Re: [FreeBSD Questions] Filesystem image as root
--- On Sun, 11/15/09, CyberLeo Kitsana cyber...@cyberleo.net wrote: James Phillips wrote: Date: Sat, 14 Nov 2009 20:29:59 -0600 From: CyberLeo Kitsana cyber...@cyberleo.net Subject: [FreeBSD Questions] Filesystem image as root The single IDE connector is accessible via the legacy ISA ports, and is thus limited to PIO modes (about 1.6MB/sec max, even with an actual hard drive instead of a CF card). You are off by an order of magnitude (base 2 or 10): Pio mode 0 is ~3.3 MB/s Pio mode 4 is ~16.7 MB/s http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/modesPIO-c.html You can probably set PIO mode 4 for with: # atacontrol mode ad0 PIO4 If only that were true in this case. (85eef1f3)[r...@ss4200 ~]# atacontrol mode ad0 PIO4 current mode = PIO2 (85eef1f3)[r...@ss4200 ~]# atacontrol mode ad0 PIO4 current mode = PIO2 (85eef1f3)[r...@ss4200 ~]# dd if=/dev/ad0 of=/dev/null bs=4096 count=4096 4096+0 records in 4096+0 records out 16777216 bytes transferred in 10.111748 secs (1659181 bytes/sec) Nothing I've tried seems to boost the throughput, hence the desire to use a compressed cached filesystem image. Thanks for the suggestions, though! Ouch! I thought the laptop I was fixing last week was bad: running Vista with a 10MB/s transfer rate :P The drive in my Pentium 166 gets 11-12MB/s. I actually looked up both the PIO modes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmed_input/output And the spec sheet (assuming Tom's hardware was wrong) before composing my original reply: Intel® Entry Storage System SS4200-E Technical product specification [PDF] http://download.intel.com/support/motherboards/server/ss4200-e/sb/ss4200e_tps_11.pdf I noted that the ATA port is not listed as a feature, which is not a good sign. It does appear in the block-diagram labeled:DOM Glossary definition: Disk On Module If I had to guess: Intel did something weird or non-standard to the port, so the standard BSD driver does not work properly. Have you read the ata(4) manual page? The following /boot/device.hints are suggested for ISA: hint.ata.0.at=isa hint.ata.0.port=0x1f0 hint.ata.0.irq=14 . . . port '1' probably not needed I had a thought: it could just as easily be pc98 if they don't intend for you to touch the firmware. The firmware has source code available under a GPL license. EMCLifeLineOEMSW-1.0-GPLComponents.tar.gz Ver:1.0 Date:9/24/2009 Size:125585 (KB) EMCLifeLineOEMSW-1.1-GPLComponents.tar.gz Ver:1.1 Date:9/24/2009 Size:244406 (KB) If you are worried about license contamination, you may have to get somebody to look through that and document any changes (to the ATA interface). Hopefully it is based on a well-know code-base like Linux and the diff utility can be used. Of course, the term components implies they only expose a HAL of some kind. Regards, James Phillips PS:# atacontrol mode ad0 will simply print out the current mode. __ The new Internet Explorer® 8 - Faster, safer, easier. Optimized for Yahoo! Get it Now for Free! at http://downloads.yahoo.com/ca/internetexplorer/ ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: [FreeBSD Questions] Filesystem image as root
James Phillips wrote: --- On Sun, 11/15/09, CyberLeo Kitsana cyber...@cyberleo.net wrote: James Phillips wrote: Date: Sat, 14 Nov 2009 20:29:59 -0600 From: CyberLeo Kitsana cyber...@cyberleo.net Subject: [FreeBSD Questions] Filesystem image as root The single IDE connector is accessible via the legacy ISA ports, and is thus limited to PIO modes (about 1.6MB/sec max, even with an actual hard drive instead of a CF card). You are off by an order of magnitude (base 2 or 10): Pio mode 0 is ~3.3 MB/s Pio mode 4 is ~16.7 MB/s http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/modesPIO-c.html You can probably set PIO mode 4 for with: # atacontrol mode ad0 PIO4 If only that were true in this case. (85eef1f3)[r...@ss4200 ~]# atacontrol mode ad0 PIO4 current mode = PIO2 (85eef1f3)[r...@ss4200 ~]# atacontrol mode ad0 PIO4 current mode = PIO2 (85eef1f3)[r...@ss4200 ~]# dd if=/dev/ad0 of=/dev/null bs=4096 count=4096 4096+0 records in 4096+0 records out 16777216 bytes transferred in 10.111748 secs (1659181 bytes/sec) Nothing I've tried seems to boost the throughput, hence the desire to use a compressed cached filesystem image. Thanks for the suggestions, though! Ouch! I thought the laptop I was fixing last week was bad: running Vista with a 10MB/s transfer rate :P The drive in my Pentium 166 gets 11-12MB/s. I actually looked up both the PIO modes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmed_input/output And the spec sheet (assuming Tom's hardware was wrong) before composing my original reply: Intel® Entry Storage System SS4200-E Technical product specification [PDF] http://download.intel.com/support/motherboards/server/ss4200-e/sb/ss4200e_tps_11.pdf I noted that the ATA port is not listed as a feature, which is not a good sign. It does appear in the block-diagram labeled:DOM Glossary definition: Disk On Module The model I have is the SS-4200EHW. Identical, save the lack of a DOM and firmware. And price. If I had to guess: Intel did something weird or non-standard to the port, so the standard BSD driver does not work properly. Have you read the ata(4) manual page? The following /boot/device.hints are suggested for ISA: hint.ata.0.at=isa hint.ata.0.port=0x1f0 hint.ata.0.irq=14 This is actually how I got the amd64 build to recognize the port. These lines were present in x86, but missing in amd64 device.hints. . . . port '1' probably not needed I had a thought: it could just as easily be pc98 if they don't intend for you to touch the firmware. Hm. This might be something to look into. The firmware has source code available under a GPL license. EMCLifeLineOEMSW-1.0-GPLComponents.tar.gz Ver:1.0 Date:9/24/2009 Size:125585 (KB) EMCLifeLineOEMSW-1.1-GPLComponents.tar.gz Ver:1.1 Date:9/24/2009 Size:244406 (KB) I checked previously, and Linux has the same limitations. The port is recognized as a legacy ISA IDE port by the ide-generic driver, and maxes out at a ludicrously low throughput. The official firmware gets around this by preloading filesystems into RAM. If you are worried about license contamination, you may have to get somebody to look through that and document any changes (to the ATA interface). Hopefully it is based on a well-know code-base like Linux and the diff utility can be used. Of course, the term components implies they only expose a HAL of some kind. Regards, James Phillips PS:# atacontrol mode ad0 will simply print out the current mode. -- Fuzzy love, -CyberLeo Technical Administrator CyberLeo.Net Webhosting http://www.CyberLeo.Net cyber...@cyberleo.net Furry Peace! - http://.fur.com/peace/ ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
[FreeBSD Questions] Filesystem image as root
I have been thinking and experimenting for weeks, but I cannot figure this out. I have an Intel SS4200 NAS that I wish to use as a ZFS NAS with FreeBSD 8.0. The device has 4 SATA bays, and I don't want to use one for a UFS root disk. I don't want to use up hundreds of megabytes of RAM preloading an mfsroot that can never shrink. The single IDE connector is accessible via the legacy ISA ports, and is thus limited to PIO modes (about 1.6MB/sec max, even with an actual hard drive instead of a CF card). Performance is acceptable when using a geom_uzip image from a CF card on the IDE connector, as a lot of it ends up cached in RAM (and is evictable in case of memory pressure, unlike an mfsroot). Try as I might, I am unable to figure out how to use a uzip imagefile on UFS as a root filesystem, without dedicating a slice/partition to it. There seems to be nothing approximating GNU/Linux's pivot_root, and using a stub init (which cannot be a shellscript...?) to mdconfig and mount the image, then chroot to that to exec /sbin/init appears to lead to instant deadlock. I don't really like the idea of mounting the image somewhere below root, and using symlink spaghetti to get everything proper; especially since I wish to place such essentials as /sbin and /etc thereupon, which leads to a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem with setting up and mounting an image that contains its mdconfig and mount... Am I missing something obvious here, or am I truly treading unexplored territory? -- Fuzzy love, -CyberLeo Technical Administrator CyberLeo.Net Webhosting http://www.CyberLeo.Net cyber...@cyberleo.net Furry Peace! - http://.fur.com/peace/ ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
