Philip Mullis wrote: > Despite the prior comments; CF's can quickly degrade as there is more to > writes than just files, most people dont even take into account that the > os will actually do writes every time a file is accessed to update its > last access time, options in your fstab such as noatime and nodirtime > can extend the life greatly on your cf.
This is why Astlinux has used noatime for a long long time. We could add the nodirtime value as well though. > In terms of what you can and cannot move will vary based on what you > install.apps on your base image. > You can use things like iostat to verify the amounts of writes that have > been done to various mounts. > > Most things like logs can be moved without worry to a memory disk. > (although keep in mind you will loose them on power cycle) > > A good methodology for taking care of the writes is to create a memory > disk ie (/tempdisk) and symlink any directory/files back to it which are > written on a regular basis (such as logs) or temporary files. Which is why we do this too and have for a very long time. > You have to watch out though that your memory disk is properly sized for > your system or you could run into errors when its full. A good way to > deal with growing log files is something like clogd which lets you do > circular log files with a specified max size. (this is the bsdports, but > you can probably dig out the code and compile it for linux) You can also send syslog data to another server. This has also been in Astlinux for a long time. Darrick > Regards, > > Philip Mullis. > > > > Martin Rogers wrote: >> David >> >> some nice questions. Answers from those in the know please. >> >> Mart >> >> >> >> David Kerr wrote: >> >>> The asterisk-gui writes into its source directory >>> (/var/lib/asterisk/static-http/config) a fair amount to grab the output from >>> system commands that it executes. There is no reason why this has to get >>> mirrored onto the flash by unionfs. I could probably figure out how to >>> modify the asterisk-gui to write to some temp directory (that would be >>> ramdisk only, and not unionfs). Does astlinux have such a place? >>> Also, syslog files are another source of constant flash writes (asterisk, >>> dhcpd, others are always writing). Can this be moved to a ramdisk that is >>> not unionfs? >>> >>> What else (other than voicemail and CDR) is updated to flash on a regular >>> basis? >>> >>> Thanks >>> David >>> >>> On Wed, Dec 31, 2008 at 1:22 PM, Darrick Hartman >>> <dhart...@djhsolutions.com>wrote: >>> >>> >>>> <20081230234655.b25dae38...@lizzy.djhsolutions.com> < >>>> 495abb45.80...@mhr.me.uk> >>>> Message-ID: <1700fa0442cb0b87f7e6a60437e79...@localhost> >>>> X-Sender: dhart...@djhsolutions.com >>>> Received: from 68-191-180-6.static.fdul.wi.charter.com [68.191.180.6] with >>>> HTTP/1.1 (POST); Wed, 31 Dec 2008 12:22:25 -0600 >>>> User-Agent: RoundCube Webmail/0.1 >>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" >>>> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >>>> >>>> >>>>>> On Tue, 30 Dec 2008 22:47:27 +0000, Martin Rogers >>>>>> <fromastlinux-us...@mhr.me.uk> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>> Michael Keuter wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Michael Keuter wrote: >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> Since upgrading to 0.6.2, partitioning my flash disk and running >>>>>>>>>>> genunion I am now not only able to make ordinary configuration >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>> changes >>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> sticky but the root password too. >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> The trouble is however that if your mobo only supports a single >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>> hard >>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> disk channel, having multiple partitions does not really help. If >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>> the rw >>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> partition wears out it might as well all be on the same partition >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >> anyway, as the whole flash module will need changing. >>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>> > You have still the possiblity to use an extra USB-Stick for the >>>>>>>>> > Keydisk (genkd script). >>>>>>>>> I was not aware that it was possible to make the root password sticky >>>>>>>>> using genkd, perhaps I missed something. I understood this needed >>>>>>>>> genunion. Genunion on a USB-stick was a non starter for me - the >>>>>>>>> USB-stick could not be detected at boot-up. Possibly a timing issue. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> No that's the wrong way. Before running genunion >>>>>>>> run genkd /dev/sdÅ (your USB-Stick). >>>>>>>> Check with "fdisk -l". Reboot then. >>>>>>>> Now run genunion and at the second question say "NO". Reboot again. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> http://www.astlinux.org/node/30 >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> Michael, thanks for your post. I did try the above, on more than one >>>>>>> occasion and with two different platforms, but after booting no >>>>>>> configuration was sticky. I had an error on bootup to do with detecting >>>>>>> the USB Stick. This was using the 0.6.1 VIA image. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I then reverted to using a second on-board partition and got everything >>>>>>> working nicely, except for concerns about extending the life of the >>>>>>> >>>>> disk. >>>>> >>>>>> Honestly, I think this is all blown out of proportion. Recent flash has >>>>>> good built in wear leveling. Assuming you use a large enough disk, even >>>>>> >>>>> if >>>>> >>>>>> you did have problems where portions of the disk were no longer >>>>>> >>>>> writable, >>>>> >>>>>> the only affect should be the amount of free space on the device. The >>>>>> amount of data that's written to the CF is fairly small. If you're >>>>>> >>>>> super >>>>> >>>>>> paranoid, use a 4GB card and swap it out proactively in a few years. >>>>>> >>>>> If you consider this as being commercially viable then we are looking at >>>>> different business models. >>>>> >>>>> Mart >>>>> >>>> Given your options, the compact flash card is going to be more reliable >>>> than a usb stick. That's the point I was trying to make. The actual >>>> 'life' of a CF card or any other storage device is dependent on several use >>>> (user) factors. With the steps we've taken, there are minimal writes by >>>> default to the CF. >>>> >>>> AstLinux is intended to be a tool that you can use however you want to >>>> (within reason). If you don't want to store voicemails on a CF card, feel >>>> free to store them elsewhere. If you feel that a hard drive is going to be >>>> more reliable, then by all means, install it on a hard drive. >>>> >>>> Regards, >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Astlinux-users mailing list Astlinux-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/astlinux-users Donations to support AstLinux are graciously accepted via PayPal to pay...@krisk.org.
