Re: [DNG] Insane defaults on Raspberry Pi images - How to fix corruption/dataloss

2019-11-13 Thread Hendrik Boom
On Wed, Nov 13, 2019 at 07:27:03PM -0500, Steve Litt wrote:
> On Tue, 12 Nov 2019 10:31:27 +0100
> 
> Regarding eliminating the journal, you bring up a good point. But so
> did some other people arguing the opposite. I suggest an installation
> that gives the following choices:
> 
> * Don't use a journal
> * Use a journal but keep it on an always-connected spinning rust drive
> * Use a journal on the SSD or SD card
> 
> My suggestion is that the installer be clear about the tradeoffs when
> SSD or SD card are involved, and also ask you whether you want to
> fstrim manually or by cron. From what I understand, putting fstrim in
> /etc/fstab is always a bad idea. Also, the installer could remind the
> user to delete or archive to spinning rust files not needed, to
> preserve free space on the SSD or SD card.
> 
> I'm thinking of using an Rpi as a poor man's laptop, because I've had
> too many laptops go bad from spilled drinks and other keyboard
> destroying mistakes. So I'd have an attached 2.5 inch USB spinning
> rust. So I could bind mount (I love bind mounts) part of my spinning
> rust to /var very early in the boot.
> 
> But then I might use another Rpi as an experimental thing, and perhaps
> shut off journaling to save the memory card. Or perhaps install a big
> honking memory card, log rotate ruthlessly, and fstrim every day.

Memory cards aren't what they used to be.
I remember adding a memory card to an ancient PC to upgrade it from 
128K to 649K

-- hendrik
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Re: [DNG] Insane defaults on Raspberry Pi images - How to fix corruption/dataloss

2019-11-13 Thread Steve Litt
On Tue, 12 Nov 2019 10:31:27 +0100
Edward Bartolo via Dng  wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> The Raspberry Pi is very frequency used with an SD Card which is
> highly intolerant of frequent writes as these are limited. My first SD
> Card became read only after about six weeks with Devuan running. Using
> Raspbian, this issue did not repeat itself.
> 
> Needless to state, although it seems, it is actually needed for some
> people, the Raspberry Pi is not a full blown server, although it can
> be used by the hobbyist adolescent who wants to experiment and learn.

Regarding eliminating the journal, you bring up a good point. But so
did some other people arguing the opposite. I suggest an installation
that gives the following choices:

* Don't use a journal
* Use a journal but keep it on an always-connected spinning rust drive
* Use a journal on the SSD or SD card

My suggestion is that the installer be clear about the tradeoffs when
SSD or SD card are involved, and also ask you whether you want to
fstrim manually or by cron. From what I understand, putting fstrim in
/etc/fstab is always a bad idea. Also, the installer could remind the
user to delete or archive to spinning rust files not needed, to
preserve free space on the SSD or SD card.

I'm thinking of using an Rpi as a poor man's laptop, because I've had
too many laptops go bad from spilled drinks and other keyboard
destroying mistakes. So I'd have an attached 2.5 inch USB spinning
rust. So I could bind mount (I love bind mounts) part of my spinning
rust to /var very early in the boot.

But then I might use another Rpi as an experimental thing, and perhaps
shut off journaling to save the memory card. Or perhaps install a big
honking memory card, log rotate ruthlessly, and fstrim every day.

Anyway, Edward's got a point, those with the opposite viewpoint have a
point, so maybe the right thing is to empower the (perhaps not too
knowledgeable) user to do the most advantageous thing on install.
 
SteveT

Steve Litt
November 2019 featured book: Manager's Guide to Technical
Troubleshooting Second edition
http://www.troubleshooters.com/mgr
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Re: [DNG] Insane defaults on Raspberry Pi images - How to fix corruption/dataloss

2019-11-13 Thread Bruce Ferrell


On 11/13/19 12:26 AM, Edward Bartolo via Dng wrote:

Quote from Bruce Ferrel: "There are actually a couple of ways around
the SD wear issue, even though people seem to dearly LOVE SSDs with
the exact same issue;

1.) Use a USB drive.

2.) Somewhat more esoteric, PXE boot and run from an NFS image."
[/Quote]

You are right, people love SD Cards, not for their limitations, but
for their great convenience. A tiny SD Card can hold gigabytes of
files and it fits neatly in the the Raspberry Pi itself. No need  of
combersome USB external drives dangling around, and more importantly,
no need of extra expenses. Remember, money makes a lot of sense to
many people, and I dare say, a lot of people do not have much to
spare.

Quote from Simon Hobson:
Ah yes, to think that many of us routinely carry around in our pockets
more storage, RAM, and CPU capacity than we could have dreamed of
having access to back when I got into IT. Cue obligatory Four
Yorkshiremen sketch :D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKHFZBUTA4k
[/Quote]

In the old days people used to die from bacterial infections often
after a long painful illness. Today, thanks to great people working in
medicine, we have no idea of these terrible experiences. Progress is
nice when done properly.
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Well, I was thinking more along the lines of the "early" failure rate for SSD and not so much the convenience of a thing as small as my baby finger nail with insane amounts of 
storage.  I have active and still in use rotational media from the 90's.  SSD just can't do that and flash... We don't need to go into it.  That's what started this thread.


"dangling" usb drive?  Yeah, it's a pain.  But I do have a Pi here at home with a 4TB USB drive and 10 inch hdmi monitor rigged to run off of a smallish solar panel (100w) so it 
has a LOT of stuff dangling.



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Re: [DNG] disable elogind messages?

2019-11-13 Thread Mark Hindley
Hal,

On Wed, Nov 13, 2019 at 04:35:14AM -0600, hal wrote:
> Hi,
> Any way to disable elogind from filling up the message logs? I think all
> these messages are happening because I have cron jobs running frequently.
> 
> I could possibly tell rsyslog to file these in cron.log (if it is cron) but
> there is still the problem of excess logging taking up disk space.
> 
> Thank you
> 
> ...
> [Wed Nov 13 04:15:01 2019] elogind[2278]: Removed session 64956.
> [Wed Nov 13 04:15:01 2019] elogind[2278]: New session 64957 of user root.
> [Wed Nov 13 04:15:01 2019] elogind[2278]: Removed session 64957.
> [Wed Nov 13 04:15:01 2019] elogind[2278]: New session 64958 of user root.
> [Wed Nov 13 04:15:01 2019] elogind[2278]: Removed session 64958.
> [Wed Nov 13 04:15:01 2019] elogind[2278]: New session 64959 of user root.
> [Wed Nov 13 04:15:01 2019] elogind[2278]: Removed session 64959.
> [Wed Nov 13 04:18:01 2019] elogind[2278]: New session 64969 of user root.
> [Wed Nov 13 04:18:01 2019] elogind[2278]: Removed session 64969.
> [Wed Nov 13 04:18:01 2019] elogind[2278]: New session 64970 of user root.
> [Wed Nov 13 04:18:01 2019] elogind[2278]: Removed session 64970.
> [Wed Nov 13 04:18:02 2019] elogind[2278]: New session 64971 of user root.
> [Wed Nov 13 04:18:02 2019] elogind[2278]: Removed session 64971.
> [Wed Nov 13 04:18:02 2019] elogind[2278]: New session 64972 of user root.
> [Wed Nov 13 04:18:02 2019] elogind[2278]: Removed session 64972.
> [Wed Nov 13 04:18:02 2019] elogind[2278]: New session 64973 of user root.
> [Wed Nov 13 04:18:02 2019] elogind[2278]: Removed session 64973.

That is 6 new root sessions in 2 seconds. What is in your cron job? I can't
immediately think of a reason why you would want a logind session for a root
cron job at all.

Mark
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[DNG] disable elogind messages?

2019-11-13 Thread hal

Hi,
Any way to disable elogind from filling up the message logs? I think all 
these messages are happening because I have cron jobs running frequently.


I could possibly tell rsyslog to file these in cron.log (if it is cron) 
but there is still the problem of excess logging taking up disk space.


Thank you

...
[Wed Nov 13 04:15:01 2019] elogind[2278]: Removed session 64956.
[Wed Nov 13 04:15:01 2019] elogind[2278]: New session 64957 of user root.
[Wed Nov 13 04:15:01 2019] elogind[2278]: Removed session 64957.
[Wed Nov 13 04:15:01 2019] elogind[2278]: New session 64958 of user root.
[Wed Nov 13 04:15:01 2019] elogind[2278]: Removed session 64958.
[Wed Nov 13 04:15:01 2019] elogind[2278]: New session 64959 of user root.
[Wed Nov 13 04:15:01 2019] elogind[2278]: Removed session 64959.
[Wed Nov 13 04:18:01 2019] elogind[2278]: New session 64969 of user root.
[Wed Nov 13 04:18:01 2019] elogind[2278]: Removed session 64969.
[Wed Nov 13 04:18:01 2019] elogind[2278]: New session 64970 of user root.
[Wed Nov 13 04:18:01 2019] elogind[2278]: Removed session 64970.
[Wed Nov 13 04:18:02 2019] elogind[2278]: New session 64971 of user root.
[Wed Nov 13 04:18:02 2019] elogind[2278]: Removed session 64971.
[Wed Nov 13 04:18:02 2019] elogind[2278]: New session 64972 of user root.
[Wed Nov 13 04:18:02 2019] elogind[2278]: Removed session 64972.
[Wed Nov 13 04:18:02 2019] elogind[2278]: New session 64973 of user root.
[Wed Nov 13 04:18:02 2019] elogind[2278]: Removed session 64973.
[Wed Nov 13 04:21:01 2019] elogind[2278]: New session 64983 of user root.

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[DNG] Insane defaults on Raspberry Pi images - How to fix corruption/dataloss

2019-11-13 Thread Edward Bartolo via Dng
Quote from Bruce Ferrel: "There are actually a couple of ways around
the SD wear issue, even though people seem to dearly LOVE SSDs with
the exact same issue;

1.) Use a USB drive.

2.) Somewhat more esoteric, PXE boot and run from an NFS image."
[/Quote]

You are right, people love SD Cards, not for their limitations, but
for their great convenience. A tiny SD Card can hold gigabytes of
files and it fits neatly in the the Raspberry Pi itself. No need  of
combersome USB external drives dangling around, and more importantly,
no need of extra expenses. Remember, money makes a lot of sense to
many people, and I dare say, a lot of people do not have much to
spare.

Quote from Simon Hobson:
Ah yes, to think that many of us routinely carry around in our pockets
more storage, RAM, and CPU capacity than we could have dreamed of
having access to back when I got into IT. Cue obligatory Four
Yorkshiremen sketch :D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKHFZBUTA4k
[/Quote]

In the old days people used to die from bacterial infections often
after a long painful illness. Today, thanks to great people working in
medicine, we have no idea of these terrible experiences. Progress is
nice when done properly.
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