Re: [GTALUG] Which Distro is Best for Running a ZFS-on-Linux Fileserver.

[Scott Sullivan via talk]

On 2018-08-31 05:15 PM, David Mason wrote:
OK, so I have an 8TB Seagate USB disk and have created a zpool on it 
called backup1. My main pool is called tank. I tried:


: ~ ; sudo zfs snapshot -r tank@2018-08-31
: ~ ; sudo zfs list
NAME            USED  AVAIL  REFER  MOUNTPOINT
backup1         508K  7.14T   136K  /backup1
tank           1.66T   916G   412K  /tank
tank/audio     12.1G   916G  12.1G  /audio
tank/cvs       32.7M   916G  32.7M  /tank/cvs
tank/etc       18.1M   916G  18.1M  /tank/etc
tank/home       531G   916G   531G  /home

: ~ ; sudo zfs list -t snapshot
NAME                        USED  AVAIL  REFER  MOUNTPOINT
tank@2018-08-31                0      -   412K  -
tank/audio@2018-08-31          0      -  12.1G  -
tank/cvs@2018-08-31            0      -  32.7M  -
tank/etc@2018-08-31            0      -  18.1M  -
tank/home@2018-08-31           0      -   531G  -
and now I try (after some research):

: ~ ; sudo zfs send -R tank@2018-08-31 | sudo zfs recv -vd backup1
cannot receive new filesystem stream: destination 'backup1' exists
must specify -F to overwrite it
warning: cannot send 'tank@2018-08-31': Broken pipe


Any quick help?

Thanks  ../Dave


That's expected Dave.

Because backup1 is a new filesystem, it is inherently not a decedent of 
of your source zfs data set and is so a name collision. So -F to force 
is perfectly reasonable to remove the empty dataset and replicate your 
source into the pool.


In following backups, you'd use the last common snapshot and most recent 
snapshot as arguments to 'zfs send -I'.


An example from my own shell history:
zfs send -I 
jarvis-charlie/backups/failfast.revident.ca@20180325_224731-0400 
jarvis-charlie/backups/failfast.revident.ca@20180401_121435-0400 | ssh 
r...@example.someplace.revident.ca "zfs receive -d jarvis-dr"



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Re: [GTALUG] Which Distro is Best for Running a ZFS-on-Linux Fileserver.

[David Mason via talk]

OK, so I have an 8TB Seagate USB disk and have created a zpool on it called
backup1. My main pool is called tank. I tried:

: ~ ; sudo zfs snapshot -r tank@2018-08-31

: ~ ; sudo zfs list

NAMEUSED  AVAIL  REFER  MOUNTPOINT

backup1 508K  7.14T   136K  /backup1

tank   1.66T   916G   412K  /tank

tank/audio 12.1G   916G  12.1G  /audio

tank/cvs   32.7M   916G  32.7M  /tank/cvs

tank/etc   18.1M   916G  18.1M  /tank/etc

tank/home   531G   916G   531G  /home

: ~ ; sudo zfs list -t snapshot

NAMEUSED  AVAIL  REFER  MOUNTPOINT

tank@2018-08-310  -   412K  -

tank/audio@2018-08-31  0  -  12.1G  -

tank/cvs@2018-08-310  -  32.7M  -

tank/etc@2018-08-310  -  18.1M  -

tank/home@2018-08-31   0  -   531G  -
and now I try (after some research):

: ~ ; sudo zfs send -R tank@2018-08-31 | sudo zfs recv -vd backup1

cannot receive new filesystem stream: destination 'backup1' exists

must specify -F to overwrite it

warning: cannot send 'tank@2018-08-31': Broken pipe

Any quick help?

Thanks  ../Dave

On Tue, 28 Aug 2018 at 17:33, Scott Sullivan via talk 
wrote:

> On 2018-08-27 09:24 AM, Giles Orr via talk wrote:
> > On Sat, 25 Aug 2018 at 14:21, David Mason via talk  > > wrote:
> > This system is <5 years old, and at the time was kind-of leading
> > edge. so I’m not worried about that.
> > It’s a 4.4Tb raidz2 at 64% and has performed flawlessly.
> > Unfortunately I don’t really have the time to do any serious digging
> > right now, either.
> >
> > How do others backup their ZFS systems? Getting a 4T external drive
> > doesn’t seem like the best plan, but maybe there isn’t any other
> choice.
>
> In my case I built a secondary NAS and disk array, and do regular 'zfs
> snapshots' and 'zfs sends'. In recent history I've started using
> zfs-snap-manager to automate that.
>
> https://github.com/khenderick/zfs-snap-manager
>
> It's a rather coarse tool... doesn't support automate snapshots more
> frequent then once a day, but will happily send over any you've made
> manually (via a cron job or alternative method).
>
> Currently the developer has only packaged it for Arch. But I've built an
> rpm spec file for it. Attached.
>
> > Actually, that sounds like a really good plan.  In fact, buy two so you
> > can do rotating backups.  Think about your alternatives - about the only
> > one that occurs to me is a tape drive.  There used to be consumer-grade
> > tape backups, but they don't exist anymore and I'd argue this is no
> > longer a viable solution outside the data centre.
> >
> > Buying external hard drives is a really good idea: they're dirt cheap
> > (at least compared to the alternative - failure of your primary).
>
> I agree with Giles. If you don't want to drop the coin on a second NAS,
> this is a very usable strategy. Get a 6 or even 8TB disk, format it as a
> ZFS pool and turn on zfs's block compression, and set copies to '2'.
>
> zfs set compression=lz4 
> zfs set copies=2 
>
> Setting a number of copies, is normally not useful for a multi-disk
> array, as the copies can end up on the same disk. But on a single disk,
> they are an insurance policy against bad sectors.
>
> Then you just zfs send your snapshots to it. I regularly use this as a
> local backup strategy with my work laptops.
>
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Re: [GTALUG] Which Distro is Best for Running a ZFS-on-Linux Fileserver.

[David Mason via talk]

If you’re building 4TB, I’t recommend raidz2 which doesn’t give you much 
storage (4 x 1TB disks would give you <2TB of user storage). I have 5 x 1TB 
raidz2 which gives me 2.82TB of user storage. This may have changed, but when I 
went to ZFS you couldn’t add more disks and change the structure, you could 
only enlarge the disks - so if you went for a 5-disk raidz2, you were stuck 
with a 5-disk raidz2. I really hope this has changed, but I haven’t researched 
it.

The reason to go with raidz2 as the pool gets larger is that with raidz if a 
disk dies, while it rebuilds on the replacement disk, you have no redundancy, 
so any error on one of the other disks will be replicated.

So I’d recommend you get an additional SATA card, and then you don’t need to do 
ZFS on /, and you could add another drive to get better cost-effectiveness from 
your ZFS. I have / on a moderate-sized SSD and 5 hard drives in a ZFS pool.

One reason to use not-whole-disks for ZFS is that you can migrate to larger 
disks as time goes on.  I started out with 500GB (if I remember correctly) and 
was able to move to 1TB and copy the partitions.

Scott knows much more about this than I, but it may (now) be that (with a 
raidz2) you can enlarge by simply removing a xGB disk and replacing it with a 
2xGB drive, let it rebuild, then replace the next one. The problem with that is 
you are replacing the disks, so it’s not very incremental. So if you can 
enlarge by adding an additional drive, that is substantially better.

../Dave
On Aug 30, 2018, 9:34 AM -0400, Scott Sullivan via talk , 
wrote:
> On 2018-08-29 11:43 PM, Amos H. Weatherill wrote:
> > Scott,
> >
> > My reasoning for / on ZFS is pretty Simple ... the machine that is
> > becoming my first NAS only has 4 SATA Ports, so I can't afford to Waste
> > one on a boot drive.
>
> Recommended best Practice is to use ZFS with whole disks. That said,
> most of the arguments for that are 'because the manual says so',
> 'because zfs datasets are far more flexible then partitions' and
> references to Solairs taking advantage of disk caches. I throw that all
> out the windows in favor of doing at rest encryption, with whole luks
> partitions(*).
>
> My more practical argument is choice of MBR vs GUID partitioning. The
> latter is just cleaner (and the default when ZFS manages the disk), and
> works well with large disks (>2TB).
>
> But if your booting from that disk, you either need to be:
> "BIOS / CSM" + MBR + /boot
> or
> UEFI + GUID + "biosboot (partition)" + /boot
>
> Either of those makes for some lopsided partitioning, compared to the
> remainder of your data disks. A work around is to use a USB drive for
> your /boot. But in general your creating a more complex setup to
> maintain either way.
>
> Not knowing what hardware your using, if you have PCIe slots additional
> sata ports can be had for a low a $10/port.
>
> I've been using the Syba / IOCrest cards for a variety of needs,
> including ZFS arrays without issue.
>
> https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816124064
>
> > For Distro, I think I'll go with Fedora, as long as the / on ZFS guide
> > is sufficiently detailed.
>
> Fedora was not one of the ones I listed as having a guide to do rootfs
> on ZFS. If you found one, can you post the link?
>
> I'd also not recommend fedora in general for a NAS. CentOS would be a
> more dependable choice. LTS Ubuntu would be more reasonable as they
> ship(**) ZFS and support rootfs on it.
>
>
> ===
> * Native encryption in ZFS was added after the OpenZFS split from
> Sun/Oracle. So work to re-added it has been happening for a while. We're
> likely to see a stable version in the v0.8.x series.
>
> ** This is due to their adoption of a minority legal opinion about
> compatibility of the CDDL and GPL licenses that has not been tested in
> court.
> https://blog.ubuntu.com/2016/02/18/zfs-licensing-and-linux
> https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2016/feb/25/zfs-and-linux/
>
> --
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> ---
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Re: [GTALUG] Which Distro is Best for Running a ZFS-on-Linux Fileserver.

[Scott Sullivan via talk]

On 2018-08-29 11:43 PM, Amos H. Weatherill wrote:

Scott,

My reasoning for / on ZFS is pretty Simple ... the machine that is 
becoming my first NAS only has 4 SATA Ports, so I can't afford to Waste 
one on a boot drive.


Recommended best Practice is to use ZFS with whole disks. That said, 
most of the arguments for that are 'because the manual says so', 
'because zfs datasets are far more flexible then partitions' and 
references to Solairs taking advantage of disk caches. I throw that all 
out the windows in favor of doing at rest encryption, with whole luks 
partitions(*).


My more practical argument is choice of MBR vs GUID partitioning. The 
latter is just cleaner (and the default when ZFS manages the disk), and 
works well with large disks (>2TB).


But if your booting from that disk, you either need to be:
"BIOS / CSM" + MBR + /boot
or
UEFI + GUID + "biosboot (partition)" + /boot

Either of those makes for some lopsided partitioning, compared to the 
remainder of your data disks. A work around is to use a USB drive for 
your /boot. But in general your creating a more complex setup to 
maintain either way.


Not knowing what hardware your using, if you have PCIe slots additional 
sata ports can be had for a low a $10/port.


I've been using the Syba / IOCrest cards for a variety of needs, 
including ZFS arrays without issue.


https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816124064

For Distro, I think I'll go with Fedora, as long as the / on ZFS guide 
is sufficiently detailed.


Fedora was not one of the ones I listed as having a guide to do rootfs 
on ZFS. If you found one, can you post the link?


I'd also not recommend fedora in general for a NAS. CentOS would be a 
more dependable choice. LTS Ubuntu would be more reasonable as they 
ship(**) ZFS and support rootfs on it.



===
* Native encryption in ZFS was added after the OpenZFS split from 
Sun/Oracle. So work to re-added it has been happening for a while. We're 
likely to see a stable version in the v0.8.x series.


** This is due to their adoption of a minority legal opinion about 
compatibility of the CDDL and GPL licenses that has not been tested in 
court.

https://blog.ubuntu.com/2016/02/18/zfs-licensing-and-linux
https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2016/feb/25/zfs-and-linux/

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Re: [GTALUG] Which Distro is Best for Running a ZFS-on-Linux Fileserver.

[Amos H. Weatherill via talk]

Hello All,

Thank you for your Feedback and Discussion.

FreeBSD is a good suggestion but I don't want to wander away from what I know 
and as Scott pointed out, this is a Linux User Group ...

Also, once I get More RAM, I will want to Consolidate Services running on other 
machines on to the NAS.

Currently, I have 8 GB of RAM, which my reading says should be enough to 
support a 4 TB ZFS Pool and the Necessary Samba configuration.

At the moment, my Network copy speed appears to be limited to about 25 MB/s but 
I suspect that this is because my Shares are on a Windows Machine with a PCI 
SATA Card.

So, if the NAS can do better, I'll declare Victory ...

Scott,

My reasoning for / on ZFS is pretty Simple ... the machine that is becoming my 
first NAS only has 4 SATA Ports, so I can't afford to Waste one on a boot drive.

For Distro, I think I'll go with Fedora, as long as the / on ZFS guide is 
sufficiently detailed.

Thank You All,
Amos

Sent from my android device.

-Original Message-
From: Scott Sullivan via talk 
To: talk@gtalug.org
Sent: Tue, 28 Aug 2018 5:19 PM
Subject: Re: [GTALUG] Which Distro is Best for Running a ZFS-on-Linux 
Fileserver.

Having read through the thread to date, I'm actually a little 
disappointed at the number of linux users pushing towards a Solaris or 
BSD for ZFS.

My primary File servers (4 of them) are all using ZFS for their data 
partitions.


Amos,

## Couple of Answers to your questions

A) Disto?

I regularly run ZFS on CentOS and Fedora on a mix of SSDs and HDDs of 
both the internal and external varieties. Fedora has some caveats, only 
in that sometimes the kernel releases get ahead of what the ZFS on linux 
team will support. And it's just a matter of waiting on a working kernel 
zfs combination a week or two for them to catch up.

But frankly, just pick your favorite distro and follow the relevant 
getting started guide.

https://zfsonlinux.org/


B)  Distro with ZFS root support (at install time)?

No distro install supports this yet as I've seen. Although the do it 
yourself ubuntu guide is lengthy, but very well detailed.

https://github.com/zfsonlinux/zfs/wiki/Ubuntu-18.04-Root-on-ZFS

Arch also support ZFS root, but their installation is all largely manual 
to begin with.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installing_Arch_Linux_on_ZFS


## Couple of my own Questions

1) Why root (/) on ZFS, what is your use case / risk your trying to 
mitigate?


On 2018-08-24 02:26 PM, right.maple.nut via talk wrote:
> 
> Hello All,
> 
> Like the Subject Line says, I'm setting up a ZFS File Server for my Home 
> Network.
> 
> Given that I will have to go to the trouble of setting up the Distro and 
> Migrating the Linux Install to ZFS Root, I don't want to have to do this 
> too many times.
> 
> So, which Distro are the favourite for Running ZFS-on-Linux?
> 
> Also, is there such a thing as a Linux Distro that is smart enough to 
> give you a choice if you are willing to use non-GPL'ed code in the 
> Installer, so that I can just Install Directly on a ZFS Pool?
> 
> Thank You in Advance for your Input.
> 
> Regards,
> Amos
> 
> 
> 
> ---
> Talk Mailing List
> talk@gtalug.org
> https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
> 


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Re: [GTALUG] Which Distro is Best for Running a ZFS-on-Linux Fileserver.

[David Mason via talk]

I haven’t done a comparison lately, but used LVM for years, and liked it, but 
ZFS is so much more flexible: resize filesystems, snapshots, raidz2, sending to 
another ZFS system (for seamless backups and redundancy), auto-silvering, 
plug-and-play.

../Dave
On Aug 28, 2018, 9:18 PM -0400, Alvin Starr via talk , wrote:
> At the risk of poking the bear.
>
> Why use ZFS at all?
>
> ext4,XFS+LVM will do most all of the same things and from what I have
> read ZFS is slower than ext4,XFS and BTRFS.
>
>
> On 08/28/2018 05:18 PM, Scott Sullivan via talk wrote:
> > Having read through the thread to date, I'm actually a little
> > disappointed at the number of linux users pushing towards a Solaris or
> > BSD for ZFS.
> >
> > My primary File servers (4 of them) are all using ZFS for their data
> > partitions.
> >
> >
> > Amos,
> >
> > ## Couple of Answers to your questions
> >
> > A) Disto?
> >
> > I regularly run ZFS on CentOS and Fedora on a mix of SSDs and HDDs of
> > both the internal and external varieties. Fedora has some caveats,
> > only in that sometimes the kernel releases get ahead of what the ZFS
> > on linux team will support. And it's just a matter of waiting on a
> > working kernel zfs combination a week or two for them to catch up.
> >
> > But frankly, just pick your favorite distro and follow the relevant
> > getting started guide.
> >
> > https://zfsonlinux.org/
> >
> >
> > B)  Distro with ZFS root support (at install time)?
> >
> > No distro install supports this yet as I've seen. Although the do it
> > yourself ubuntu guide is lengthy, but very well detailed.
> >
> > https://github.com/zfsonlinux/zfs/wiki/Ubuntu-18.04-Root-on-ZFS
> >
> > Arch also support ZFS root, but their installation is all largely
> > manual to begin with.
> >
> > https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installing_Arch_Linux_on_ZFS
> >
> >
> > ## Couple of my own Questions
> >
> > 1) Why root (/) on ZFS, what is your use case / risk your trying to
> > mitigate?
> >
> >
> > On 2018-08-24 02:26 PM, right.maple.nut via talk wrote:
> > >
> > > Hello All,
> > >
> > > Like the Subject Line says, I'm setting up a ZFS File Server for my
> > > Home Network.
> > >
> > > Given that I will have to go to the trouble of setting up the Distro
> > > and Migrating the Linux Install to ZFS Root, I don't want to have to
> > > do this too many times.
> > >
> > > So, which Distro are the favourite for Running ZFS-on-Linux?
> > >
> > > Also, is there such a thing as a Linux Distro that is smart enough to
> > > give you a choice if you are willing to use non-GPL'ed code in the
> > > Installer, so that I can just Install Directly on a ZFS Pool?
> > >
> > > Thank You in Advance for your Input.
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > > Amos
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > ---
> > > Talk Mailing List
> > > talk@gtalug.org
> > > https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
> > >
> >
> >
>
> --
> Alvin Starr || land: (905)513-7688
> Netvel Inc. || Cell: (416)806-0133
> al...@netvel.net ||
>
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Re: [GTALUG] Which Distro is Best for Running a ZFS-on-Linux Fileserver.

[Alvin Starr via talk]

At the risk of poking the bear.

Why use ZFS at all?

ext4,XFS+LVM will do most all of the same things and from what I have 
read ZFS is slower than ext4,XFS and BTRFS.



On 08/28/2018 05:18 PM, Scott Sullivan via talk wrote:
Having read through the thread to date, I'm actually a little 
disappointed at the number of linux users pushing towards a Solaris or 
BSD for ZFS.


My primary File servers (4 of them) are all using ZFS for their data 
partitions.



Amos,

## Couple of Answers to your questions

A) Disto?

I regularly run ZFS on CentOS and Fedora on a mix of SSDs and HDDs of 
both the internal and external varieties. Fedora has some caveats, 
only in that sometimes the kernel releases get ahead of what the ZFS 
on linux team will support. And it's just a matter of waiting on a 
working kernel zfs combination a week or two for them to catch up.


But frankly, just pick your favorite distro and follow the relevant 
getting started guide.


https://zfsonlinux.org/


B)  Distro with ZFS root support (at install time)?

No distro install supports this yet as I've seen. Although the do it 
yourself ubuntu guide is lengthy, but very well detailed.


https://github.com/zfsonlinux/zfs/wiki/Ubuntu-18.04-Root-on-ZFS

Arch also support ZFS root, but their installation is all largely 
manual to begin with.


https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installing_Arch_Linux_on_ZFS


## Couple of my own Questions

1) Why root (/) on ZFS, what is your use case / risk your trying to 
mitigate?



On 2018-08-24 02:26 PM, right.maple.nut via talk wrote:


Hello All,

Like the Subject Line says, I'm setting up a ZFS File Server for my 
Home Network.


Given that I will have to go to the trouble of setting up the Distro 
and Migrating the Linux Install to ZFS Root, I don't want to have to 
do this too many times.


So, which Distro are the favourite for Running ZFS-on-Linux?

Also, is there such a thing as a Linux Distro that is smart enough to 
give you a choice if you are willing to use non-GPL'ed code in the 
Installer, so that I can just Install Directly on a ZFS Pool?


Thank You in Advance for your Input.

Regards,
Amos



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Netvel Inc.   ||   Cell:  (416)806-0133
al...@netvel.net  ||

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Re: [GTALUG] Which Distro is Best for Running a ZFS-on-Linux Fileserver.

[Scott Sullivan via talk]

Having read through the thread to date, I'm actually a little 
disappointed at the number of linux users pushing towards a Solaris or 
BSD for ZFS.


My primary File servers (4 of them) are all using ZFS for their data 
partitions.



Amos,

## Couple of Answers to your questions

A) Disto?

I regularly run ZFS on CentOS and Fedora on a mix of SSDs and HDDs of 
both the internal and external varieties. Fedora has some caveats, only 
in that sometimes the kernel releases get ahead of what the ZFS on linux 
team will support. And it's just a matter of waiting on a working kernel 
zfs combination a week or two for them to catch up.


But frankly, just pick your favorite distro and follow the relevant 
getting started guide.


https://zfsonlinux.org/


B)  Distro with ZFS root support (at install time)?

No distro install supports this yet as I've seen. Although the do it 
yourself ubuntu guide is lengthy, but very well detailed.


https://github.com/zfsonlinux/zfs/wiki/Ubuntu-18.04-Root-on-ZFS

Arch also support ZFS root, but their installation is all largely manual 
to begin with.


https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installing_Arch_Linux_on_ZFS


## Couple of my own Questions

1) Why root (/) on ZFS, what is your use case / risk your trying to 
mitigate?



On 2018-08-24 02:26 PM, right.maple.nut via talk wrote:


Hello All,

Like the Subject Line says, I'm setting up a ZFS File Server for my Home 
Network.


Given that I will have to go to the trouble of setting up the Distro and 
Migrating the Linux Install to ZFS Root, I don't want to have to do this 
too many times.


So, which Distro are the favourite for Running ZFS-on-Linux?

Also, is there such a thing as a Linux Distro that is smart enough to 
give you a choice if you are willing to use non-GPL'ed code in the 
Installer, so that I can just Install Directly on a ZFS Pool?


Thank You in Advance for your Input.

Regards,
Amos



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Re: [GTALUG] Which Distro is Best for Running a ZFS-on-Linux Fileserver.

[Giles Orr via talk]

On Sat, 25 Aug 2018 at 14:21, David Mason via talk  wrote:

> On Aug 25, 2018, 6:21 AM -0400, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk <
> talk@gtalug.org>, wrote:
>
> | From: David Mason via talk 
>
> | I am interested in this question too. I currently am running on Debian
> | 7.7 but I’m not sure I can upgrade to a more current version, which is
> | frustrating because I want to install Java (to run a Minecraft server)
> | and (when I tried, so while back) I couldn’t get it to install because I
> | had such an old version of Debian.
>
> Back in 2017 March 12 you mentioned a problem "Updating Wheezy to Jessie".
> Did you try Stewart's and Lennart's suggestions?
>
>
> I put a little time into it, but didn’t get to success. Unfortunately,
> life intervened. It’s still important, but as you say, as you fall behind,
> it becomes more difficult to leap-frog into the present.
>
> This is exactly the kind of problem that a debian local users group might
> address. Recently I suggested that GTALUG could function as a debian LUG.
> I guess that here we have a test of this idea.
>
>
> I think it already does. What did you have in mind beyond the mailing list?
>
> Even for the debian upgrade attempt it might be good to have a backup.
>
>
> Yes, I know. :-)
>
> After enough time, the old hardware becomes obsolete too and it makes
> total system rebuild more sensible than update. In my most recent
> example, I jumped about 15 years ahead in hardware.
>
>
> This system is <5 years old, and at the time was kind-of leading edge. so
> I’m not worried about that.
> It’s a 4.4Tb raidz2 at 64% and has performed flawlessly. Unfortunately I
> don’t really have the time to do any serious digging right now, either.
>
> How do others backup their ZFS systems? Getting a 4T external drive
> doesn’t seem like the best plan, but maybe there isn’t any other choice.
>

Actually, that sounds like a really good plan.  In fact, buy two so you can
do rotating backups.  Think about your alternatives - about the only one
that occurs to me is a tape drive.  There used to be consumer-grade tape
backups, but they don't exist anymore and I'd argue this is no longer a
viable solution outside the data centre.

Buying external hard drives is a really good idea: they're dirt cheap (at
least compared to the alternative - failure of your primary).  The first
backup will take a day or so, but after that you use rsync (and/or
rsnapshot or similar) and the backups are likely to run 30 minutes to 2
hours depending on the thrash on your drive.  If you're going to use
something that does differential backups, make sure the backup drive is
larger than the source drive (rather than the default - we all assume "the
same size" is okay).

I use 2.5" spinning external 4TB drives as backups, one of which stays at
my parent's place and gets exchanged approximately weekly.  This may not be
the right answer for you, but you seem to think the data on that big
machine of yours is important: stop and think about how things would be if
it failed.  And then work out a backup system.

-- 
Giles
https://www.gilesorr.com/
giles...@gmail.com
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Re: [GTALUG] Which Distro is Best for Running a ZFS-on-Linux Fileserver.

[D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk]

| From: David Mason via talk 

| On Aug 25, 2018, 6:21 AM -0400, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk 
, wrote:

| > | From: David Mason via talk 

| > This is exactly the kind of problem that a debian local users group might
| > address. Recently I suggested that GTALUG could function as a debian LUG.
| > I guess that here we have a test of this idea.
| 
| I think it already does. What did you have in mind beyond the mailing list?

You asked a year ago, got replies, hit problems, but didn't post them
to the list.  Maybe you didn't expect the list to be of more help.
This isn't an accusation, only an observation.

| It’s a 4.4Tb raidz2 at 64% and has performed flawlessly. Unfortunately I 
| don’t really have the time to do any serious digging right now, either.

I understand all too well.

| How do others backup their ZFS systems? Getting a 4T external drive 
| doesn’t seem like the best plan, but maybe there isn’t any other choice.

I'm not a ZFS user, but I'll throw out a guess:

- take a snapshot (that may be the wrong terminology)

- use a dump(8) command that matches zfs.---
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Re: [GTALUG] Which Distro is Best for Running a ZFS-on-Linux Fileserver.

[Jose A. Dias via talk]

Something like this:
 
https://www.canadacomputers.com/search/product.php?cPath=14_679 

 _id=069771
 
External USB, preferable 3.0 over 2, or eSata if you have the port. If you 
doint' need two drive capacity then pick a single. Add the current the drive 
you need and let it copy. I tend to use ext4 for externals so to minimize 
complexity on attaching to other systems, but YMMV.


[Jose A. Dias]  -Original Message-
From: talk [mailto:talk-boun...@gtalug.org]On Behalf Of David Mason via talk
Sent: Saturday, August 25, 2018 10:21 AM
To: GTALUG Talk
Subject: Re: [GTALUG] Which Distro is Best for Running a ZFS-on-Linux 
Fileserver.


On Aug 25, 2018, 6:21 AM -0400, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk , 
wrote:


| From: David Mason via talk 

| I am interested in this question too. I currently am running on Debian
| 7.7 but I’m not sure I can upgrade to a more current version, which is
| frustrating because I want to install Java (to run a Minecraft server)
| and (when I tried, so while back) I couldn’t get it to install because I
| had such an old version of Debian.

Back in 2017 March 12 you mentioned a problem "Updating Wheezy to Jessie".
Did you try Stewart's and Lennart's suggestions? 



I put a little time into it, but didn’t get to success. Unfortunately, life 
intervened. It’s still important, but as you say, as you fall behind, it 
becomes more difficult to leap-frog into the present.


This is exactly the kind of problem that a debian local users group might
address. Recently I suggested that GTALUG could function as a debian LUG.
I guess that here we have a test of this idea. 



I think it already does. What did you have in mind beyond the mailing list?


Even for the debian upgrade attempt it might be good to have a backup. 



Yes, I know. :-)


After enough time, the old hardware becomes obsolete too and it makes
total system rebuild more sensible than update. In my most recent
example, I jumped about 15 years ahead in hardware. 



This system is <5 years old, and at the time was kind-of leading edge. so I’m 
not worried about that.
It’s a 4.4Tb raidz2 at 64% and has performed flawlessly. Unfortunately I don’t 
really have the time to do any serious digging right now, either.

How do others backup their ZFS systems? Getting a 4T external drive doesn’t 
seem like the best plan, but maybe there isn’t any other choice.

../Dave

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Re: [GTALUG] Which Distro is Best for Running a ZFS-on-Linux Fileserver.

[David Mason via talk]

On Aug 25, 2018, 6:21 AM -0400, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk , 
wrote:
> | From: David Mason via talk 
>
> | I am interested in this question too. I currently am running on Debian
> | 7.7 but I’m not sure I can upgrade to a more current version, which is
> | frustrating because I want to install Java (to run a Minecraft server)
> | and (when I tried, so while back) I couldn’t get it to install because I
> | had such an old version of Debian.
>
> Back in 2017 March 12 you mentioned a problem "Updating Wheezy to Jessie".
> Did you try Stewart's and Lennart's suggestions?

I put a little time into it, but didn’t get to success. Unfortunately, life 
intervened. It’s still important, but as you say, as you fall behind, it 
becomes more difficult to leap-frog into the present.

> This is exactly the kind of problem that a debian local users group might
> address. Recently I suggested that GTALUG could function as a debian LUG.
> I guess that here we have a test of this idea.

I think it already does. What did you have in mind beyond the mailing list?

> Even for the debian upgrade attempt it might be good to have a backup.

Yes, I know. :-)

> After enough time, the old hardware becomes obsolete too and it makes
> total system rebuild more sensible than update. In my most recent
> example, I jumped about 15 years ahead in hardware.

This system is <5 years old, and at the time was kind-of leading edge. so I’m 
not worried about that.
It’s a 4.4Tb raidz2 at 64% and has performed flawlessly. Unfortunately I don’t 
really have the time to do any serious digging right now, either.

How do others backup their ZFS systems? Getting a 4T external drive doesn’t 
seem like the best plan, but maybe there isn’t any other choice.

../Dave
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Re: [GTALUG] Which Distro is Best for Running a ZFS-on-Linux Fileserver.

[D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk]

| From: David Mason via talk 

| I am interested in this question too.  I currently am running on Debian 
| 7.7 but I’m not sure I can upgrade to a more current version, which is 
| frustrating because I want to install Java (to run a Minecraft server) 
| and (when I tried, so while back) I couldn’t get it to install because I 
| had such an old version of Debian.

Back in 2017 March 12 you mentioned a problem "Updating Wheezy to Jessie".  
Did you try Stewart's and Lennart's suggestions?

This is exactly the kind of problem that a debian local users group might 
address.  Recently I suggested that GTALUG could function as a debian LUG.  
I guess that here we have a test of this idea.

| So I was thinking of FreeBSD, but OmniOS looks pretty interesting. I 
| won’t be doing any upgrade for several months (because as far as I can 
| see, I need to install a new ZFS system and copy it over. I can’t risk 
| loosing this system). It would be good to have a backup, anyway. I could 
| try this on a virtual system, but I don’t know long it would take to 
| back-up over the network.

Even for the debian upgrade attempt it might be good to have a backup.

If one falls behind on updates, there is a greater incentive to stand 
still and fall further behind.  A vicious circle.  I've had that happen.

After enough time, the old hardware becomes obsolete too and it makes
total system rebuild more sensible than update.  In my most recent
example, I jumped about 15 years ahead in hardware.---
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Re: [GTALUG] Which Distro is Best for Running a ZFS-on-Linux Fileserver.

[Alex Volkov via talk]

Hey Amos,

Why not FreeBSD?

This is one of the first projects to get ZFS ported, in my experience 
it's the closest thing to general-purpose linux distro in BSD land that 
you can get.


All the GNU tools are available for FreeBSD and shell commands aren't 
that arcane.


If you're only going to use the machine for hosting ZFS it might be 
worth it.


Alex.

On 2018-08-24 2:26 p.m., right.maple.nut via talk wrote:


Hello All,

Like the Subject Line says, I'm setting up a ZFS File Server for my 
Home Network.


Given that I will have to go to the trouble of setting up the Distro 
and Migrating the Linux Install to ZFS Root, I don't want to have to 
do this too many times.


So, which Distro are the favourite for Running ZFS-on-Linux?

Also, is there such a thing as a Linux Distro that is smart enough to 
give you a choice if you are willing to use non-GPL'ed code in the 
Installer, so that I can just Install Directly on a ZFS Pool?


Thank You in Advance for your Input.

Regards,
Amos


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Re: [GTALUG] Which Distro is Best for Running a ZFS-on-Linux Fileserver.

[David Collier-Brown via talk]

On 2018-08-24 3:43 p.m., Christopher Browne via talk wrote:


On Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 2:27 PM right.maple.nut via talk 
mailto:talk@gtalug.org>> wrote:



Hello All,

Like the Subject Line says, I'm setting up a ZFS File Server for
my Home Network.

Given that I will have to go to the trouble of setting up the
Distro and Migrating the Linux Install to ZFS Root, I don't want
to have to do this too many times.

So, which Distro are the favourite for Running ZFS-on-Linux?

Also, is there such a thing as a Linux Distro that is smart enough
to give you a choice if you are willing to use non-GPL'ed code in
the Installer, so that I can just Install Directly on a ZFS Pool?


I think that if I were certain I wanted a ZFS machine on my network, 
I'd look into one of the Illumos variants, most likely OmniOS. 
https://omniosce.org/


That is a fork of Solaris, which is where ZFS is really native.

All the other implementations of ZFS are ports, and likely a bit less 
satisfactory.


That obviously isn't Linux.  But it shouldn't be ridiculously unfamiliar.


I second Chris: most of the commands will be familiar, although 
sometimes the names will merely be reminiscent of one another: strace vs 
truss, for example.


I used to be in the porting business, and Solaris <-> Linux was dead easy.

--dave


--
David Collier-Brown, | Always do right. This will gratify
System Programmer and Author | some people and astonish the rest
dav...@spamcop.net   |  -- Mark Twain

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Re: [GTALUG] Which Distro is Best for Running a ZFS-on-Linux Fileserver.

[David Mason via talk]

I am interested in this question too.  I currently am running on Debian 7.7 but 
I’m not sure I can upgrade to a more current version, which is frustrating 
because I want to install Java (to run a Minecraft server) and (when I tried, 
so while back) I couldn’t get it to install because I had such an old version 
of Debian.

So I was thinking of FreeBSD, but OmniOS looks pretty interesting. I won’t be 
doing any upgrade for several months (because as far as I can see, I need to 
install a new ZFS system and copy it over. I can’t risk loosing this system). 
It would be good to have a backup, anyway. I could try this on a virtual 
system, but I don’t know long it would take to back-up over the network.

../Dave
On Aug 24, 2018, 3:51 PM -0400, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk , 
wrote:
> | From: right.maple.nut via talk 
>
> | Hello All, Like the Subject Line says, I'm setting up a ZFS File Server
> | for my Home Network. Given that I will have to go to the trouble of
> | setting up the Distro and Migrating the Linux Install to ZFS Root, I
> | don't want to have to do this too many times. So, which Distro are the
> | favourite for Running ZFS-on-Linux? Also, is there such a thing as a
> | Linux Distro that is smart enough to give you a choice if you are
> | willing to use non-GPL'ed code in the Installer, so that I can just
> | Install Directly on a ZFS Pool? Thank You in Advance for your Input.
> | Regards, Amos
>
> Why not run a *BSD?
>
> Or something Solaris-related? Open Indiana
>
> - They more naturally run ZFS.
>
> - there is no clash-of-licenses drama.
>
> - the code is probably more tested.
>
> - there are even out of the box fileserver distros based on *BSD.
>
> - TrueOS, FreeNAS?
>
> Is there something that you don't like about UNIX (as opposed to
> Linux) for a file server?
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Re: [GTALUG] Which Distro is Best for Running a ZFS-on-Linux Fileserver.

[D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk]

| From: right.maple.nut via talk 

| Hello All, Like the Subject Line says, I'm setting up a ZFS File Server 
| for my Home Network. Given that I will have to go to the trouble of 
| setting up the Distro and Migrating the Linux Install to ZFS Root, I 
| don't want to have to do this too many times. So, which Distro are the 
| favourite for Running ZFS-on-Linux? Also, is there such a thing as a 
| Linux Distro that is smart enough to give you a choice if you are 
| willing to use non-GPL'ed code in the Installer, so that I can just 
| Install Directly on a ZFS Pool? Thank You in Advance for your Input. 
| Regards, Amos

Why not run a *BSD?

Or something Solaris-related?  Open Indiana

- They more naturally run ZFS.

- there is no clash-of-licenses drama.

- the code is probably more tested.

- there are even out of the box fileserver distros based on *BSD.

- TrueOS, FreeNAS?

Is there something that you don't like about UNIX (as opposed to
Linux) for a file server?
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Re: [GTALUG] Which Distro is Best for Running a ZFS-on-Linux Fileserver.

[Christopher Browne via talk]

On Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 2:27 PM right.maple.nut via talk 
wrote:

>
> Hello All,
>
> Like the Subject Line says, I'm setting up a ZFS File Server for my Home
> Network.
>
> Given that I will have to go to the trouble of setting up the Distro and
> Migrating the Linux Install to ZFS Root, I don't want to have to do this
> too many times.
>
> So, which Distro are the favourite for Running ZFS-on-Linux?
>
> Also, is there such a thing as a Linux Distro that is smart enough to give
> you a choice if you are willing to use non-GPL'ed code in the Installer, so
> that I can just Install Directly on a ZFS Pool?
>

I think that if I were certain I wanted a ZFS machine on my network, I'd
look into one of the Illumos variants, most likely OmniOS.
https://omniosce.org/

That is a fork of Solaris, which is where ZFS is really native.

All the other implementations of ZFS are ports, and likely a bit less
satisfactory.

That obviously isn't Linux.  But it shouldn't be ridiculously unfamiliar.

>
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[GTALUG] Which Distro is Best for Running a ZFS-on-Linux Fileserver.

[right.maple.nut via talk]

Hello All, Like the Subject Line says, I'm setting up a ZFS File Server for my 
Home Network. Given that I will have to go to the trouble of setting up the 
Distro and Migrating the Linux Install to ZFS Root, I don't want to have to do 
this too many times. So, which Distro are the favourite for Running 
ZFS-on-Linux? Also, is there such a thing as a Linux Distro that is smart 
enough to give you a choice if you are willing to use non-GPL'ed code in the 
Installer, so that I can just Install Directly on a ZFS Pool? Thank You in 
Advance for your Input. Regards, Amos---
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