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Steve <gentoo_sjh@×××××××.uk> writes: |
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|
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> I have recently started looking at server resilience and availability in |
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> the context of a hardware failure or hardware upgrade. I've come to the |
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> conclusion that it would be very desirable if terrabyte-scale data did |
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> not need to be restored from backup. This isn't a commercial server - |
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> so I'm interested in minimum cost approaches. |
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> |
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> With this in mind, I'm interested to discover what represents |
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> state-of-the-art from the perspective of the OS and its configuration. |
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> Issues I envisage are: |
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> |
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> * With NAS, it would be desirable to have a Linux filesystem rather than |
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> access files over CIFS - this raises further questions about protocol... |
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> is NFS as hopelessly outdated as it seems? Are there any products that |
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> offer NFS access? Are any of them secure? |
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> * With a SAN, questions of filesystem features are diminished - but |
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> questions of access protocol remain. What is best supported by gentoo? |
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> * Do any gentooists have any inexpensive hardware configurations that |
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> work especially well? |
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> |
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> Any hints or tips? |
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|
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Someone here, a yr or two ago recommended to me when I asked that |
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question to install opensolaris on a machine and set it up as NAS. |
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|
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Opensolaris offers the zfs file system, that is really advanced |
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compared to others. |
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|
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I'll admit I've had some issues along the way. And have to do lots of |
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boning up on opensolaris. |
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|
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I access the zfs server by cifs from windows machines, and by NFS from |
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linux. |
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|
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Opensolaris doesn't use samba by default. Instead they have their own |
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CIFS server which works fine. They do have samba pkgs but no one |
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hardly use it, preferring their CIFS server. |
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|
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Mine is only a home lan setup, but even then the opensolaris server |
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has over a terabyte of capacity. |
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|
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I have it setup in 3 mirrors of 2 disks each. |
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|
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2 prs of 500gb sata hdd and one pr of 750 sata hdd |
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|
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There are many ways so setup `zraid' systems on `zfs' that are excellent for |
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reliability. ( I have been told.... I haven't tried that route). |
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|
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For me the mirror setup seemed good for my small needs. Even more |
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reliable I'm told, if a bit higher in disk usage. |
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|
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opensolaris zfs fs offers a `timeslider' interface to a system of |
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snapshotting the filesystems in 15 min, 1hr 1day etc snapshots in a |
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very small footprint way. You'd have to read up on it.. It would take |
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too much off topic to cover here. The system takes an amazing small |
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amount of disk space for the snapshots based on COW (Copy on write). |
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|
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There was talk of opensolaris going by the wayside with the Oracle |
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takeover of Sun... but Oracle has since announced its intention of |
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puttin even more resources into `opensolaris' development than Sun was |
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doing. |
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|
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These may be a good intro to zfs: |
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http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/features/articles/zfs_part1.scalable.jsp |
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http://all-unix.blogspot.com/2007/03/zfs-cow-and-relate-features.html |
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http://wikis.sun.com/display/OpenSolarisInfoPL/How+to+Manage+the+Automatic+ZFS+Snapshot+Service |