Monday, January 21, 2013

EON ZFS Storage Appliance updates & fixes

Here it is, a refinement update and process that allows for quick fixes, patch delivery to your EON ZFS Storage Appliance. Version 1.0 introduced some portable/temporary bits (slinky) because of external dependencies like Perl, size considerations and network packaging. Based on feedback from EON Storage users, these added slinky steps were at times confusing and troublesome. This update (details here) moves to eliminate the extra steps, moves closer to eliminate dependency on external bits(setup will no longer depend on Perl) and provides numerous refinement fixes for installation, setup, upgrading. Keep the feedback and ideas coming. There's more to come, storing the exciting year ahead!

17 comments:

jdef said...

I run version 0.60 and I don't have slinky. However, the new updates page includes some slinky commands as part of installing rail.

Did I miss something obvious?

Andre Lue said...

Hi James,

Slinky is part of the temporary/portable binary bits(/mnt/eon0/bin), that was added in version 1.0. It was introduced for a few reasons (mainly)
-Perl was moved to the binary kit but other bits within opensolaris/setup still had dependency
-emp was added to simplify command line start/stop/status for many services.
-rail was added to install binkit/fixes/patches from the internet.

This is compatible with EON version 0.60 but the update-slinky.eon package would have to be retrieved manually if the binary kit/wget is not available. Then you would just need (assuming slinky package in /tmp):
mkdir -p /mnt/eon0/bin
cd /mnt/eon0/bin
gzip -dc /tmp/update-slinky.eon | tar -xf -

Sigilscythe said...

My current version of EON is:
SunOS nas 5.11 snv_130 i86pc i386 i86pc

What's the upgrade path, to do this? Can I just go directly to eon-1.0b-151-32-smb? I have transporter.sh, but not slinky.

I'd really appreciate a straightforward list of what (commands) I'd need to get to current. (I've resisted making changes to the system, as it's been so stable, I don't want to break anything.)

Andre Lue said...

Hi Sigilscythe,

Note these are steps to update fixes/patches etc, NOT a version upgrade!

You are running version 0.6.
transporter.sh is the tool to use for a version upgrade.

-You should read the 1.0 release post for version upgrade.
-Note: You can install version 1.0 on a new USB so that you can fall back to your previous 0.6 version if you run into trouble.

Hope this helps.

Sigilscythe said...

Thanks for the quick response...

I'm absolutely utterly confused by all the different versions, and I'm wanting to do the simplest thing so I can be 'current'. (And maybe fix a weird problem for the last two years, where EON hangs when a laptop running Windows 7 copies files off it (ssh not accessible; box dead...).

Like I said, I'm just totally confused; can I simply download an .iso and run transporter.sh (based on the examples given on "A new and simpler way to upgrade EON ZFS storage") with the version I have, so that I'll be able to run these updates and fixes?

Andre Lue said...

Hi Sigilscythe,

Here's what I recommend.

-Make a backup of /etc/hostid from your current version 0.6.
-Install version 1.0 on a new USB key.
-Run setup and after, cp the preserved hostid in step 1 back to /etc/hostid (reminder, this is new key)
-Boot new key and pool should automount.
-Now follow updates in this post to onboard most current fixes.

This way if there is an issue, you still have your current 0.6 version untouched. And you can repeat the steps above until you get it right.

Sigilscythe said...

Thanks again for the responses. I'm going to wait until I can back up the data on it, and then wing it: This is a headless system (so I access it via SSH), and all I know about Solaris I cut and paste off the EON page when I installed, so I'm not even sure how to mount a USB drive on it, and I don't have the time right now to properly learn.

EON's been awesome for me, and I really appreciate what you've done, putting it together. I'll back up my hostid like you said, and hope for the best (sftp'ing the .iso over and trying with transporter, and if it all fails, then tearing the system open, putting in a video card, setting to boot off USB, and reinstalling.) Thanks again Andre!

Andre Lue said...

Hi Sigilscythe,

Do the command(below) once before you insert the new key so you can tell me which is the current USB key.
echo | format -e

When you get the 2nd USB key and are ready, repeat the command with both keys plugged in.
echo | format -e

Email the output, I will send back the commands needed (indicate which device is the current install).

linux said...

Install Skype on Centos 6.3

http://vrditservices.com/install-skype-on-centos-6-3/

Unknown said...

Great work Andre!!
Is auto-snapshot still supported in 1.0b?

Elon

Andre Lue said...

Hi Elon,

Yes, however the way it's done has changed. You have to script or schedule on your own as the new snapshot script is changed to be python based and has not yet been adopted/integrated, mainly because of the external python dependency.

Patrick R. said...

Andre, Thanks for all the hard work. I bough t new drives and am putting Eon on my SS4200 from scratch, 1.0b. booted up another machine with eon-1.0b-cifs-64 and install.sh to a usb drive.

I setup my zpool (data) and made the change to .exec. I started running the slinky commands in /mnt/eon0/bin to get wget and md5, etc so that I could install the binary kit.
All the commands I ran returned without error and without doing any thing, instantly. The directions don't show any output until the rails install binkit line, which yielded no output, no error. I know for sure the wget commands up to that didn't even attempt to download anything, but again no error, no time lapse. What am I doing wrong?
Thanks!

Patrick R. said...

Pardon my ignorance. I knew my internet was working but never checked dns. The slinky commands were working fine, but wget was failing without error.

Added some lines to /etc/resolv.conf, and change the "hosts: files dns" line in /etc/nsswitch.conf and I am good to go.

Thanks!

Unknown said...

Andre, I have a strange case of my file-system missing under /mnt. There are no files or directories found. How can this be restored?

Andre Lue said...

Hi Elon,

Sounds like your USB key needs a manual filesystem check.
# run format -e to identify the USB device (eg cXtXdXs0)

# then run
fsck -y /dev/rdsk/cXtXdXs0

Unknown said...

Hi Andre

Does this version support monitoring by snmp. If so, where can I find a guide for its installation and configuration?

Manojav said...

Andre,

There haven't been many updates in a while. do you still plan to keep this distro going?