Solaris variants and ZFS for file server
I have created a new thread since I had drifted way off topic in my own thread on internet connectivity. A quick update, starting with my original post on this question:
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I am not very fluent in unix (I have been playing with solaris 10 for the last few days and pull my hair out over some of the simple things I just can't find or do - ie, things I can do easily enough in ubuntu, xandros, and others)... All I am after is an install that runs ZFS. I don't want any games, no open office, not even internet support. A simple file server for a few hard drives I have lying around here... The Question: Which solaris version includes the shortest learning curve and will suit my needs? ______________________________________ Quote:
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I did # ifconfig rge0 plumb or something similar and all of a sudden I am half way there to having it working. But where the heck did rge0 come from? How was I supposed to know that's where it would appear in /dev when it wasn't even in there to begin with? Now I am having the same problem with my new WD1TB HDD. (I found it in the top of dmesg, so the system knows about it)... I also am having trouble running pre-compiled apps (synergy) and I don't even know how to add packages like gcc yet... I am not use to being too much of a noob and I hate it! But I have well and truly digressed again... |
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Before ditching it and trying OpenSolaris or Solaris Express, I have realised that half of my problem may have been as root I was using some java desktop and I could not find any administrative tools anywhere. When I created my user account, I went for the CDE? desktop and found it more "navigate-able" and found certain administration features that I was looking for (but don't all work). Quote:
Warning: No Solaris Fdisk Partition This includes my new 1TB drive, but also includes the OS drive... The one that I am running the install on! Breakfast may relieve the frustration |
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I can't get fdisk to see it at all, it doesn't matter what I type as the /dev/dsk/xxx I get errors, namely: 1) xxx must be a raw device, or 2) cannot stat device I can't even appear to do it for the disk that is already installed and running either. I did find: Code:
# prtvtoc /dev/dsk/c Thanks dave |
You can get information about your whole disk with this command:
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fdisk -G /dev/rdsk/c0d0p0 Code:
fdisk -v -W - /dev/rdsk/c0d0p0 |
of course... that's what I was doing wrong. I needed to use /dev/rdsk/...
/me is banging head on desk what do c, d, p, s and t stand for? how can I tell the raw device names of the drives connected to my system? Is there a table somewhere? |
c: controller
d: disk p: partition (primary fdisk) s: slice (kind of extended partition inside the Solaris partition) t: target (SCSI) You can get the disks connected by using the format command. Just exit after the disks names have been shown. Another useful command to get more information about the disks is "kstat -c device_error" |
I have just installed another IDE drive, but it's not showing up anywhere.
The format command only gives me the two drives that were last on the system before I rebooted: Code:
AVAILABLE DISK SELECTIONS: So how do I add the drive I just installed? There are no new drive types indicated in /dev/rdsk (I know you told me not to worry about that anyway), so I am at a loss. Here is my dmesg, you can see in there that there are three drives identified: 21:16:50 (ST3120022A) which registered at /dev/rdsk/c0d0p0 21:16:50 (ST3320620A) which does not get registered as a drive anywhere (that I know of) 21:17:12 (WDC WD10EACS-00Z) which registers as /dev/rdsk/c1d0p0 Code:
<dmesg log removed - old system> |
I still strongly urge you to try OpenSolaris. It is the beta for S11 and it is rock stable. Very much stable than any Linux for instance. It is far simpler than S10 too.
Ive had exactly the same experience as you. First Ive installed S10, and had a helluva problem setting it up. If you have SUN hardware, then S10 works right out of the box because it supports the SUN hardware. Now I have commodity P4@2.4GHz so there were no drivers included, etc. Then Jilliagre suggested OpenSolaris instead, and I had concerns of stability etc. It turns out that OpenSolaris kernel beta is far mor stable than any Linux kernel. Now I use Opensolaris and everything just works! It recognized my GeForce 6200 AGP, and the sound card, and my Nec 20WGX2M monitor correctly. etc. I strongly suggest that you try OpenSolaris. If youre used to a modern Linux, then you will be content with OpenSolaris. |
OpenSolaris, I need to download Solaris Express Community Edition. Is that correct? I've just managed to corrupt one of the drives, so a full reinstall is easier, so it may as well happen now.
It can't be any harder than what Solaris 10 was, so hopefully when I get home tomorrow I can get it done very quickly. |
My answer is a little late but you should have had the new disk to appear after running the "devfsadm -v" command.
And yes, download Solaris Express Community Edition for the latest and greatest features. |
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What you might be able to help me with: I was experimenting with ZFS and thrashing the harddrive, I was playing around with a couple of pools I had created. Copying files to and fro. I went away for a moment and came back and the system had crashed. I rebooted, safe mode, did some disk admin that it wanted to do in failsafe and when it rebooted one of the pools were so corrupt that I can't do anything with it. In the web admin screen there is the top level pool and virtual device. I am unable to delete or add to it at all. Not even forcefully. Any ideas? The data is test data only and I would like to just start a-fresh (which is another reason I would like to just reinstall and try this opensolaris, but I would also like to be able to see what I can recover in the event of a real system crash anyway edit: it has got to the stage now that I even tried deleting the partition on that disk and then tried re-accessing it in the webadmin and the system crashes and reboots. |
You need to provide more information.
Why did the system crashed ? Solaris crashing is an unusual event. Any message in /var/log/messages ? Is there a crash dump in /var/crash/hostname/* ? What return: Code:
fdisk -v -W - /dev/rdsk/c0d0p0 # for each disk |
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I think it had to do with the way that i set up the zpool, I'm still not sure of that aspect 100% and feel that I was copying files into the pool and not the fs. But I'm not too sure... I know, but it is hard to find a good base setup for zpool/zfs. (explain later) Quote:
regardong zpool and zfs, this is my understanding: zpool = a group of (usually) drives together in a pool, eg 4x200GB drives = 1x800GB pool zfs = the filesystem associated with a pool. It is here that you create a file system based on the redundency you need. ie, you could create 2x400GB fs in some RAID-Z config which would return 2x300GB usable redundant file system base, yes? Then isn't there some sort of virtual setup underneath that? I think that is where i was really getting confused (not that I am not confused already). Looking at the web gui (which is not available to me right now), there were many aspects of the zpool able to be created and I just dont understand where each related to each other. I have been trying to find a nice graphical representation of where they meet and relate, do you have a link? |
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