Michael, many thanks for your sharing your experiences. Interesting stuff. Mart
Michael Graves wrote: > After watching this a while I feel that I must weigh in based on my own > experience. I've taken an embedded system approach to my Asterisk > installation from a time when this was not at all commonplace. My > earliest embedded systems were early in 2004. > > AFAIK Astlinux was the very first distro to be carefully tuned for > booting and running from flash media. In a small office environment I > can say with certainty that my very first system would still be running > today if I didn't take it down. And THAT was running using a small, > cheap Dane-Elec CF card recycled from an old digital camera. Once that > system was down I wrote a script to drive that CF card into failure, > just to see what it would take. > > I been using the old (0.43) Astlinux release and a CF card with three > partitions since that reelase came out with no problems at all. > Clearly, I'm not running a call center. But I do work from home > full-time. The system handled all my work and home calls until very > recently. > > Much effort went into Astlinux to ensure that flash wearing was > addressed. All of my experience points to this being a theoretical > problem more than a practical problem. Until someone can point to > systems actually failing I think that the developers are not only to be > believed, but commended. > > In reviewing the Jazinga Asterisk appliance recently I was pondering > their used of an Intel SSD over a cheaper flash module. Then when their > CTO was later on a Voip Users Conference call and they got to speaking > with Darrick it became clear that Astlinux likely has a better > architecture for dealing with flash memory that their product. They > were interested in learning about the dev enironment and various > techniques employed in Astlinux. > > Truly, Astlinux is in a leadership position WRT embedded Asterisk on > small format hardware. > > Michael Graves > > References cited: > > http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/30660/80/ > http://www.voipusersconference.org/ > > > On Fri, 02 Jan 2009 13:40:06 -0500, 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. >> >> 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. >> >> 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) >> >> 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, >>>>> >>>>> Darrick >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>> >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> 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. >>>>> >>>>> >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>>> >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>>> >>>> >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> 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. >>>> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>> _______________________________________________ >>> 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. >>> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> _______________________________________________ >> 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. >> > > -- > Michael Graves > mgraves<at>mstvp.com > http://blog.mgraves.org > o713-861-4005 > c713-201-1262 > sip:mgra...@mstvp.onsip.com > skype mjgraves > fwd 54245 > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > _______________________________________________ > 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. > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ 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.
