Linux software raid (depending on the implementation). If you lose an OS drive you just reinstall and then just remount the array (with a few more command-line options) and its back, unlike my experience with Windows software RAID.
SCSI-based real hardware raid controllers are infinitely preferable - but he doesn't have one of these and by suggesting a windows-based solution in this context you are advocating exactly what just you advised against :)
Ah well if it isn't a "Proper" hardware RAID and the arrays are managed to some extent by the OS rather than the card itself then that would change the situation entirely :)
As regards Linux, it kind of depends on whether you want to do this as a project and expand your knowledge or whether you quickly need a working system in order. You'll find that doing this kind of stuff in Linux will expand your knowledge greatly but there is a big learning curve and it is very fiddly at times. I'm sure you're pretty proficiant at Windows and you could simply bung in a server 2k/2003 CD and have this all set up in 30 mins :)
True enough about the time thing - I have been using Linux on and off for many years now (although only in the past 3 or so years in anger) and its still a learning spree every time I do something new - but personally I find that far better than the murky world of guessing with Windows (which is really what administering a windows server feels like in comparison).
Although setting up a fileserver in Linux with RAID etc took me the best part of a day including all the required reading and planning, I now know exactly what its doing (and can check on it exactly when I want to!) and I know exactly what I would need to do if/when it all goes wrong.
LeperousDust
29-10-2007, 01:29
Your not wrong i'm already reconsidering warming up the download :(
Mark, i've set in the BIOS the only hard drive to boot from is the "first" sammy drive which i installed linux on, so would that be passed to the grub loader at all? Hmmm gonna crack the case open see what happens then i guess, loads of hassle though the sata connections are so badly designed, it infuriates me!
Just to make it even more confusing, there are real hardware SATA and IDE, but they're rare beasts. I have an IDE card that's been through a complete system rebuild at least twice, a RAID rebuild with bigger disks, a crashed head, flexing the card to get it into the case (it's scarily bendy), and 24/7 for four years. What can I say? :)
The biggest problems I've had was with the drivers - the Linux kernel devs totally fubar'd them in 2.6.18 and I ended up posting on lkml asking for a fix (which, to their credit, was done in 2.6.21).
Chuckles
29-10-2007, 01:35
Not with Linux software raid (depending on the implementation). If you lose an OS drive you just reinstall and then just remount the array (with a few more command-line options) and its back, unlike my experience with Windows software RAID.
Yeah, but I don't mean about if you lose a drive which you are allways going to be covered whatever form of RAID you impliment. With a software RAID, you are relient on the OS. If your OS gets so messed up you can't boot or recover then even with no hardware failures on the drives you are going to lose your data. With hardware raid, all the config for the data drives is held in the cards so you could simply reinstall the OS and remount the drive. IME this situation is more likely than the SCSI controller totally failing. However, if it isn't a a true hardware RAID because it is reliant on the OS to some extent, the above isn't really relevent :)
SCSI-based real hardware raid controllers are infinitely preferable - but he doesn't have one of these and by suggesting a windows-based solution in this context you are advocating exactly what just you advised against :)
Indeed, if this isn't a "Real" hardware controller then my above advice isn't really very good :p
It seems to me that having a hardware controller that relies on the software is a bit pointless though!
Mark, i've set in the BIOS the only hard drive to boot from is the "first" sammy drive which i installed linux on, so would that be passed to the grub loader at all? Hmmm gonna crack the case open see what happens then i guess, loads of hassle though the sata connections are so badly designed, it infuriates me!
The problem here is that GRUB has it's own way of detecting hard disks which isn't the same as the BIOS, so what might be the first disk in the BIOS might be the second, third, fourth or whatever disk in GRUB, especially with so many different controllers in that system).
If fiddling with the connectors doesn't help, there are some commands you can from the LiveCD which should help track this down, but fiddling with MBRs is a task for when one is awake, especially if any of the disks contain data you might want to keep. :)
Incidentally, you can't blame Linux for this particular problem - Windows is prone to it as well.
LeperousDust
29-10-2007, 01:37
Right reinstalling ubuntu (thank god its so easy this far) again but with one sammy unplugged. It didn't work uplugging and switching etc... the sammys.
Do this (as root):
Check the boot partition is active/bootable by using fdisk from the LiveCD
Check that Grub is installed right by using grub-installer
EDIT:
Ah, too late :( If your reinstall doesn't work then as Mark says, we are into a land of joy with your grub conf, although your problems will be down to the sheer number of drives in your system I would bet!
With a software RAID, you are relient on the OS. If your OS gets so messed up you can't boot or recover then even with no hardware failures on the drives you are going to lose your data.
In Windows, yes (well, you might be able to get your data back if the particular combination of drivers and sacrificial goats happens to please Bill Gates on that particular day), but with mdraid, the worst you'll have to do is re-install Linux and mdraid, and run a few commands to help Linux re-discover the array configuration.
In Windows, yes (well, you might be able to get your data back if the particular combination of drivers and sacrificial goats happens to please Bill Gates on that particular day), but with mdraid, the worst you'll have to do is re-install Linux and mdraid, and run a few commands to help Linux re-discover the array configuration.
I was just about to edit my post to make that a bit more clear - cheers Mark! :D Saved me a job :p
Starscream: Yes, these fakeraid controllers aren't actually RAID controllers at all - just a HDD controller with a trick BIOS and as such are totally useless!
Chuckles
29-10-2007, 01:46
That's pretty cool!
I tend to pull 1 drive out of the OS mirror before doing any software or OS updates. That way if there is an issue, you just uplug it and put the other one back in.
If it is as easy as that to pull the config back in from linux then that's a considerable advantage over windows in your situation with that kind of hardware :)
You are right, it is pretty cool!
If you think thats cool though, you should look at ZFS. Its absolutely astonishing! It doesn't just run on Solaris either, but at the moment the non-solaris variants are a bit like the early days of read/write NTFS support. Its being actively developed though, so I expect good things soon and as soon as it becomes speedy you can be damn sure I will be putting my data onto a ZFS pool!
As for yanking a drive before an update - surely thats not "best practice"? You should have an up to date backup before you make any changes - so no need to start hot-unplugging drives!!
What if it was in the middle of a write or a sync? Sounds a bit risky to me!
LeperousDust
29-10-2007, 01:49
Hehe, cheers DRZ, it's going on now, i went the whole i've unplugged everything, there is one drive plugged in my primary OS drive. Thats it, if it fecks up this time i don't think i want to know! If this installs and boots, i'll plug all the others back in a pray :)
Hehe, cheers DRZ, it's going on now, i went the whole i've unplugged everything, there is one drive plugged in my primary OS drive. Thats it, if it fecks up this time i don't think i want to know! If this installs and boots, i'll plug all the others back in a pray :)
Thats not the spirit! :(
If it doesn't work after an apparently successful installation then it will probably be a simple grub config error (the installer doesn't *always* get things right, unfortunately). Probably fixed in 5 minutes from the LiveCD.
For what you want, Linux is the way forward :)
ZFS is scary. You want petabytes of storage? No problem. :shocked:
ZFS is scary. You want petabytes of storage? No problem. :shocked:
One of my mates works for Sun :) They had a little array of drives connected to a Solaris box, but the power cables were connected to this other box that randomly power cycled drives (and more than one at once sometimes) while the solaris box performed continuous read/write operations and checksummed all the files.
No errors whatsoever. At all. For the entire time the demonstration ran.
The way you can just add drives and take drives away from a ZFS pool is pretty neat too. You have to pay lots for a RAID implementation that'll do stuff like that!
I read lots of stuff about ext2/3/4, ReiserFS, ReiserFS4, XFS, ZFS, and one or two others when I was researching which filesystems to use for the latest incarnation of my RAID array at home.
ZFS was the only one that achieved this emotion -> :shocked:. :)
Chuckles
29-10-2007, 02:09
One of my mates works for Sun :) They had a little array of drives connected to a Solaris box, but the power cables were connected to this other box that randomly power cycled drives (and more than one at once sometimes) while the solaris box performed continuous read/write operations and checksummed all the files.
No errors whatsoever. At all. For the entire time the demonstration ran.
The way you can just add drives and take drives away from a ZFS pool is pretty neat too. You have to pay lots for a RAID implementation that'll do stuff like that!
That is pretty damn awesome! Was that all based in a SAN?
LeperousDust
29-10-2007, 02:11
Haha sorry DRZ i would like to get this working the linux way seems a better solution but i specifically didnt want this hassle :p! Annoyingly sods law dictated the installer seemed to hang at 82% while searching for apt mirros apparently. The OS still responded but the installer was taking twice as long as its done the last 10 times (i've got some good experience at installing now!) so i'm giving it another friggin chance!
That is pretty damn awesome! Was that all based in a SAN?
I think they were actually drives that the OS was talking to directly via some local HBA, but I don't know specifics. I dont think ZFS actually cares how your drives are connected, but I think the idea is it talks to the bare metal rather than an "interfering" raid controller. I get the distinct impression they are trying to take market share from hardware RAID :)
LeperousDust
29-10-2007, 02:32
woohoo i'm in, GRUB's up and running and booting Ubuntu fine, finally!
I'll set to wiring everything in again now and spinkling magic fairy dust in the hope that helps...
LeperousDust
29-10-2007, 02:38
:D Indeed, well unbuntu is flying away installing the restricted drivers and software updates, i'll leave those first. I L*LOVE* the way it does this, it really is *pish* to use as a general office/internet browse OS. It just generally (when working :p) just *work*. Configuring things on the other hand are horrendous sometiems :p
LeperousDust
29-10-2007, 03:02
Yay! I think i can sleep tongiht then, i'm going to muck around the see if ubuntu can see all these drives now first i think though. Tomorrow involves setting up print server/share with webadmin, RAID5ing my drives and samba sharing that with a webadmin too, with a possible backup solution thrown in. It's either that or going out, so i may schedule that for tuesday :p Wish me luck!
Cheers for all the support DRZ/Mark, you're wonderful!
//Edit seems there all there in Hardware Info waiting to be mounted :cool:
Stan_Lite
29-10-2007, 06:23
Alex, I know this may be slightly cheeky but could you keep a log of everything you do for this project please. I have been considering setting up an Ubuntu NAS for a bit and rather than go through all the pish you've been going through myself, it would be easier for me, if/when I get around to it, to have some notes to refer to. Doesn't need to be too specific but if you could keep note of hardware configurations, software installed etc. I would be hugely grateful :)
I'm not saying I would follow your build exactly but it would be handy to have a few pointers. If you can't be bothered then feel free to tell me to ***k off :p
LeperousDust
29-10-2007, 12:02
Basically see where i go wrong (a lot) and avoid that. Yeah sure, it'll all be in here probably anyways! :D As and when (all the time) i need the help!
Stan_Lite
29-10-2007, 16:13
Basically see where i go wrong (a lot) and avoid that.
I would never even dream about saying something like that ;)
Thanks dude. I've set up a few Ubuntu rigs and am forcing myself to use the Ubuntu laptop at work so that I learn so I know the basics but some tips about raid set-ups and Samba and the like would be useful.
LeperousDust
29-10-2007, 16:33
Asking me for tips is like the blind leading the blind, but you can sure learn from my horrendous mistakes.... :D I may have a go tonight depending on if i go out or not haha
You do know I'm (semi)-blind, don't you? This could get interesting. :p ;D
Stan_Lite
29-10-2007, 18:20
You do know I'm (semi)-blind, don't you? This could get interesting. :p ;D
The (semi) blind leading the blind leading the blind - as it were ;D
Could indeed be interesting :D
LeperousDust
30-10-2007, 02:00
Do no browse two threads at once :)
Reposted:
Sharing folders is a little trickier than windows, since i've got to add my windows username and password too. I found this works:
for password protected shares, you will have to add both the ubuntu username, and the username for the computer you want to connect with. (password protected shares in windows work the same way).
to add yourself as a samba user:
Code:
sudo smbpasswd -L -a ubuntu_username
sudo smbpasswd -L -e ubuntu_username
to add your remote computer as a samba user:
Code:
sudo useradd -s /bin/true windows_user
sudo smbpasswd -L -a windows_user
sudo smbpasswd -L -e windows_user
*where "ubuntu_username" and "windows_user" need to be replaced with your actual usernames for the respective machines.
but I can't install the printer (major reason we need this PC) the printer isn't in the database, its an PiXMA iP1500, and i can't find a "PPD" file anywhere so far, checked the canon website just in case, they've got stuff for SuSE but nothing else. Am i bummed? I want *decent* printer support...
//Edit: Things are kinda different now anyways, spent the last hour installing the printer, it's seen by ubuntu now, and i managed to get the drivers converted with alien via the wiki (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CanonPixmaIP1500) but i although the printer "prints" its confused, doesn't actually print ink, and completes jobs when it doesn't even do anything so the drivers are on some kind of drugs. Nevermind that, i can see my folder and printer (woohoo!) from my windows laptop, i can copy files accross and edit etc... all good good, but i can't use the printer, or at least i don't think i can send jobs accross notepad isn't liking it, status is access denied unable to access (cheer notepad) but that doesnt matter cause even if i *could* send a job, at present best effort would be a blank page with what the printer though was ink...
I know the ink is low but not empty because i was only just using it on windows to be certain i may plug it into my lappy in a bit though...
Sooooo any ideas? :D
//Edit: i feel generally its one step forward two back, i was so impressed i managed to get an unsupported printer working and managed to share it, but now i'm thrown no actual ink, nor access to print via samba or whatever...
Quickest way to fix the access denied, find and edit the smb.conf file (should be in /etc/samba), and look for the [printers] section. Here's my (working) configuration...
# NOTE: If you have a CUPS print system there is no need to
# specifically define each individual printer.
# You must configure the samba printers with the appropriate Windows
# drivers on your Windows clients. On the Samba server no filtering is
# done. If you wish that the server provides the driver and the clients
# send PostScript ("Generic PostScript Printer" under Windows), you have
# to swap the 'print command' line below with the commented one.
[printers]
comment = All Printers
path = /var/spool/samba
browseable = no
# to allow user 'guest account' to print.
guest ok = yes
writable = no
printable = yes
create mode = 0700
# =====================================
# print command: see above for details.
# =====================================
print command = lpr -P %p -o raw %s -r # using client side printer drivers.
; print command = lpr -P %p %s # using cups own drivers (use generic PostScrip
t on clients).
# The following two commands are the samba defaults for printing=cups
# change them only if you need different options:
; lpq command = lpq -P %p
; lprm command = cancel %p-%j
You can get Samba to store the printer drivers too, but let's keep that for some other time (if you even need to do it, which is doubtful).
LeperousDust
31-10-2007, 18:21
Right, after more arsing around it's printing locally, which is great, as long as it stays like this. I'm happy with that, i'll give your advice a shout sometime soon Mark and get it shared proeprly over the network with samba. Then i need to set it so it defaults into greyscale but can be over ridden via windows drivers to colour (I don't see this happening but i wont nay say yet :p)
Depends on how the driver works. I'd say that with the configuration above there's a good chance it'll work.
LeperousDust
01-11-2007, 22:40
Cool sounds good, ive got some free time tonight, so i may give this a go soon
LeperousDust
02-11-2007, 02:37
Wohoo, it works! It works even though now on the Printer Queue in windows is says cannot access/ access denied? But it's printing fine? Any reasons? Also i wouldn't mind pushing the Generic driver that comes with windows from the samba share if it isn't too hard, makes other peoples (actually mine cause im setting it up on a few computers) easier... Right well that wasn't that painful, and feels good!
I never bothered with driver pushing, but it's the print$ share and I guess it works like any other share.
As for the printer status, yeah, I have permission problems too. Dunno how to solve that one.
LeperousDust
02-11-2007, 04:15
Right drive pushing is being hassle far more than the time saving would be worth. It's not needed. Just formated all the hard drives, looking into automatically running a simple backup script everyday sometime and writing the backup to my other mounted sammy. Then its onto the FAT32 formatted drives for some RAID action :cool:
LeperousDust
02-11-2007, 05:07
Time for bed, two tutorials in about 5 hours and i've fubared something, have to fix tomorrow. Getting I/O errors from hda1 (one of the large 400gb) i set to auto mount and quick check. I can't boot into Ubuntu because the errors just keep on coming (hundreds of them i guess?). Need to boot failsafe with grub i guess and unedit my fstab config and then work out whats wrong with the drive(s)... Apart from that, i have a fully functioning printer, webmin (really cool), and auto logon so i can run it headless easy.
To do still:
RAID
OS Backup managment of somekind
Maybe a media extender of some sort for a placeshifter?
Anything else cool and servery now i'm getting more adventurous :D
Input errors when mounting the drive? Hmm... Did you previously have it in a RAID config? Does the other 400Gb drive work fine?
Note: Personally, I wont put a mount into fstab unless I am at least fairly sure everything is hunky dory. Saves later hassle if you get something wrong!
I agree. fstab editing is the very last step.
LeperousDust
02-11-2007, 14:14
Oops :D Well i'm back home and i'll ge that sorted out in a bit, going to make lunch first
LeperousDust
02-11-2007, 15:38
Best thing about this whole linux stuff is i know i've fubared some pretty major settings by the looks of things, can't boot to failsafe, but i know if i throw the LiveCD in i can fix the fstab file and i'm on my way again :D
//Edit: Right so thats sorted, i'm loaded back up again, and this time i just browsed to the vollumes and they auto mounted just fine?
LeperousDust
02-11-2007, 16:58
Ok, all systems go, think i've got mdadm working, drives where previously partitions by gparted before i went postal last night. Pointed it to the signle partition on the hard drives and i'm cat /proc/mdstat and i think i have about 300 minutes to go, which possibly sounds right. So once this is done, i'm RAIDed, and then i'm going to look into putting LVM on top, so i can "grow" this collection if need be?
LeperousDust
02-11-2007, 17:32
Have setup Simple backup script which incremetally backups up every nights at 2:00, it excludes files over 95Mb and a few other things (i'll post the exclude/include lists soojn as im not totally as home with the concept just yet). Every two weeks it does a full backup, and purges things logarithmically to save space (not thats i really need too...) More than happy!
LeperousDust
02-11-2007, 19:22
Right i'm writing this down for myself because i've got a little log kept here now it seems:
Looking into a streaming media server for all the movies and mp3's that will be kept on here, so far i'm impressed with: GNU MP3/Media
I may look into SageTV or MythTV for recording too at a later date.
I'm still baffled but working on how i go about setting up my LVM2, but i've got enough time because my raid array is still being built. Currently on track still with 110mins to go at 26xxxK/sec
Also going to mess with the mdadm config file so it can email me upon problems and at least try and auto resolve simple problems
Printer works fine, but i can't seem to make it was to default to greyscale unless instructed by the windows drivers. Not really a mjor problem, when i install the printers on the local machines i just set them to default greyscale, easy enough.
Haven't tested the backup script yet, nor have i posted the exclude list that i'm not sure about, but it seems to be OK. I'll do that now :)
//Edit: It's excluding
/proc/ - i don't think i need this?
/sys/ - i might want this?
/tmp/ - obviously not
/var/cache - again obviously not
/dev/ - now i'm not sure about this i don't want an infinite loop because mount points are here but i still think theres stuff in there that i would want?
/var/tmp/ - nope not needed
Basically i want to backup as much as possible as i've got tonnes of spare room :)
//Edit2: Heres my current understanding about LVM2:
When i've set up this raid array it will be at md0
i need to creat a VG (volume group) and then add my PV (physical volumes, or raid arrays) to this
now i creat a LV (logical volume) which act like partitions on the VG, but in my case i'd probably just set it to fill the VG
now i'm set for the future if i need to remove/add/replace/grow/extend/whatever with regard to my storage no? I think i've got my head around it...
//Edit3: I'd also like to be able to VNC in, i've got RealVNC installed on my Vista laptop, but i'm getting an authentication error everytime i try and connect? I've checked th option in system -> preference -> Remote Desktop i've set it up so users have basically full control, but a password is required, any reason this isn't working? I think this may actually be a bug (there is an almost identical problem on the forums).
Oh and 1 hour to go :D
LeperousDust
03-11-2007, 17:48
Right time for a little update: That all went swimmingly last night, i mounted it and saw 1040 Gb, which is a little short since sudo is still taking 5% i'll trim that down to 1% when i get round to that. It's unmounted at present, and i'm going to start playing around with LVM2 and see how that goes.
I've managed to get my BackupOS partition on my other samsung drive working find and auto mounting, after my auto login, and at 2:00 every night i have a backup of what i think are the important files i need to protect, although i'm still a little unsure of that so far, the backup folder is only ~50Mb which seems a little too small :p.
LeperousDust
03-11-2007, 18:09
I've just stumbled accross what could have saved me a LOAD of time, the "alternate ubuntu CD" has a GUI for RAID partitioning and LVM etc... I'm thinking of wiping the RAID stuff i've set up so far, downloading the CD and running the GUI (my little comfort zone away from the terminal :D)
LeperousDust
17-11-2007, 03:30
Right i'm back, and i'm still having tonnes of trouble setting this thing up... Not happy again now things have seemingly ground to a halt.
I do like webmin its great.
I've got RealVNC connecting as long as I don’t use a password - not ideal
Printing works, but it’s not great, no warnings about out of paper, or printer off like within windows to windows, also its pretty bloody slow from my vista machine (takes about 2-3 minutes to spool one page of text). Hey at least it works. But I can't default it to greyscale but leave a user-end option to change to colour.
RAID with mdadm is just a nightmare at present, every time I boot ubuntu up the hard disks are given different positions under dev, so even though I may have made my RAID5 array it won’t work because its pointing at the wrong disks every other boot up. Btw the boot up can be DOG SLOW a fair amount of the time (I mean 5 minutes plus?) I guess this might be problems related to md0 and lost drives though.
Also one of my drives keeps just totally disappearing off the fdisk -l list, so I can only see 3 of 4 drives, but it’s still connected and has power and working but linux has lost it, what’s going on there too?
Finally when I thought I had it all together, I used fdisk to make a partition all seemed to work, I wrote it (with -w) checked it was there under /dev/md0p1 and it was, but mkfs.vfat /dev/md0p1 is unable to be found or whatever, so what was going on there? That was when the RAID array was working. I feel i'm close but frustratingly far away.
Sorry there’s loads there and not much is good news but that’s the way things are at present. Causing me what I think should be unnecessary headaches...
Oh one last final thing, actually setting tasks with cron doesn’t seem to have worked either, how do I set a task so every day at 3am the computer just shuts itself off? I'm sure I’ve done that right but the computer remains on in the morning when I get up when it shouldn’t be....
Cheers
/Annoyed/depressed/tired Alex
I've only had drives move when I've physically unplugged them. Given that drives are disappearing as well I'd suggest hardware as the first place to check. Is the disappearing drive always the same one? Is it connected to the onboard controller or an add-in one? How is the controller configured. My system has a RAID/AHCI option and I've found that using 'disabled' or AHCI works but if I use RAID - even though I don't have a RAID array on that controller - the system won't even boot. I might have to select JBOD but as I don't need RAID anyway I changed it to AHCI from disabled last night as in theory I'll get better performance (don't even try changing this after installing Windows - it'll BSOD). Anyway, use 'dmesg' to work out what hardware Linux has found. You might find clues there.
If it's not that, it might be a problem with udev configuration and I really don't envy anyone trying to fix that (though I've done some basic changes).
For printing, not sure why it's that slow. XP doesn't have that problem at all so I'm going to have to lay the blame for that firmly on Vista and it's well-documented networking oddities. The driver limitations I know about and I warned you of those so there's nowt I can do.
Finally, why are you using VFAT on a mdadm RAID array? You won't be able to dual-boot the array with Windows so why use a Windows filesystem? Use a native Linux filesystem like ext3 instead. It'll be far more efficient and a lot less likely to randomly break.
LeperousDust
17-11-2007, 13:58
If i want other windows computers to write/read to/from it over a network it has to be something they can play nice with right? There isn't anything over that vfat i can use is there? I'd rather use ext3 but i have to fanny about installing drivers on the windows machines to get them to play nice and i'm not even sure how well that would go...
I'll take a look a dmseg, but it's staying off atm :p
I thought the drive might be dodgy, but it's connected to the motherboard controller, and because its in its out hard drive cage i can still see its got power (so no power connecter problem) and that it may occasionally flash for activity...
Printer is annoying but i'll deal with.
Any idea of a boot time of three years? I think i'm squarely blaming it on a broken md0 atm, as it may check it?
Common mistake that one. Windows doesn't really care what's at the other end of a network connection so long as it speaks the right 'language' (which is what samba is for). I use ext3 and xfs on my server, and have used reiserfs in the past. All work fine.
LeperousDust
17-11-2007, 14:43
:| You're joking me, :( Dammit! xt3 or xfs it is then, read some nice little things about xfs not sure if its worth me bothering though?
How did you make the mdadm config file?
LeperousDust
24-11-2007, 01:54
Right so in the light of this i'm gonna give this a another stab tomorrow, can't believe i still dont' have a functioning mass storage RAID array working yet, its p***ing me off no end now.
I think i have some kinda of intermittent hardware fault?
Ubuntu keeps naming all the drives differently and its causing no end of hassle, i've nuked the mdadm.conf file now so its empty again, that was causing the slow boot ups and lock ups it seems. Becuase drives where going missing i guess...
I've not got a clue what i'm looking for, and dmesg give me a lot, so i'm about to upoad and link to the text files in a bit.
dmesg (http://www.twobeds.com/upload/userfiles/LeperousDust/dmesg)
fstab (http://www.twobeds.com/upload/userfiles/LeperousDust/fstab) (for my auto mounting drives) i've had to use PUID here instead of /dev/*** because that was proving unreliable
mdadm (http://www.twobeds.com/upload/userfiles/LeperousDust/mdadm.conf) empty don't know why im linking :D
fdisk -l (http://www.twobeds.com/upload/userfiles/LeperousDust/fdisk%20-l) this is now acting weird when it wasn't before, how can it not see at least two mounted drives, one being BackupOS which is available and working, and the other bing the main frigging filesystem drive???
Can anyone shed any light, im having the usual dog of a time, and this is why i steer clear :p It's enjoyable when its working but getting there is a frequent nightmare kicking and screaming...
LeperousDust
27-11-2007, 20:36
Stan my one big piece of advice would be don't do this :p Far far far too much faffing about, i'm sure you'd rather do anything than this :)
So i've whittled the hardware problem i think down to a dodgy PATA to SATA connector. Thats unplugged at the minute. I've also stopped using the promise controller for the time being (only because i was trying to rule that out but ive not reactivated it yet).
Anyway now my rocketraid card detects the drives (3 of them) ubuntu boots super quick, and everything seems dandy. fdisk suggests otherwise. None of the 3 (formmated and raid tagged) drives appear. WTF? Theyre in the Hardware Information GUI window, all rosey. The terminal kinda freezes (well it doesn't but i can't actually give it any more inputs but i can type in it, whats this called?) If i shut it down and load up another terminal session same thing happens. Keeps freezing where it would show the 3 drives?
Help my please because this is slowly driving me into the ground. I want to offload all my stuff on the lappy (RELIABLY!) to this computer so i can format this laptop to multi boot Ubuntu/Vista/XP. But the only thing that has enough space would be the RAID config i'd have set up... Unless i just use one of the single drives which would make data juggling fun later on too (i'd rather not.).
Cheers
If you can't get a stable non-RAID config then throwing a RAID on top would be the absolute last thing I would even consider trying. You're asking to be on the wrong end of a lot of lost data there.
I've never used fdisk to detect drives - didn't even know it could (or maybe it can't). Looking through dmesg is a much better way to find out what drives you have, or just
ls -l /dev/sd? /dev/hd?
Will work most of the time (sd for SCSI and SATA, hd for IDE).
LeperousDust
27-11-2007, 21:27
Yeah i understand making a RAID upon dodgy drives is asking for loads of trouble, thus why i'm now back basics. I'll get another dmesg posted up in a second then, i have no idea how to read what dmesg is telling me...
LeperousDust
28-11-2007, 00:47
FInally got a new dmesg (http://www.twobeds.com/upload/userfiles/LeperousDust/dmesg2)uploaded, can you shed any light on that for moi? Cheers :)
Well, you have a USB device that seems to not be very happy:
[ 40.815507] usb 1-1: device not accepting address 2, error -71
Run 'lsusb' to try and figure out what that device is.
As for the disks, you have:
CD/DVD:
[ 41.602255] scsi 0:0:0:0: CD-ROM TSSTcorp DVD-ROM TS-H352C DE02 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
[ 42.095966] sr0: scsi3-mmc drive: 4x/48x cd/rw xa/form2 cdda tray
[ 42.104721] Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.20
[ 42.104798] sr 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0
Disk 1:
[ 41.765504] ata3.00: ATA-7: SAMSUNG SP0411C, UU100-05, max UDMA7
[ 41.765508] ata3.00: 78242976 sectors, multi 16: LBA48
[ 41.773474] ata3.00: configured for UDMA/133
[ 41.945232] scsi 2:0:0:0: Direct-Access ATA SAMSUNG SP0411C UU10 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
[ 42.083188] Probing IDE interface ide2...
[ 42.095746] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] 78242976 512-byte hardware sectors (40060 MB)
[ 42.095769] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
[ 42.095773] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
[ 42.095804] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[ 42.095898] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] 78242976 512-byte hardware sectors (40060 MB)
[ 42.095917] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
[ 42.095922] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
[ 42.095958] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[ 42.095966] sda: sda1 sda2 < sda5 >
[ 42.123247] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk
Disk 2:
[ 41.937113] ata4.00: ATA-7: SAMSUNG SP0411C, UU100-05, max UDMA7
[ 41.937118] ata4.00: 78242976 sectors, multi 16: LBA48
[ 41.945080] ata4.00: configured for UDMA/133
[ 41.945419] scsi 3:0:0:0: Direct-Access ATA SAMSUNG SP0411C UU10 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
[ 42.123358] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] 78242976 512-byte hardware sectors (40060 MB)
[ 42.123378] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[ 42.123382] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
[ 42.123413] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[ 42.123499] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] 78242976 512-byte hardware sectors (40060 MB)
[ 42.123517] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[ 42.123521] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
[ 42.123552] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[ 42.123559] sdb: sdb1
[ 42.128342] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk
Disk 3:
[ 42.647089] Probing IDE interface ide3...
[ 42.934625] hdg: ST3400832A, ATA DISK drive
[ 43.604782] hdg: selected mode 0x45
[ 43.604910] ide3 at 0xdf68-0xdf6f,0xdf82 on irq 19
[ 52.002104] hdg: max request size: 512KiB
[ 52.003482] hdg: 781422768 sectors (400088 MB) w/8192KiB Cache, CHS=48641/255/63, UDMA(100)
[ 52.003595] hdg: cache flushes supported
[ 52.003659] hdg: hdg1
Disk 4:
[ 43.604971] Probing IDE interface ide0...
[ 43.892315] hda: ST3400832A, ATA DISK drive
[ 44.562469] hda: selected mode 0x45
[ 44.562567] ide0 at 0xdfe0-0xdfe7,0xdf9e on irq 19
[ 52.031566] hda: max request size: 512KiB
[ 52.031885] hda: 781422768 sectors (400088 MB) w/8192KiB Cache, CHS=48641/255/63, UDMA(100)
[ 52.031993] hda: cache flushes supported
[ 52.032038] hda: hda1
Disk 5:
[ 44.562630] Probing IDE interface ide1...
[ 44.850033] hdc: ST3400832A, ATA DISK drive
[ 45.520157] hdc: selected mode 0x45
[ 45.520275] ide1 at 0xdf90-0xdf97,0xdf9a on irq 19
[ 52.062488] hdc: max request size: 512KiB
[ 52.062784] hdc: 781422768 sectors (400088 MB) w/8192KiB Cache, CHS=48641/255/63, UDMA(100)
[ 52.062883] hdc: cache flushes supported
[ 52.062927] hdc: hdc1
RAID:
[ 52.456820] md: bind<hdc1>
[ 52.457016] md: bind<hdg1>
[ 52.457205] md: bind<hda1>
So, disks at sd0 (boot disk?), sd1, hdg, hda, hdc. Disk sda has a primary partition and an extended partition table containing one partition. Not sure what Ubuntu has done about configuring some swap space for you. I suspect nothing, which is rather naughty. All the other disks have one primary partition each.
I can't explain the logic concerning the choice of hdg, hda, hdc. I assume these are the ones that move around. They're all on the Highpoint controller, and I know very little about those.
Fortunately, provided all the disks are detected each time (which I understand you were having trouble with but not sure if you solved), then there's a nice way to avoid all this hd gumph and just use the disks by name. Handy...
http://felipe-alfaro.org/blog/2007/10/11/persistent-storage-device-names-in-linux/
Note that mdraid is still doing stuff even though you wiped it's config. I guess it found the RAID config on the drives instead (which is usually a good thing). This might be why fdisk is choking.
LeperousDust
28-11-2007, 02:26
Wooooo, Mark i love you, ok thats kinda making sense then.
On the USB front, theres an old bluetooth dongle still plugged in there that i wasn't really too worried about, but ubuntu had a bluetooth icon so i assumed that would be working (that could make it easy transfering from my laptop with bluetooth sometimes with hammering the wifi network). Printer is USB thats working cause i just printed something off. Only other thing is a logitech MX 700 desktop set i just replaced the wired stuff with? One connector is PS/2 and the other is USB but plugged in with the PS/2 to USB adapter, so i doubt Ubuntu would even see that as USB. AFAIK everything USB works too, so i'm not really sure if thats an issue :p
sda is the boot HDD, bdb is what i'm auto mounting for my backup script to write to.
The hdx's are 3 hard drives plugged into the rocketraid card. They all seem to be ok, the other one is playing about it's not on there because its unplugged but now i can see what im reading i'll have a look at that tomorrow if i get the chance :) I was using the onboard promise controller and thought that was the problem, but i turns out i'm pretty sure its the one cheap SATA to PATA converter i bought thats ballsing up, all so i didn't have to get messy with PATA and i couldn't find my fourth highpoint SATA adapter that came with the rocketraid card...
If i set up RAID5 on the 3 drives, what are my chances of expanding the RAID to encompass 4 drives when i come back over new year? I've read its very much possible, but the recommend backing up. Its not really practical to back up over 400gb of data when i don't have that space anywhere else...
//Edit:
I've already used PUID or whatever in the fstab to make sure that i mounted the right hard drive on startup so it backs up correctly, as the naming was screwing up on that too. Linux (well ubuntu at least) has not had much fun with multiple hard drives for me... Even install was a major hassle from the liveCD until i unplugged the other drives!
Cheers again mark your a star :)
Yes, you should be able to expand the RAID array. However, you also have to think about the partition you create on the RAID. For that, have a read around about LVM. The general principle is RAID -> LVM -> Real partition. Unfortunately my knowledge of LVM extends about as far as what I've written so I don't know how to actually do the expansion.
Anything involving messing with partitions should always be proceeded by a full backup. One powercut or system crash in the middle and you wave bye bye to the lot.
LeperousDust
28-11-2007, 03:21
I thought i had to use LVM, but upon further investigation i didn't think i did. Because md0 used the extra drive and then i expanded the partition with a partition editor with the extra free space or thats how i read it. LVM is more for joining lots of bits a things together nice and easy. Well thats what i got from reading around... Unsure. Anyway i'm actually seriously thinking dumping the system, clearing the hardware out and plugging its all back in again (drives) to make sure there are not dodgy connectiong which i thought there were, then starting again totally, becuase tbh over the last few weeks i've pretty much done feck all apart from set a printer up, and things seems to be getting confsued now. Ive also just found "how to build your own server" on bit-tech.net which was an interesting read, and funny enough i already feel like i know 90% of that article!
Stan should check these out if he wants to go ahead with it:
http://www.bit-tech.net/bits/2007/06/05/build_your_own_server/1
http://www.bit-tech.net/bits/2007/07/24/build_your_own_better_server/1
http://www.bit-tech.net/bits/2007/11/26/bashing_through_scripts/1
Anything involving messing with partitions should always be proceeded by a full backup. One powercut or system crash in the middle and you wave bye bye to the lot.
I do understand the need for this, but that would mean i'd need twice the space i already have, if i don't have that what do i do? Backing up to DVD is highly impractical :p
Stan_Lite
28-11-2007, 11:23
Thanks for that Alex. Those guides look like just the sort of thing I'll need and relatively easy to follow too :)
I'll need to look at RAID as well as I intend to build the file server with oodles of storage so I don't have to try adding more at a later date.
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