Re: Dropbox and zfs
On Sun, 28 Oct 2018 at 11:03, Russell Coker via luv-main wrote: > > If you use a filesystem other than ZFS or Ext4 you can use a loopback mount, > just create a regular file of a suitable size, run mkfs.ext4, then mount -o > loop. > > If you use BTRFS then you can have a loopback ext4 filesystem snapshotted as > part of the subvol that contains it. Hello, mostly I lurk here to learn from everyone else, but in the interest of technical correctness, may I chip in with the minor nitpick that loop devices are not and never have been "loopback" devices, but somehow it seems that word often gets used out of context . The word "loopback" does not appear in mount(8) or losetup(8). See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loop_device which says: "Sometimes, the loop device is erroneously referred to as loopback device, but this term is reserved for a networking device in operating systems. The concept of the loop device is distinct." And no, I did not write that ... :p I vaguely remember that there have been some instances of this misuse in kernel code comments, so it might appear there, and there may have been some effort to correct that too. But it's not something I've followed closely. ___ luv-main mailing list luv-main@luv.asn.au https://lists.luv.asn.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/luv-main
Re: Dropbox and zfs
On Sunday, 21 October 2018 11:38:06 PM AEDT Craig Sanders via luv-main wrote: > My partner needs to use dropbox to share files with people at work, and > her desktop machine here runs ZFS. When dropbox announced this ext4-only > thing a few months ago, I just created a 20GB ZVOL (with "zfs create -V > 20G poolname/dropbox"), formatted it as ext4, mounted it as ~/dropbox in > /etc/fstab (which is what the dropbox client is configured to use), and > chown-ed the mounted fs to her uid & gid. > > > What will happen with the zfs snapshots that the box takes every minute? > > The SD card isn't part of zpool so won't be snapshotted. if you're rsyncing > or copying it to ZFS, that's only a read (remember to use the noatime or > relatime mount option), not a write so won't affect the SD card's lifespan. If you use a ZVOL you can make snapshots of that. If you use a filesystem other than ZFS or Ext4 you can use a loopback mount, just create a regular file of a suitable size, run mkfs.ext4, then mount -o loop. If you use BTRFS then you can have a loopback ext4 filesystem snapshotted as part of the subvol that contains it. This will be more of a problem for Windows users who aren't using NTFS as they don't have the options for loopback filesystems that we have (I'm running a corporate Dropbox account and got an email about the Windows users who aren't using NTFS). -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Bloghttp://doc.coker.com.au/ ___ luv-main mailing list luv-main@luv.asn.au https://lists.luv.asn.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/luv-main
Re: Dropbox and zfs
On Sun, Oct 21, 2018 at 11:49:40AM +, stripes theotoky wrote: > As of November Dropbox are dropping support for Linux file systems other > than ext4, as I run zfs this is less than helpful. > > I am wondering as a temporary measure until I move to Pcloud if it would be > possible to format a 64GB SD card as ext4, copy the contents of my Dropbox > folder to it and then mount it at /home//Dropbox. yes, entirely possible. > Assuming this works it would leave the system drive as zfs and Dropbox in > its own ext4 flashcard. > > Are there better ways to do this and if so how? My partner needs to use dropbox to share files with people at work, and her desktop machine here runs ZFS. When dropbox announced this ext4-only thing a few months ago, I just created a 20GB ZVOL (with "zfs create -V 20G poolname/dropbox"), formatted it as ext4, mounted it as ~/dropbox in /etc/fstab (which is what the dropbox client is configured to use), and chown-ed the mounted fs to her uid & gid. It works without any problems. As far as dropbox (or anything else) is concerned, the mounted fs is an ext4 filesystem no different to any other ext4 fs - a ZVOL is just another block device, one that happens to be provided by a zfs pool. The ZVOL is snapshotted regularly and backed up with 'zfs send' to the "backup" pool on my mail zfs server. It also benefits from the usual ZFS features like error-detection and correction, compression, etc. If it turns out that 20GB isn't enough, the ZVOl can be grown with 'zfs set volsize=...' and the ext4 fs on it can then be resized with 'resize2fs' I didn't bother putting a partition table on the ZVOL but if I had, the ext4 partition would have to be resized with fdisk or similar after resizing the ZVOL but before resizing the ext4 fs. > What will happen with the zfs snapshots that the box takes every minute? The SD card isn't part of zpool so won't be snapshotted. if you're rsyncing or copying it to ZFS, that's only a read (remember to use the noatime or relatime mount option), not a write so won't affect the SD card's lifespan. > What is the life expectancy of an SD card used like this? I don't know what kind of write frequency the dropbox client does, and life expectancy aka write endurance depends on the quality of the SD card. craig -- craig sanders ___ luv-main mailing list luv-main@luv.asn.au https://lists.luv.asn.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/luv-main
Dropbox and zfs
As of November Dropbox are dropping support for Linux file systems other than ext4, as I run zfs this is less than helpful. I am wondering as a temporary measure until I move to Pcloud if it would be possible to format a 64GB SD card as ext4, copy the contents of my Dropbox folder to it and then mount it at /home//Dropbox. Assuming this works it would leave the system drive as zfs and Dropbox in its own ext4 flashcard. Are there better ways to do this and if so how? What will happen with the zfs snapshots that the box takes every minute? What is the life expectancy of an SD card used like this? Thanks in advance Stripes -- Stripes Theotoky -37 .713869 145.050562 ___ luv-main mailing list luv-main@luv.asn.au https://lists.luv.asn.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/luv-main
